Results tagged “teachers”

The Yankees' new rally technique might be to turn their jerseys inside-out, as a show of solidarity with one young fan who was forced to do so by his Red Sox-loving fourth grade teacher. Nine-year-old Nathan Johns says he was asked to step outside his upstate classroom and turn his CC Sabathia shirt-inside out by Peter (Mister) Addabbo. The teacher apparently keeps Red Sox paraphernalia on display all over the classroom, the real evil empire. Johns told reporters in what we can only imagine was his most adorable voice, "I thought to myself, 'Is he serious or is he kidding?' But he had this look like he wasn't kidding at all.' It was such a horrible day I don’t ever want anything like to happen again.”

New York City public schools are performing so well according to the DOE's assessment that the performance bonuses earned by teachers is bursting the budget. With 97% of elementary and middle schools earning A's or B's in their annual grades from the Department of Education, yesterday it was revealed that such high marks meant the city would have to shell out $33 million in bonuses, almost twice last year's total despite a slimmer budget and two million over the program's budget before high schools are even accounted for. One education consultant told the News, "It's clear the bonuses are a complete waste, with the reading and math exams becoming easier and easier."

The Department of Education has suspended a 57-year-old social studies teacher who has a long history of making students uncomfortable with his over-friendliness. Jonathan Polayes of Hostos-Lincoln Academy of Science in the Bronx has taught in city schools since 1989; accusations around his inappropriate touching began in 1994. In 2001, Polayes was found guilty of touching a student and suspended without pay for a semester. The latest investigation leading to the suspension began in January with a 15-year-old claiming he touched her on the thigh and now up to ten other girls issuing complaints. Polayes made the girls uncomfortable hugging them, patting their bottoms, tickling them and "carrying one 11-year-old girl, cradling her like she was a baby." The DOE released a statement saying, "He has ignored previous warnings and disciplinary action, and it is unfortunate that it is so difficult to fire someone who obviously does not belong in the classroom." The investigation has been forwarded to Bronx DA for potential charges against Polayes.

This fall, teachers will no longer have to arrive two days before students and prepare their classrooms, because the deal the United Federation of Teachers struck with the Bloomberg administration allows them to return on the same day as students, as part of a deal to save $2 billion in pensions. Of course, the principals are upset: PS 321 (Brooklyn) Principal Elizabeth Phillips asked, "Do parents want their children coming into rooms where furniture is stacked up and materials packed away?"while PS 221 (Queens) Principal Sheila Twomey said, "You don’t want to picture what it was like if a child comes to school and there’s nothing up around the room, you’re trying to find your pencil and everybody else around you is disorganized." And principals union president Earl Logan said the before-school's start meetings were helpful to integrate new teachers. UFT outgoing president Randi Weingarten pointed out that requiring teachers to arrive on the Thursday and Friday before Labor Day (school starts on the Tuesday after Labor Day) violated a 2005 labor agreement and said that the new deal could allow Schools Chancellor Joel Klein to simply move the students' start date to be two days later.

Every few years, the issue of public school teachers in rubber rooms gets explored. These are teachers who have been removed from duty—whether they've been rightly or unfairly accused— while their cases are investigated...and all while they are still paid. (Remember the Bronx school bomb scare allegedly caused by a teacher? Well, that teacher was upset that he might be transferred to a rubber room over allegations he punched a student.) Now the Associated Press delves into the bizarro world of the rubber room, the holding pens where teachers are kept.

With the city facing enacting a grim budget, the economic downturn is hitting all agencies The NY Times reports that, last week, the Department of Education "ordered principals to fill vacancies with internal candidates only...in an effort to cut costs and avoid teacher layoffs." Which means teaching school graduates, as well as teachers from Teach for America and the Teaching Fellows program, are now looking for work at private schools, charter schools or outside the city. Last year, the DOE hired 5,725 new teachers—about a third from Teach for America and the Teaching fellows programs, about two-thirds were from teaching schools. This year, aside from specialized positions like speech therapy, "principals can fill spots only with internal candidates, including teachers from a reserve pool made up of those whose jobs have been eliminated and many who have earned unsatisfactory ratings." A woman who left a non-teaching field to pursue an education degree at St. John's aid, "The stability in teaching was something that was I looking for. That has been turned on its head."

The city's Department of Environmental Protection dispatched a Hazmat unit to an elementary school in East New York after unidentified students sprinkled novelty itching powder on at least two teachers' chairs. Some students were also affected; everyone who reported itching had to take decontamination showers, and the two teachers were taken to the hospital as a precaution. One victim tells the Daily News, "When I sat down, I could feel it through my pants. It was very itchy. It got intense. When it became uncontrollable, I had to stop what I was doing... It stopped me in my tracks." Mission accomplished from the pranksters' point of view, but one teacher isn't savoring the gag: "Somebody could have killed me. I feel it personally, because I have so many allergies." And a fifth grader reports, "My friend Emiliano was itching a lot. He felt bad. He scratched and scratched. I was glad I did not get any on me." The powder, which looked like tiny, prickly hairs, was deemed nonhazardous by the DEP, but a potentially devastating Whoopee Cushion explosion is still under investigation.

More on that student prank gone horribly wrong: The Daily News has it that seniors at the Brooklyn School for Global Studies who served their teachers cake laced with laxatives got the idea from watching MTV’s prank-reenactment show High School Stories. Two teachers ended up in the emergency room last week after eating the tainted cake, which was prepared by a straight-A student and her two friends, and ultimately sickened a grand total of two crossing guards, a social worker and three teachers.

Teachers at the Brooklyn School for Global Studies in Boerum Hill were on the receiving end of a student prank that resulted in arrests and hospitalizations last week. When three seniors at the high school offered their teachers some slices of homemade cake, nobody suspected the students, which included a straight-A student, of filling the baked goods with laxatives as a zany end-of-the-year gag.

Mayor Bloomberg's announcement that he would reduce the number of parking permits for civil servants by 20% has annoyed yet another group. Joining police officers, fire fighters, and other emergency workers are teachers.