Teachers Who are Paid to Do Nothing
Allegedly Poor Teachers Go to Special Rooms to "Sit"
Jul 1, 2009
Some call this Teacher Purgatory. In reality, these special rooms are holding pens while the legal system decides what to do with alleged poor teachers.
Rubber Rooms for Teachers
Unions were created of out necessity when ruthless bosses forced workers to work seven days a week, used no safety measures, and fired at will. Many strong unions today protect workers against unfair labor practices and work for justice in the workplace. But, in education, the bubble may have just moved a bit off center.
Today, it is very difficult to fire a poor teacher. Not impossible, but difficult. In order to dismiss a tenured teacher, an administrator must
- document very carefully and fairly
- prove that assistance and retraining was provided to the teacher
- provide evidence that the expectations made of the teacher in question are the same expectations made of other teachers
For example, if this teacher is chronically not turning in lesson plans, other teachers must be turning in lesson plans or the teacher in question is being unfairly targeted. This process often becomes a documentation nightmare.
Frustrated principals often tolerate poor teaching while students are sacrificed at the hands of a teacher that should have been removed. The unions have made the negotiation process so complicated with multiple restrictions that many administrators just give up. The rubber rooms were created to remove a questionable teacher from the classroom while litigation rolls along at a snail’s pace.
Reasons for Teacher Removal from the Classroom
A person’s first instinct is to think that teachers in the rubber rooms, 700 in New York City alone, have done something horrible to the students. That may or may not be the case. Yes, some teachers should be removed from contact with students but this procedure can also be used against whistle blowers. Michael Thomas, a high school math teacher, accused his principal of changing test results of students. Thomas has been in a "reassignment center" for 14 months awaiting hearings.
Teachers may be in the padded rooms for
- Calling students foul names
- Breaking up a fight to prevent physical harm
- Refusing to falsify student data when ordered by administration
- Passing a student that is failing
- Seducing students
- Lacking knowledge in subject area
- Emotional problems
- Alcoholism or drug abuse
- Anger management issues
- Striking a student
- Throwing homework in the wastebasket in a heated argument
- Making a student sit on a stool and wear a hat after misbehaving
The reasons may range from serious to ridiculous.
Inside a Teacher’s Padded Room
What is it like in a padded room? The atmosphere differs from school to school. Some holding pens have a free structure allowing teachers to leave for several hours to do shopping, go to the bar across the street or even take in a movie. Other rooms are quite structured with supervision. Some schools actually have the teachers sit in an unused classroom while other schools may have the teachers report daily to a room off campus that looks more like a storage area with folding chairs and boxes.
Some teachers have taken up hobbies to pass the time. Many teachers stay busy
- Water color painting
- Scrapbooking
- Crocheting
- Rug weaving
- Learning a new language
- Studying for a real estate license
- Writing a novel and magazine stories
- Taking online classes
Padded Room Sentence Time
How long do teachers endure waiting while the wheels of justice hardly move? Since there are 23 arbitrators in New York who only work one day a week, the backlog grows at a fast pace. A common time frame for teacher’s purgatory is two or three years but some have waited for up to six years. Tax dollars at work.
Alternatives to Padded Rooms
Disciplinary actions differ from state to state and from school to school. Some schools send teachers home without pay. Others send teachers home with pay. And, others reassign teachers to clerical duties pending the hearing.
President Obama and Secretary of Education Arne Duncan are pushing for excellence in teaching. Will this result in more teachers sitting in "purgatory" or reducing the power of the unions that supported Obama for election?
Source: Karen Matthews, "700 NYC teachers paid to do nothing," The Associated Press, June 22, 2009.
Related articles: How to Fix America's Schools, Sonia Sotomayor and Her Impact on Education
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