To speed up the hearing process, the city plans to increase the number of arbitrators who hear teachers’ cases from 23 to 39, and to increase the number of days per month arbitrators hear cases from five to seven. The city is accordingly also planning to hire more lawyers and investigators who handle cases of teacher misconduct and incompetence, city officials said. Union officials said they would push for more cases to be settled rather than go through hearings, which would speed up the process even more.
Under the new process, the city will have 60 days after removing a teacher from the classroom to bring charges of misconduct and 10 days to charge a teacher with incompetence. If the DOE fails to bring charges during that time, the teacher will automatically return to the classroom. This is a major change from the previous system, under which the city’s six month deadline to issue charges was sometimes ignored. Some teachers sat in reassignment centers for months or even years without charges.
City officials are also hoping to shorten the time between when charges are filed and when teachers’ hearings begin. Under the new system, hearings must start two weeks after teachers request them. Most teachers are now supposed to have 10 to 14 hearing days over the next two months, and arbitrators will now be expected to hand down a decision within a month of the final hearing. Extensions to this period under “extraordinary circumstances” are legally allowed, but yesterday’s agreement instructs hearing officers to make extensions “the exception and not the rule.”
The deal calls for the small minority of teachers charged with non-fireable offenses to go through an
even faster process of a 3-day hearing.
More"Incompetence," of course, is whatever a principal says it is. It's typically leveled at more experienced teachers.