Friday, May 22, 2009

How The DOE Violates Our Country's "Innocent Until Proven Guilty" Legal Foundation When It Comes To The International Teachers They Recruit


One of the strengths of our country's democratic system is the presumption that a person is "innocent until proven guilty" legal foundation. While the DOE appears to violate that concept when it comes to reassigning the teacher when an allegation is made. At least the teacher has a "due process" right" to make the DOE prove their baseless, or embellished allegations through the 3020-a process. However, when it comes to the International teacher the idea that a person is "innocent until proven guilty" does not apply.

Because of a teacher shortage in various subject areas (how come the suburbs have no such shortage?) such as Science, Bilingual education, and Math, many foreign teachers are sponsored by the DOE under the H-1 visa regulations to work as NYC teachers. In most cases, they receive the minimum starting pay of $45,000 a year and are happy to get it. However, these International teachers, who come from countries with stringent discipline codes and student respect for teachers, find that in the bizarro world of the DOE that teachers are disrespected and Administrators fail to discipline students. Worse is the stress and inevitable corporal punishment charges that these teachers will be hit with. Since any allegation can remove a teacher, the International teacher will find him/herself removed from the classroom and sent to the "rubber room". Unlike a tenured teacher who is a U.S. citizen, the International teacher finds that the DOE has withdrawn their sponsorship of the teacher and the extension of the H-1 visa is rejected by the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS).

How shocking! Even before the tenured International teacher has his or her due process rights, the DOE has presumed the teacher's guilt and withdraw their sponsorship. The result is the strong possibility of deportation, unless the teacher could get another school system to sponsor him/her which is highly unlikely.

In a country where every person who has been invited to live and work in, the basic legal foundation that a person is "innocent until proven guilty" is violated and ignored by the increasingly teacher unfriendly DOE. "Children Last" continues.

3 comments:

FidgetyTeach said...

Where can I read more about this?

Chaz said...

Fidgety:

I cannot give you any more information. My information comes from teachers who were or are subject to deportation.

ed notes online said...

This happened to 2 teachers at Lafayette HS under principal Jolanta Rohloff, who in spite of the utmost incompetence is still making $150,000 doing busy work at the DOE. She should be deported - to the moon.