Teacher keeps $90K job after being late 111 times

[YankeeFan]

I'm glad to see he's identified the cause of his problem, and has pledged to resolve it:

An elementary school teacher who was late to school at least 46 times this past school year and 65 times the year before will be able to keep his job, a state arbitrator has ruled.

The city school district had sought to terminate Roosevelt Elementary School math teacher Arnold Anderson as a result of his years of chronic tardiness.

Anderson told The Associated Press on Friday that breakfast is to blame for his tardiness.

"I have a bad habit of eating breakfast in the morning, and I lost track of time," he said.

Anderson said he was one to two minutes late to school "at the most" but was prepared and was never late for class.

"I have to cut out eating breakfast at home," he said Friday.

While the state-appointed arbitrator slammed the teacher's flimsy excuses and found that “there is no doubt the district has proven conduct unbecoming,” the teacher will be allowed to return to the classroom in January, albeit only after serving an unpaid suspension until then. Anderson earns about $90,000 per year with 14 years of experience.

The decision is one of dozens issued this year by arbitrators under the state’s Teacher Effectiveness and Accountability for the Children of New Jersey, or TeachNJ.

Teacher keeps $90K job after being late 111 times

 

[Riptide]

It's that ****ing coffee.

 

[outofplace]

YF, why aren't you asking about his students' standardized test scores? Aren't you supporting all these changes in education, which include judging whether or not teachers should keep their jobs based on test scores?

Unlike you, YF, I'll actually make my point rather than hinting at it. Yes, the teacher should probably lose his job. The problem is that most of the changes aimed at holding teachers accountable do a ****-poor job of selecting the right methods for evaluating them.

 

[User 11148]

Why aren't you asking about his students' standardized test scores? Aren't you supporting all these changes in education, which include judging whether or not teachers should keep their jobs based on test scores?

His students' scores were thrown out because they turned their answer sheets in "at the most" one or two minutes after the deadline.

 

[Dick Whitman]

111 Cristal hangovers.

 

[User 11148]

YF, why aren't you asking about his students' standardized test scores? Aren't you supporting all these changes in education, which include judging whether or not teachers should keep their jobs based on test scores?

Unlike you, YF, I'll actually make my point rather than hinting at it. Yes, the teacher should probably lose his job. The problem is that most of the changes aimed at holding teachers accountable do a ****-poor job of selecting the right methods for evaluating them.

Actually, stipulating* that he's telling the truth, I don't think he should lose his job. Being one or two minutes late to work for a teacher would not, I think, remotely affect his classroom performance. I would assume that a teacher's scheduled workday starts well before the start time of his/her first class. Now I don't know when the workday starts, and I don't know what's expected -- meetings? announcements? drop-off monitoring? -- during that time between the beginning of the workday and the start of the first class. But I would think there could be some wiggle room there, especially if the teacher in question is OK with making that time up after school on a regular basis.


*Hope I don't run afoul of the "complicated words!" committee with this one.

 

[LongTimeListener]

YF must be incensed to learn that teachers have time in their workday when students aren't around.

 

[TheSportsPredictor]

Wonder how many of us are late b/c of posting on SJ.com.

 

[heyabbott]

He still had a better attendance records than most members of Congress

 

[Riptide]

Probably a Clinton voter. Wait for it ...

 

[cranberry]

Anybody bother asking if he's a good teacher? A young woman who recently started working for me is about 15 minutes late every morning. She gets more done the rest of the day than 95 percent of the people in my office. So you can see where this sounds kind of petty to me.

 

[outofplace]

Actually, stipulating* that he's telling the truth, I don't think he should lose his job. Being one or two minutes late to work for a teacher would not, I think, remotely affect his classroom performance. I would assume that a teacher's scheduled workday starts well before the start time of his/her first class. Now I don't know when the workday starts, and I don't know what's expected -- meetings? announcements? drop-off monitoring? -- during that time between the beginning of the workday and the start of the first class. But I would think there could be some wiggle room there, especially if the teacher in question is OK with making that time up after school on a regular basis.

*Hope I don't run afoul of the "complicated words!" committee with this one.

I made one unsafe assumption here. I'm assuming he was told to stop showing up late and failed to comply. If your employer tells you showing up at a certain time is part of your job and you habitually fail to do so, they have a right to take action. Eventually, that can reach the point of being fired. I was going on the assumption that he had been told to stop coming in late.

As others pointed out, YF didn't express any real interest in determining whether or not the guy is an effective teacher. That was my point as well. There are some people who seem to just want to find a reason to fire teachers to show they are doing something to address education, but making sure the right teachers keep their jobs doesn't seem to matter to them.

 

[Mr. Sunshine]

Gonna go out on a limb and say anyone who uses the "breakfast made me do it" defense is probably not collecting too many accolades.

 

[MisterCreosote]

"One to two minutes" is well within the margin of error in reconciling two different clocks. And, if he wasn't late for "class," what was he late for?

On the other hand, nobody ever notified him that he better shape up or losing his job was a possibility? The story said he never got a notice of disciplinary action, but it also says his salary increases were denied as a disciplinary action.

Seems this is being overturned on a Ryan Braun-esque due process technicality rather than anything else.

 

[JC]

"One to two minutes" is well within the margin of error in reconciling two different clocks. And, if he wasn't late for "class," what was he late for?

On the other hand, nobody ever notified him that he better shape up or losing his job was a possibility? The story said he never got a notice of disciplinary action, but it also says his salary increases were denied as a disciplinary action.

Seems this is being overturned on a Ryan Braun-esque due process technicality rather than anything else.

Maybe he was framed like Ryan Braun was.

 

[Vombatus]

Maybe he was skipping out on morning glory hole duty.

 

[BDC99]

I made one unsafe assumption here. I'm assuming he was told to stop showing up late and failed to comply. If your employer tells you showing up at a certain time is part of your job and you habitually fail to do so, they have a right to take action. Eventually, that can reach the point of being fired. I was going on the assumption that he had been told to stop coming in late.
.

"One to two minutes" is well within the margin of error in reconciling two different clocks. And, if he wasn't late for "class," what was he late for?

On the other hand, nobody ever notified him that he better shape up or losing his job was a possibility? The story said he never got a notice of disciplinary action, but it also says his salary increases were denied as a disciplinary action.

Seems this is being overturned on a Ryan Braun-esque due process technicality rather than anything else.

Yes, the story says the decision was made because he was not subjected to "progressive disciple" so he might have been told, but it was not documented. And as was pointed out above, he was not late to class. But what a stupid defense.

 

[Armchair_QB]

Maybe he was framed like Ryan Braun was.

So you're saying this guy has magic urine?

 

[Double Down]

The important thing to remember is that teachers never have to work when they're off the clock and don't take work home, so he owes the district for those minutes.

 

[outofplace]

So you're saying this guy has magic urine?

What he's saying is that, like you, he can't resist pissing on another thread. (There's a hanging curve for somebody.)