7. How Hearing Officers Make Decisions: The Guiding Principles of § 3020-a

The consequences allocated to a teacher who is found guilty as charged can be anything from this list, decided on a case-by-case basis by the § 3020-a Hearing Officer.

7. HOW HEARING OFFICERS MAKE DECISIONS:THE GUIDING PRINCIPLES OF §3020-A

In the official § 3020-a decisions filed with the State Department, Hearing Officers explain and justify their findings and conclusions, frequently referring to the specific guidelines that their decisions must adhere to. As one Hearing Officer writes: [T]he parties do not engage an arbitrator to impose his own version of ‘industrial jurisprudence.’ Instead, they delegate the arbitrator with the responsibility of determining if the actions charged were proven and, if so, was the proposed penalty rational and rooted in the terms and conditions of employment. 21

The role of precedent is paramount in § 3020-a proceedings: Hearing Officers are legally obligated to uphold precedent established by previous § 3020-a cases, and often reference § 3020-a precedent in their decisions. In one case on corporal punishment, for example, the school district proved that a first grade teacher had ordered several students to beat up another student, pulling down the window shades and closing the classroom door while they did so. The teacher was fined 90 days of salary and returned to the classroom. The Hearing Officer emphasized the importance of case precedent in his penalty decision, writing: In addressing the issue of penalty, the Hearing Officer pays particular attention to the number of corporal punishment cases which were submitted by the Respondent [teacher]. The array of penalties imposed by other Hearing Officers for similar instances of corporal punishment ranged from the leveling of a monetary fine through to the imposition of a short term suspension. In contrast…no cases were submitted by the Department [the New York City Department of Education] addressing the issue of penalty in corporal punishment cases. Absent any further guidance on this issue, the Hearing Officer is compelled to impose a penalty which is commensurate with that imposed by others.22 23

Because of this mandatory reliance on precedent, the principles applied in the proceedings are strongly consistent across § 3020-a cases.

21 Case no. 4818 (2004), p. 20 22 Case no. 5288 (2006), p. 19 23 The teacher is referred to as “Respondent” in § 3020-a proceedings. In civil court, the equivalent would be the term “Defendant.”

Underpinning these principles is the “just cause standard,” added to the state’s Education Law in 1994. The just cause standard specifies factors that the Hearing Officer must consider in determining penalties, as well as the imperative of case precedent. As one Hearing Officer writes:

The level of discipline permitted by the just cause principle will depend on many factors, including the nature and consequences of the employee’s offense, the clarity or absence of rules, the length and quality of the employee’s work record, and the practices of the parties in similar cases.24

The just cause standard also strongly emphasizes the concept of teacher rehabilitation in the allocation of discipline, as another Hearing Officer explained: Implicit in the just cause standard—where proof of misconduct has been found—is the issue of rehabilitation and/or remediation. The theory being that an employee who has engaged in misconduct should be examined to see if through the judicious application of discipline, they might be restored to service as an acceptable, properly functioning employee.25

This focus on teacher rehabilitation is discussed in more detail below.

Guiding § 3020-a Principles

The following are the six main principles that are central to § 3020-a decisionmaking, both to assess a teacher’s guilt and to determine the penalty to be allocated:  Assumption of teacher innocence;  Progressive discipline;  Years of employment;  Teachers’ affective characteristics;

 A very high bar for teacher dismissal; and  A dominant focus on teacher rehabilitation.

24 Case no. 5124 (2005), p. 37 25 Case no. 3965 (2002), p. 14