About 160 instructors and others get salaries for doing nothing while their job fitness is reviewed. They collect roughly $10 million a year, even as layoffs are considered because of a budget gap.
For seven years, the Los Angeles Unified School District has paid Matthew Kim a teaching salary of up to $68,000 per year, plus benefits. His job is to do nothing.
Every school day, Kim’s shift begins at 7:50 a.m., with 30 minutes for lunch, and ends when the bell at his old campus rings at 3:20 p.m. He is to take off all breaks, school vacations and holidays, per a district agreement with the teacher’s union. At no time is he to be given any work by the district or show up at school. He has never missed a paycheck.
In the jargon of the school district, Kim is being “housed” while his fitness to teach is under review. A special education teacher, he was removed from Grant High School in Van Nuys and assigned to a district office in 2002 after the school board voted to fire him for allegedly harassing teenage students and colleagues. In the meantime, the district has spent more than $2 million on him in salary and legal costs. Last week, Kim was ordered to continue this daily routine at home. District officials said the offices for “housed” employees were becoming too crowded.
About 160 teachers and other staff sit idly in buildings scattered around the sprawling district, waiting for allegations of misconduct to be resolved.
The housed are accused, among other things, of sexual contact with students, harassment, theft or drug possession. Nearly all are being paid. All told, they collect about $10 million in salaries per year — even as the district is contemplating widespread layoffs of teachers because of a financial shortfall.
In New York City public schools, which make up the country’s largest district, teachers are confined to “rubber rooms.” About 550 of the district’s 80,000 teachers spend school hours “literally just doing crossword puzzles, waiting for the end of the day” until their cases are resolved, spokeswoman Ann Forte said. Some have been there for years.
Most cases take months to adjudicate, but some take years. “It’s a glaring example of how hard it is to remove someone from the classroom and how the process is tilted toward teachers,” said school board member Marlene Canter, who recently proposed — unsuccessfully — to revamp the disciplinary process.
This is ridiculous, why on earth should it take so long to resolve these cases? And why are the Unions allowed to get away with restricting reassignment of these teachers to temporary duties? What is wrong with light clerical duties for these people?
and the AUTOMAKERS are the ones running a bad business?? if autos had the power to tax i guess this may be where they would end up….
well said madtruckman
And people wonder why I never vote any money for schools. Heck, they were crying about not having money back when I was in elementary school in the 1960s. Billions and billions and billions later, and they’re still at it.
Ah yes. The People’s Republic of California. No wonder the state is BK.
Can we eliminate teacher tenure? For that matter, all public sector unions?
They need to fire them then go to court if they have a case. If they win sue to recover costs.
#5, This article is about federal employees but when dealing with a bureaucracy the size of the L.A. system, I think the problems are closely related.
http://tinyurl.com/d7gu6n
And there are plenty more, non-biased articles out there if you search.
Basically, the reason it’s hard to fire a civil servant is because there are safety nets in place to prevent cronyism (Bush is gone, fire all Republicans).
Unfortunately, when a bureaucracy gets large enough, the safety net becomes a trampoline.
Paddy-0,
Knee jerk insulting California!
Here is an article about the same thing in New York:
http://tinyurl.com/cty8px
Probably happens in your state. “Paid administrative leave” happens all the time all over the place. That’s all this is, right?
But, c’mon, this is peanuts compared to the MULTI-MILLION DOLLAR severance packages they give executives, and conservatives defend to no end.
David W,
Did you go to public schools? Someone paid for that.
This American Life did a show on similar places in NYC where they have 3 such facilities. They mentioned it was inspired by a documentary. They make it sound like a prison.
tinyurl.com/cf9je5
Laxdude,
My link was to that episode, also. That was a very depressing and weird story — and very good, as This American Life usually is.
This is basically administrative leave, and is not specific to L.A. or teachers.
I have no problem with the CONCEPT of it — that you can keep paying someone until it is determined if they are guilty.
A girl in my school accused a teacher of sexual misbehavior and our school canned him, pronto. Then the girl admitted she made it up. The school district had to pay him a huge settlement. It would have been SO MUCH CHEAPER to keep him on paid administrative leave until his guilt was determined.
I know $10 million sounds like a lot — but that’s just one good lawsuit.
What is inexcusable is that these teacher get stuck in limbo. They and the tax payers deserve prompt resolution of these charges.
… also, it seems like these on-leave teachers could still work for the district. Curriculum development and writing lesson plans comes to mind. Or grading paper for other teachers.
That contingency should be put in their contracts but I don’t see why that’s a problems.
Not surprising coming from california, too many lawyers too little common sense. Teachers deserve their pay and conditions, the real solution to this is hi rez security cameras in every classroom. Taking a student-teacher conflict to a review board in most cases would be unecessary.
# 8 Greg Allen said, “Knee jerk insulting California!”
As a tax payer in CA it is my right. This is the future of health care also…
We had a teacher near where I live that was on administrative leave for 7 years. For three of those years she was teaching at another school.
And personally I don’t care if this happens in privately owned companies I’m not paying there salaries.
Wow, that would be great. I wonder how many novels one could write (and sell) all while being paid for the time spent. Netbooks are small and easy to carry. The day job takes so much time out of my writing time. I want this teaching gig.
A few months back “This American Life” did a great peice on this happening in the New York City Schools. Great interviews.
One in 3000 tenured teachers gets fired per year.