Letters to the NY Teacher
Systematic harassment
Mar 3, 2005

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To the Editor:
It is no secret that Chancellor Joel Klein has declared war on our city's public school teachers. The quotas placed on letters in teachers' files and unsatisfactory ratings are backdoor attempts at circumventing the teachers contract as well as rules of tenure. Teachers are expected to be more like programmed zombies than free-thinking educators. Show individuality, then the Orwellian "thought police" place a disciplinary letter in your file.

All over the city teachers are being railroaded, demeaned, harassed and humiliated in front of their colleagues and students. In some schools, teachers are required to tie strings around their necks with notepads hanging from them. Failure to do so leads to a letter in the file and possible dismissal.

In many schools, principals are violating the contract in making teachers go to mandatory meetings during their prep periods. The principals may only require teachers in their first two years to do so. The principals claim that such meetings are voluntary, yet teachers who decide not to attend are disciplined.

Some principals even go as far as to illegally dictate a dress code, accuse those who don't follow it of being disloyal, and then threaten to sabotage teachers' loan applications and prospective employment elsewhere.

Teachers must conduct their lessons using the workshop model, which was originally intended as an enrichment program for gifted classes with a dozen students. Instead, overcrowded classes of students with differing abilities must cram onto filthy, vermin-ridden rugs. There is no actual student-teacher interaction, no "teachable" moments. Going over the time allotted for a lesson segment by one minute will gain the teacher a U rating.

Some of my colleagues, teachers with decades of experience with exemplary records, are singled out for harassment. Their classes are loaded with students with behavioral and learning disabilities. Then, during observations, if a child whispers to another, or if a child makes a mark on a folder or paper without permission, the teacher is accused of having no control over his or her class and given a U rating.

I condemn Chancellor Klein, the regional superintendents, principals and assistant principals. Instead of making the education of our children their main goal, they have made the systematic abuse of our teachers their top priority.

Richard Skibins, PS 123, Brooklyn

School Horrors

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Dear Editor:
I completely agree with writer Richard Skibins of East Meadow, in his exposing the horrors going on in the schools.
Teachers are victims of sadistic principals who intimidate, harass and victimize teachers, as part of their days.
I taught for 29 years and experienced abuse and harassment because I refused to falsify grades so that the school would look good, when, in fact, it was doing poorly.
I went to federal court when I, an 18-year veteran high school teacher, tenured, was fired. Just like that. It took me 15 years to clear my name. The UFT helped to destroy me.

Francine Newman,
Forest Hills