NEW YORK—The president of the United Federation of Teachers (UFT), Michael Mulgrew, and Schools Chancellor Joel I. Klein agreed to eliminate rubber rooms, the detention hall-like rooms where incompetent and misbehaved teachers wait for verdicts on their cases while still collecting a full salary and improving their pension.
Teachers are detained because they violated proper teacher conduct rules outlined in the collective bargaining agreements between the UFT and the Department of Education (DOE).
President Michael Mulgrew admitted, “This is not working for anyone. We need a faster, fairer process.”
The changes made to these agreements include the speeding up of the hearing process by introducing more arbitrators and providing strict timelines of 60 days for final verdicts.
The eradication of all rubber rooms should be complete by September and the final decisions on cases should be made by December.
Mayor Bloomberg pointed out in his announcement that teachers who are accused and guilty will be removed from the payroll much quicker, “which is good news to taxpayers.”
The decision was finalized on Thursday when the two parties signed the agreement. Not only will the trial process be sped up, but the teachers in the “rubber rooms” will be employed in a different government job with no student contact, like an administrative office or human resources.
Teachers who are accused of serious violations like sexual abuse will be suspended and sent home.
To conform to the recent budget cuts that Chancellor Joel I. Klein addressed in February, the school board needed to alleviate the costs.
Mayor Bloomberg noted that the city pays around $30 million a year for the 550 teachers in rubber rooms, and that some teachers have been there for seven years.
Officials say they will increase the number of arbitrators overseeing individual teachers' cases from 23 to 29.
