No. Petitioner, a first grade and kindergarten teacher at an elementary school in Brooklyn was charged with failing to properly and effectively plan her lessons, that she failed to pick up her students in a timely fashion on a particular day, that she was excessively absent and that she failed to implement help that her supervisors provided to her.
A hearing was conducted before an arbitrator who found “that petitioner was incompetent without reasonable expectation of rehabilitation, [and] determined that the appropriate penalty would be termination of the petitioner’s employment.
On appeal petitioner claimed that, among other points, she was targeted for termination by her administration because she had a documented medical condition and hospitalization that caused her to lose 43 days of work.
Judge Arthur F. Engoron of the Supreme Court, New York County found her argument and that her termination “shocked the conscience” to be unavailing.
Judge Engoron wrote, “This court finds that the penalty of termination was not disproportionate with the misconduct and cannot be said to shock the conscious or any senses of fairness. Thus, the court is constrained to find that the petitioners dismissal, while severe, cannot be vacated or remanded as a matter of law. [citation omitted].
Shame
Sent from my T-Mobile 4G LTE Device
Disappointing. Clicked on this hoping to see a “yes.” It’s hard to understand how being sick is tantamount to incompetence.