General News
Letters finally pulled from teachers’ files after union lawsuit
Jun 5, 2008 3:52 PM
At the March 5 Delegate Assembly, UFT President Randi Weingarten presents the teachers from PS 345, Brooklyn, who stood up to injustice and won: (from left) Daphna Gutman, Joyce Sticco, Darlene Jones-Hardwick and Chapter Leader Adele Chivarria. District 19 Representative Allen Weinstein is in the rear.
Outrage and shock turned to vindication when four Brooklyn teachers learned that disciplinary letters have finally been removed from their files and their names have been cleared following a UFT victory in its suit against the Department of Education.
The PS 345 teachers were shocked and outraged that letters charging them with not reporting a colleague accused of misconduct involving a student were put in their files even though they all willingly spoke with school system investigators working the case. Several indicated they had earlier expressed concern about the colleague under investigation to school administrators and the principal, but nothing was done.
For Darlene Jones-Hardwick, vindication is “100 pounds off my shoulders.
“My job is to protect children,” she said, “so this accusation really troubled my heart.”
What sweetened the victory even more was that their colleagues were equally outraged and began a letter- and e-mail-writing campaign to UFT President Randi Weingarten and to Special Commissioner for Investigations Richard Condon. Chapter Leader Adele Chiavarria said, “We all knew that what was going on wasn’t right.”
The UFT agreed and sued the DOE for disciplining the teachers without offering them a hearing as required by state law. The three Supreme Court judges hearing the case all ruled in favor of the teachers in March.
“This was a real abuse of process where teachers were given disciplinary letters without ever having an opportunity to challenge them,” Weingarten said. “It was as if the DOE was judge, jury and prosecutor. If the teachers had been given a chance to present the facts, it would have been clear that they assisted and did not impede the investigation.”
Melissa Arcara, a letter-writing colleague, said, “We’re proud of ourselves and we’re proud of them. We all stuck up for what’s right.
“Thank heavens for the union. Thank God we have them to back us up,” she added. “Solidarity is the key.”
Daphna Gutman found that “the groundswell of support bowled me over. It’s hard to articulate how much it meant to me.”
Still, Gutman found the incident at the school she considered a second home for six years “so egregious” that a “trust was broken” and she transferred to PS 139 in Flatbush.
Jones-Hardwick, on the other hand, despite threats of being sent to the “rubber room” and feeling “unfairly targeted,” decided, “I wouldn’t let her [the principal] run me out.”
“Justice has been done,” the chapter leader noted. “The UFT backed us all the way and we know when we work together things get done.”
The other two teachers involved in the suit are Joyce Sticco and Evelyn Carrillo. The four were honored for standing up to injustice at the UFT Delegate Assembly meeting on March 5, but the letters stayed in the file while the DOE filed an appeal, then withdrew the appeal but continued to stall on removing the letters.
The letters were finally removed after the UFT, citing repeated dates on which the DOE had failed to comply, set May 23 as the date when the union would apply to the court for orders of contempt if the letters still remained in the teachers’ files.
