TERMINATION OF TEACHER BASED ON HER SUBMISSION OF INACCURATE TIME SHEETS, UNDER THE CIRCUMSTANCES, SHOCKS THE CONSCIENCE.
The First Department, over a two-justice dissent, determined the termination of a teacher for submitting inaccurate time sheets was not warranted. The teacher had an unblemished record and the misconduct was precipitated by Hurricane Sandy, which flooded her home and the home of her disabled student:
Petitioner filled out the time sheets in question in advance of the dates to which those time sheets pertained. Although she did not, in fact, proceed to provide instruction to the disabled student on the days set forth in those time sheets, she submitted the time sheets without correction on a subsequent date. Because petitioner instructed other students on each of the dates in question, she would have received the same salary regardless of how many students she had instructed or how many hours she had spent with them, and thus derived no benefit from her actions. Petitioner’s misconduct is more a matter of lax bookkeeping than implementation of any venal scheme. There was no scheme to defraud or theft of services on petitioner’s part, and the harm to the public and to the DOE was mitigated. * * *
At the hearing, petitioner admitted that she was guilty of submitting reports stating that she had provided instruction to the disabled student on certain dates when she had not done so and that she had reported to various schools and libraries on certain dates when she had not done so. As petitioner acknowledges, her misconduct warrants punishment, since the disabled student was deprived of the services of a teacher for two months. Petitioner does not seek to set aside the findings of misconduct contained in the hearing officer’s opinion, but only to modify the penalty imposed on her. She has acknowledged her error in judgment and has pledged to change her practices and never to repeat the error. There is no evidence that “petitioner could not remedy her behavior” … . Matter of Beatty v City of New York, 2017 NY Slip Op 01628, 1st Dept 3-2-17
EDUCATION-SCHOOL LAW (TERMINATION OF TEACHER BASED ON HER SUBMISSION OF INACCURATE TIME SHEETS, UNDER THE CIRCUMSTANCES, SHOCKS THE CONSCIENCE)/EMPLOYMENT LAW (EDCUATION-SCHOOL LAW, TERMINATION OF TEACHER BASED ON HER SUBMISSION OF INACCURATE TIME SHEETS, UNDER THE CIRCUMSTANCES, SHOCKS THE CONSCIENCE)/MUNICIPAL LAW (EDCUATION-SCHOOL LAW, TERMINATION OF TEACHER BASED ON HER SUBMISSION OF INACCURATE TIME SHEETS, UNDER THE CIRCUMSTANCES, SHOCKS THE CONSCIENCE)