Life in the Rubber Room: Where Suspended Teachers Await Due Process

School reformers from President Barack Obama to Mayor Michael Bloomberg have been seeking to measure which teachers are most effective in order to weed out the bad ones. Here in New York City, there’s a symbol of bad teaching: the infamous rubber rooms. This is where suspended teachers wait to be terminated. Currently, about 600 teachers are in these reassignment centers.

A principal can’t just fire a teacher. First there’s an investigation, then a hearing. And all of that takes time. Because the school system doesn’t want teachers accused of incompetence or misconduct to be around children, suspended teachers are sent to rubber rooms. And there they wait.

“The first day we were reassigned here I fell,” Brandi Scheiner, 57, says, pointing to the gravel path. Scheiner is a former elementary school teacher and is walking toward a compound of red trailers outside George Washington High School in Washington Heights. The security guard’s booth happened to be empty at 7:30 a.m., so it was easy to walk through the chain-link fenced gate. There are at least 120 teachers assigned to the eleven trailers here. Scheiner taught in Manhattan for 21 years and was assigned to Trailer 14 last fall.

I have been following this discussion for some time and am
deeply touched and moved by the high degree of passion and
pain contained and expressed in the remarks.

Having taught in the NYC public schools system for over
four decades, since 1968, I can say that the entire system
is corrupt to the core. I am now involved in two lawsuits
in the Federal Courts, which contain evidentiary documents
regarding these remarks.

I was a highly decorated NYC Educator but once I became a
Whistle-blower I immediately rose to the top of the
system's "hit list" in 2003 and the NYC schools system has
been trying to bury me ever since.

There is no depth to which the NYC schools system will not
sink once it decides to destroy a Teacher's career - and
this is a nation wide situation and phenomenon.

On Sunday, March 21, the NEW YORK POST, on page 8,
published a statement about me that I had been "charged
with sexual misconduct".

This is an absolute bald faced lie and knowing
fabrication.

Where do you think the two NY POST reporters got the idea
and this libelous false information to include in their
March 21 story ? If your IQ is above 10 you likely
guessed correctly.

Obviously the NY POST will pay dearly for this Libel.

The point is, for those poor babes in the woods, still wet
behind the ears, you have as much chance fighting the
egregiously corrupt public school systems in America as my
Grandmother's sister's family had hiding in the woods in
Russia as the Nazi killing squads came barreling through
the countryside, raping and murdering during the
Holocaust. She, like most, did not survive.

For those who believe the analogy is overly dramatic, wait
until your number comes up and it is decided it is time
for you to go. Wait till the system causes you to lose
everything, your career, your house, the ability to feed
your family, your health insurance, your economic security
in old age- literally everything that one needs and
requires to sustain a normal life and remain a viable
human being.

I salute those and praise the courage of all those
Teachers in NYC and nationwide who have refused to go down
without a fight. But all such fighters for their simple
human dignity and employment rights should know that the
deck and all the odds are stacked against you.

You are battling forces that violate the Laws of the land
everywhere and all the time and usually succeed in getting
away with doing so.

Will they succeed in my case/s ? I have spent a fortune
and will continue to do so to make burying me and my
career as costly for them as possible.

I could have retired long ago at a Pension far larger than
my current contractual salary, after 42 years as a NYC
Teacher. (The contractual salary the system has been
illegally refusing to pay me since October of 2009.)

But I refuse to retire until my State Education Law 3020-a
Teacher trial concludes and the Hearing Officer, a highly
respected State Arbitrator and Attorney, who is
unswervingly honest, has rendered his Decision in this
trial that includes the charge that I "brought a plant to
the school without Official permission". Believe it or
not!!

Again, to all those Teachers who have refused to go
meekly, like lambs to the slaughter, I salute your courage
and your passion to defend your simple human dignity and
your careers.

My Grandmother's family did not survive their battle
against unspeakeable odds. But that is no reason for
American Teachers or for any human beings on this Earth to
capitulate to evil just because the odds are against them.

In the end that is what differentiates one human being
from the next. The individual who goes along to get
along, and the individual who has the courage of his/her
convictions who cannot be bought at any price.

Indeed, in the end, if one's only goal is to just to
survive at any cost, then what is the point. Sometimes
sheer survival can come at such a cost to one's dignity as
a human being, it is not worth the price.
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WHISTLE-BLOWER AXED - AGAIN