City Assigning "Rubber Room" Teachers to Clerical Work

After years of withering criticism, it seems Department of Education is finally doing something about their infamous "rubber room," where hundreds of teachers accused of misconduct can spend years getting paid to practice yoga, work on their novels, sleep, whatever. In April, the city and the United Federation of Teachers announced that rubber rooms would be closed, and now there are reports that the teachers are being forced to work. How is that even possible? One Bronx teacher explains:

"I'll be doing clerical work, which means they'll be paying me $100,049 to be making photocopies," says Hal Lanse, a Bronx teacher who's being bounced from the rubber room—which costs the city $30 million a year—to a district office in The Bronx. (Lanse tells the Post he was "accused of sexually harassing a colleague but claims the accusation was payback for exposing grade-tampering.") "The agreement's working," says UFT President Michael Mulgrew. "We've cut the number [of teachers in the rubber room] almost in half. Hopefully after we finish the backlog this will never be an issue again." Well, at least we'll always have Rubber Room the movie to remember the good times.

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By John Del Signore in News on September 9, 2010 3:17 PM

Comments [rss]

Stiff01

$109,049 . For paperwork . Wow !

exnyer

If I remember correctly in the 2001 campaign when he became a RINO Bloomy assured us it would be a priority to rid the Dept. of Education of waste and abuse. He may have showed them how to buy pencils and paper but this is a perfect example of Bloomys failure.

just saying

Actually, if you'd read Gothamist's story above, you'd know that the UFT said that the number of teachers in the rubber room has now been cut by almost half.

june

I know a guy who completed his second master's degree in the rubber room. When the media got wind of what actually went down in those rooms (sleeping, camping, homework, etc) the rules changed and rubber room attendees were asked not to do any personal work while there. It's nuts because the city would rather pay full salaries than investigate allegations against these teachers.

Stiff01

"It's nuts because the city would rather pay full salaries than investigate allegations against these teachers."

Well Because 1, They would end up paying more to investigate bad teachers . 2, If they did investigate they might find that the allegation reported were false and have to send the accused teacher back too his , or her classroom . That would be a slap in the face to be city . Not to mention the potential of a lawsuit by the teacher . The city is playing this smart and weighing the options available to them I guess . Fire a teacher that has been accused of a crime in the classroom and dealing with a lengthy court process that will stretch years on . Politics are a whole different animal today then back in the day !

Spirit of 76

"I'll be doing clerical work, which means they'll be paying me $100,049 to be making photocopies,"

$100k for 10 months of work per year? So much for all the people who say teachers are underpaid. How many of you would kill to make $2500 a week?

John L

+1

I don't ever want to hear about teachers being underpaid again!

Kelles

Didn't 'rubber room' mean something else at one time?

...and now it's associated with NYC teachers? surrre

sfgal82

Wow, I am impressed. They've cut the number of rubber room teachers "almost" in half. The Board of Ed also spent millions of our tax dollars expanding the court or hearing process to get these teachers out, so please tell me how much all of this is costing, so I can explain to my kids why they are not getting the education I am paying for!

Surely, the other half of the teachers in these rooms could be given something to do. The bushes in front of PS 41 need trimming, nobody puts up the American flag in the morning anymore, and who will direct traffic in the schoolyard (that the kids can't play in) that is used as the teachers private parking lot?

rammyh

"...accused of misconduct..." Accused being the operative word.

There's something to be said for due process. Teachers are particularly vulnerable to harmful accusations (kids, parents, admin, etc) whereas most of us only really have to worry about another co-worker or an evil boss trying to screw us over.

So I'm certain the "due process" part can certainly be sped up but we can't just outright fire a teacher every time he or she is accused of some charge. That'd be wildly unfair.

JenChungsBaby

Doing clerical work is actually better than sitting in a room all day doing nothing.

elveese

Better for whom?

JenChungsBaby

everyone

PKMKII

Or we could just fire these dead weights, and then use that $30 million on supplies and equipment that would actually help students learn. But that would require a politician in this city to have the cajones to stand up to the teacher's union.