Guantanamo 4 Teachers

jenisis — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 13:11:06 -0700

In 'Guantanamo 4' Teachers', NYC Teachers and Support Staff come here to spend 7 hours a day for 5 days a week for months and years awaiting a Due Process Hearing for alleged charges of Teacher Misconduct.
1000 NYC Teachers sit in 13 other remotely located but similar type Rubber Rooms throughout NYC. The Rubber Room you see in this video was cited with safety and health violations by the NY State Department of Labors’ Public Employee Safety and Health Bureau in both 2006 and 2007 and is finally scheduled to be shut down this year.
Only 10 Teachers remain there today, however, many other Rubber Rooms throughout the city continue to be used to violate NYC Teachers' basic Human Rights.
Since Mayor Bloomberg was granted Mayoral Control over NYC schools in 2002 and since NYC Teachers' 2005 Collective Bargaining Agreement marked a major departure from basic Due Process Rights afforded all other NY State Teachers, Rubber Rooms have been a convenient way to rid the system of hundreds of qualified and dedicated NYC teachers, who are innocent of charges and are in fact; Whistleblowers.
Today, many New York grassroots organizations are working to defeat continued Mayoral Control over NYC schools since Mayor Bloomberg's Tenure over NYC schools is due to sunset at the end of June 2009.
Help us shut down Rubber Rooms in NYC and restore the basic rights of innocent Teachers by shining the public light on Rubber Rooms in a case before our Federal Courts. A 'Wall of Silence' surrounds the issue of the Departments’ use of Rubber Rooms among members of the NY State Legislature which is due to vote on continued Mayoral control within the next two weeks.
Without your help, big money interest will continue to act to control and privatize our schools and overstep basic Human and Civil Rights Laws that have long acted to protect our Teachers, Students and Educational Democracy.
Please visit www.Teachers4JusticeNow.Org today where you can donate to support our Rubber Room Legal Defense Fund and NYC Teachers' Constitutional Right to Life, Liberty and Justice.

Guantanamo for NYC Teachers

jenisis — Sat, 23 May 2009 16:38:11 -0700

Since the 1960’s, Temporary Reassignment Centers have existed to provide a place outside of the school for Teachers accused of Serious Misconduct. State Tenure Law requires that Teachers be formally charged, scheduled and afforded a 3020-A Hearing for the charges they are accused of within a specific time frame.
At the conclusion of the Hearing and after a Teacher has been allowed an opportunity to defend themselves, a Teacher’s guilt or innocence is decided by an Independent Arbitrator and the Teacher is either returned to their school, fined or terminated.
In 2002 after Mayor Bloomberg was given Mayoral Control of NYC Schools, Temporary Reassignment Centers began to be used to warehouse Teachers and other school support staff who the system wanted to rid themselves of and has since been called Rubber Rooms. Before Mayor Bloomberg took over NYC schools, the Pedagogical staff of NYC’s 80,000 Teachers had 347 Teachers waiting in Temporary Reassignment Centers throughout the five boroughs of NYC.
Today over 1000 Teachers sit in over 13 Rubber Rooms located in remote sites throughout the city with the vast majority being whistleblowers or activist who have spoken out against the rising corruption they witnessed taking place at their schools. Educational Chancellor Joel Klein and Mayor Bloomberg has been very skillful at portraying Teachers in Rubber Rooms as criminals and their need to be there as a means of protecting students. However, statistics show that over 80% of the Teachers in Rubber Rooms are over 40 years old and are reaching top salary.
Former union protections have given way to big money interest as the number of Rubber Rooms increase and the incidences of Teachers accused of frivolous charges continues to mount. NYC taxpayers are footing a 100 million dollar cost to maintain these sites where Teachers report everyday and sit for months and years awaiting their Hearing with no assignments or work duties.
The legality of the NYC Rubber Rooms, many of which are windowless overcrowded firetraps that have been formally cited by the NY Department of Labor for safety and health violations has never been challenged. The New York State Legislature is presently conducting hearings regarding Mayoral Control and while many grass roots organizations have mobilized to speak against it, the issue of Rubber Rooms is rarely heard.
It is essential that opposing voices be heard and actions taken to publicize the Civil and Human Rights Abuses inherent with Rubber Rooms in order to counteract continued Mayoral Control since Mayor Bloomberg’s tenure either sunsets in June 2009 or is extended for another 8 years.
'Guantanamo for Teachers' exposes the overcrowded and unsanitary conditions in a NYC Rubber Room located on 7th Avenue in Manhattan and the emergency exit that it is required that they use in case of a fire. The photos were shot by a Teachers who acted as a Whistleblower and subsequently reassigned to the room to wait for 3 years to defend herself against the charges.
As a result of her interview for a NYC daily newspaper about NYC Rubber Rooms, she was defrauded of her salary and wrongfully terminated. Join the movement to close NYC Rubber Rooms and confront big money interests to dismantle the educational system in NYC in order to privatize it.
Take action by visiting www.Teachers4JusticeNow.Org and donating to help mount a legal campaign to expose the conditions in NYC Rubber Rooms or by signing our petition. Visit www.Rubberroommovie.com to see our video.

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Guantanamo 4 Teachers

Guantanamo for NYC Teachers