Posted on 02/08/2011 7:56:42 PM PST by khnyny
The first 75 teachers who former Chancellor Michelle Rhee fired must be given about $7.5 million in back wages and offered positions with D.C. Public Schools, an arbitrator ruled.
"The [termination] process used in this case was so devoid of due process as to be arbitrary and capricious," arbitrator Charles Feigenbaum said in his verdict favoring the Washington Teachers' Union, which has been fighting D.C. Public Schools officials over the July 2008 dismissals for more than two years.
Rhee fired 75 first- and second-year teachers after asking principals to recommend recent hires for dismissal. D.C. Public Schools officials told teachers that they couldn't appeal because they had yet to earn tenure, but did not disclose the reasons for their dismissals.
Feigenbaum, who was mutually chosen by the union and the school system, ordered D.C. Public Schools to make a 60-day "good faith effort" to locate the 75 teachers, offer them reinstatement and make up two years of paychecks.
"We have an important decision that shows you what termination was like during the Rhee-Fenty administration: It was wrong," union President Nathan Saunders said.
Saunders estimated that with an average annual salary of $50,000, each teacher would cash in on $100,000 -- costing the government-run school system $7.5 million while the city faces a $545 million deficit in fiscal 2012.
A spokeswoman for Mayor Vincent Gray said that with "the budget crisis that we're in, at this point there's no extra money," but that the District would follow the law.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonexaminer.com ...
It is time to disband public employee unions. Waaay past time....
Unions! It’s what’s wrong with America!
If the city didn’t follow due process in dismissing the teachers, yes, its on the hook.
You just can’t fire someone protected by a contract. There are certain procedures that have to be followed before a firing is final.
It seems the city didn’t observe them.
I don’t know what to say. Here in Indiana I hear that the teachers are not liking evaluations.
http://www.wthr.com/story/13764624/governor-wants-revamped-indiana-teacher-evaluations
I totally agree
What’s the procedure when the paychecks bounce?
Disband them and outlaw them.
They sould be given another $75 million in punative damages too, big screen tv's, iPads and new cars too...........
Just because unions bankrupted the auto and airline industries, rigged elections, and built a federal bureaucracy that chased our high tech and manufacturing industry half way around the world is no reason to think they are not effective. In just a few decades, teachers unions have succeeded in putting the country of the Wright Brothers, Edison, and Steve Jobs into a world leader in turning out functionally illiterate high school graduates.
Well, if we get president with some balls, then he or she could pull an Obama and just throw out the contract, like Zero did for the GM bond holders. Law doesn’t mean much anymore.
And let me just say, poor black children are nothing but pawns to these sub-human union thugs.
It’s for the children
Where do the kids go to get their ‘education’ they have not received? Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm??
You exaggerate. Why last year alone, DC turned out 18 High School Graduates who can read some! And you don't get results like this in a few decades. Teachers Union members have been working at this since at least the 1920s.
The Wright Brothers, Edison, and Steve Jobs were and are all white guys. To use them as examples could cause a loss of self-esteem among the "diverse" students of DC, not to mention their teachers.
Public employee unions are a bad thing.
“not to mention their teachers.”
Doggone it. Even the most lackadaisical teacher can’t help but let some smart alec kid abuse the system once in a while. Probably left a book laying around or sneaked out to make one of them “Teachers Gone wild” Videos.
The” judge” was chosen by the school district and the Union, meaning he was chosen by two parties that are allied in getting as much out of the tax-payers as they can. No one working for the district is out a red cent.
“No one working for the district is out a red cent.”
As we’re seeing around our area (northern NJ), the money handed to the teachers’ unions is simply taken from somewhere else in the district (we have property tax caps). Administrator pay is being targeted, as well as any other staff (clerical, etc.) not in the union. Hiring of new teachers has stopped dead, many non-tenured teachers have been let go, and many younger tenured teachers are on borrowed time; they are facing the fact that funds are finite, and we need less teachers because we have a smaller population. Many American taxpayers are fleeing the area, to greener pastures where there may still be jobs, a lower cost of living (read: less public employees’ union members), and maybe some other Americans.
File a grievance.
And when there is no power to run your air conditioner file a grievance.
And when there is no gas for your SUV, file a grievance.
And when there is no doctor to save your child, file a grievance.
And when there is no food on the supermarket shelf, file a grievance.
And as you slowly die of hunger, file a grievance.
And ponder all the good it's done you.
Union meet reality.
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