One of the better high schools in Queens is Thomas Edison High School located in the Jamaica Hill section of Queens. The school is both screened and unscreened when it comes to student selection and has a fairly diverse student body. If you look at their snapshot you will see they have a high "college and career readiness" score and is a school that I highly recommend if I was a parent with an academically proficient student However, if you are a senior staff member there is a dark side to the school.
The school has, in the last few years, a reputation for targeting veteran teachers and has forced many of them to retire or risk getting an "ineffective" rating. For the veteran teachers who refused to be pushed out, 3020-a charges and reassignment out of the school and into the DOE's informal "rubber rooms" are the result. I was there for a month and heard many a horror story about what the administration did to senior teachers and was there when one senior teacher got her 3020-a charges for incompetence, despite getting a "developing " rating on both parts of her evaluation the last year. Some senior teachers told me that they are leaving and some have left mid-semester due to the administrative harassment they experienced.
Now, in today's New York Post, a senior teacher, Alan Herz was served 3020-a charges simply based on some questionable but innocent statements he allegedly made to two students. Fortunately, for Mr. Herz, the charges was not put in writing within 90 days of the investigation and by contract they are no longer chargeable. Therefore, the statements cannot be used in the 3020-a hearings. and was thrown out by the administrative law judge. Now, the DOE wants a second bite of the apple and wants to recharge Mr. Hertz again for the same statements he made in 2014 and has filed a lawsuit to overturn the decision against the DOE.
In another case an activist Chapter Leader, Marilyn Martinez, a 12 year veteran with a child in the school, from the award winning and progressive Central Park East I elementary school was removed after supporting parents and staff run-ins with appointed Principal Monika Garg who is trying to remake the successful school into something less. The Superintendent not only had the Chapter Leader removed just before the February break and was served, with lightning speed, her 3020-a charges. But believe it or not, her hearing starts tomorrow! Read the entire sordid story at Ed Notes Online.
Also read the massive protest by parents and staff at 100 Gold Street in support of the Chapter Leader.
These are just more examples how little has changed at the DOE under Bill de Blasio and his Chancellor Carmen Farina when it comes to abusive persecution of senior teachers that started in the Bloomberg era and continues unabated to this day.