A. ERASMUS HALL HS ( Business & Technology subschool )
I was appointed at Erasmus Hall HS in 9/1994 and became tenured in 1995, just when the school was split into 3 subschools that year.
1. February 9, 1998 : I was removed from the classroom for "conduct unbecoming your function". (I will learn much later about the alleged conduct : "corporal punishment and verbal abuse".) In reality the principal was retaliating for my criticism of a cynical program she and Joyce Copin (Superintendent) insisted that we implement.
The school's very existence was contingent on improving the basics -- the NYSED threatened to close it unless some improvement in reading and basic math were palpable by June -- , and yet they embarked in a megalomaniac program most teachers did not understand.
2. April 1998 : The principal, after notifying the OSI by phone on February 8, 1998, failed to file the Incident Report (A-420 for corporal punishment; A-421 for verbal abuse) for months. Hence the OSI's letter.
3. January 29, 1999 : Myrna Walters, principal, finally filed an incident report : for only one student out of 3 accusers. She was cross-examined on the subject.
4 . February 1998 - October 2000 : "administrative duty" at various HS : the rubber room did not exists yet.I would spend the day at the teacher's lounge, mingling with colleagues, steering away from students.
5 . Apparently, some principals were resentful for having to "host" suspended teachers. To try to get rid of me, Wingate HS's principal, Max Malamed, seized upon a minor incident in the cafetaria between me and a worker (Fall 1999) to request my "physical and psychological evaluation " in a letter to the Superintendent, and my removal from his school for "security reasons" ! According to him, I allegedly complained about being discriminated against because of my "Haitian descent". I guess, that's for the psycho aspect. Trouble is, I am not Haitian. I shot back with a three-page letter to the Superintendent to ridicule him,. To be as inflammatory as he was, I suggested that, given his racial prejudice, he may have sent plenty of minority kids to special-ed in the same manner. To scare him I put the name of Chancellor Crew among the cc-ed, but never sent him a copy. ( Melamed himself was removed from his position in 2000.)
6. Fall 99 to June 2000 : my 3020-a trial took place.
7. October 10, 2000: I was exonerated of all charges by the independant arbitrator, Alan Viani ( mediator between the City and the transit workers during the 2005 strike). Click here for the report.(
I have little chance with the current, corrupt panel system. That's why I joined Teachers4Action.)
In November 2000, I requested and obtained a sabbatical for the next semester, and resumed teaching in September 2001 at Canarsie HS.
B. CANARSIE HIGH SCHOOL
1. Within days, the principal, Joel Shapiro, was harassing me -- on behalf of Max Malamed, I suspected : "You want specifics ? You called a student fucking nigger." When he realized the blunder he made, he rushed to concoct a corporal punishement charge : I was removed from the classroom in January 15, 2002 because a student claimed :"Mr. Fofana pushed me and threatened to f.. me up." That was it. I was out. Of 30 students in the classroom, the principal chose my accuser's three buddies as witnesses. I stayed in the school until May.
2. May 2002 - March 2003 : sojourn at the Rubber Room : the basement of a DOE's former school at Eastern Parkway @ Bedford Ave. (The "Rubber Room" phrase would emerge much later.)
3. The allegations went nowhere. In the meantime Joel Shapiro was fighting for his professional life : parents and staff wanted Chancellor Klein to remove him : they found him insentitive, incompetent, indifferent to the violence and drug-dealing going on in the school.
(Shapiro was forced to retire in December 2004.)
4 . March 17, 2003 : I was reassigned to Middle College High School (called now Medgar Evers preparatory School).
C. MIDDLE COLLEGE HS
1 . When her secretary announced the new math teacher on March 17, 2003, the principal, Dr. Michael Wiltshire, did not expect someone coming out of the past to conjure up things he wished were buried forever : I unwittingly assisted him to complete his academic work for $250 when he was a doctoral student at Teachers College ( affiliated to Columbia University).
2 . June 2003 : in a letter, Wiltshire made it clear he did not want me back, not because of my performance.
3. I retaliated by disclosing our little secret to the staff and students. I was delighted to hear sudents asking : " Dr. Wiltshire, a cheat ? Oh, my God... [ with laughter ]" Used to intimidate and crush teachers, he could not imagine such response on my part. After what I went through, I had no intention to let another rogue principal trample on my dignity and rights, in all impunity.
4. Vendetta time : shortly after I revealed Wiltshire's fraud, the Superintendent's Office sent me, as a math teacher, to the summer school run by Wiltshire. He denied me a program, despite the payroll secretary confirming that I was on her list. In fact, she gave me a time card to be clocked in at 8 and out at 1. I refused to leave and spent whole days in the teacher's lounge surfing the Internet and watching movies. The shortage of math teachers became untenable as new students poured in. ( They initially hired a substitute while this tenured teacher was sitting idle.) I was finally given a program, almost ten days into the summer session, the situation becoming hopeless as the faculty list indicates.
5 . At the end of summer session I was accused of corporal punishment/verbal abuse ! They should have patents on these phrases. [ Remember Florian Lowenstein being sent back to the Rubber Room the same day he sent a letter to the mayor to complain about the 3020-a proceeding's lack of due process ? The pretext was a new corporal punishment]
6. Superintendent Gloria Buckery -- genetically corrupt she was shown the door in 2005 -- instructed Wiltshire to investigate the allegations. He refused : "I was not in the building when the incident took place". Nobody ever evoked these allegations since then.
7. I went to the Regional 6 Operations Center in Staten Island as suggested by Charley Turner,a UFT Brooklyn Rep., to seek my nth reassignment. They asked me to wait in an adjacent room that happened to be their Rubber Room. It took them a full year to reassign me... at Middle College HS (aka Medgar Evers Preparatory HS). The set-up was obvious : Wiltshire had no obligation to accept me. Certainly not now that the school is part of the empowerment zone where principals control their budgets and enjoy hiring power.
Besides, why did he accept me ? What happened to his so called "Recruitment Committee"?
8. Wiltshire delivered what was expected of him : find something against Fofana and send him back to the Rubber Room. I found the scumbag salivating when I returned to his school in September 4, 2004.
Sure enough, on December 8, 2004, I was removed from the classroom on allegations of (what else ?) corporal punishment and verbal abuse. For good measure, a) he and the Assistant Principal Adonai gave 4 U-ratings for lesson observations; b) a dozen letter was dropped in my file.
9. Robert Colon, OSI's investigator interviewed me on April 19, 2005.
10. I created a website www.teacherabuse.com as a response to the recurrent false accusations orchestrated by unscrupulous principals against me since 1998, and put it online on May 31 2005.
11. In December 2006 I received a copy of the OSI's report .
12. In December 2006 I received a copy of the SCI's report written after their investigation into my websites : www.mathspell.com and www.teacherabuse.com .
They claim that I posted a) students pictures on the first website which was true : 2 photos of my best students in the Students of The Month, a page intended to reward them. If that is a crime then they should go after the people who created this website . By the way, why only two photos out of five ? I had parental permission, although verbal ; b) students confidential records ? Absolutely false : click here.
13. In May 2007, I received the formal charges leading to the 3020-a trial : a kitchen sink type.
14. The NYSUT assigned Anthony Cavallaro to represent me in the 3020-a proceeding.
15. In September 2007, the pre-hearing took place.
16. The 3020-a proceeding started in February but was disrupted by our federal lawsuit : the union retaliated by withdrawing its legal representation for the plaintiffs, and refusing to pay for alternate lawyers.
17. My next arbitration (open at my request) is scheduled on May 7, 2008, at 10:00 a.m.
at 59-61 Chambers Street, Manhattan, 6th floor. The public is therefore welcome, although the last time the DOE made only three seats available.
18.
The hearing concluded on June 16, 2008. The DOE's attorney and I submitted our closing arguments to the arbitrator in writing (at my request) on June 3, 2008, after receiving the last transcripts in August.
19. What do you expect from a gun-for-hire arbitrator ?
20. What's next ? I was sent back to another school as an absentee teacher reserve (ATR) -- in effect, I become a tenured substitute teacher after twenty years in the system, courtesy of Randi Weingarten, the president of our union. To obtain the raises she has been trumpeting, she made concessions to chancellor Klein, Esq., that eviscerated teacher tenure.
Waiting for the next round of false accusations I am taking refuge in Almighty :
There is nothing reliable in what they say;
Their inward part is destruction itself
Their throat is an open grave;
They flatter with their tongue.
Hold them guilty, O God;
By their own devices let them fall!
In the multitude of their transgressions
thrust them out, For they are rebellious against You
PSALM 5 : 9-10