As was written on August 13, Francis Blake a teacher at PS 157 in the Bronx was found guilty of incompetence and suspended two months without pay. He was also fined five thousand dollars for dozing off for ninety seconds, but more on that in a bit.
But the rape of Francis Blake's career continues. Today Francis got an amended finding by arbitrator Alan Berg. Mr Berg rescinded the suspension and instead now is fining Francis two months pay for incompetency which comes to about $13, 497. This is in addition to the five thousand dollars Francis has been fined for the ninety second snooze.
One of the incompetence charges against Francis stems from a social studies lesson that he did with a kindergarten class in January 2007. Francis had a pre-observation meeting with Assistant Principal Beverly Andrews. The lesson was to be on police officers. Ms Andrews approved the book Francis was to read to the class, "A Day With Police Officers," by Jan Kottke.
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Francis performed the lesson verbatim that Beverly Andrews approved. But Francis received an unsatisfactory rating for the lesson. One of the discrepancies Ms Andrews pointed out was the book was not appropriate for the lesson. WHAT? Yes, you are right. Ms Andrews already approved the book. How can this be? Ms Andrews cited that the print was too small.
Here is a page from that book:
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Looks just fine to me. So what be the problem Ms Andrews?
Now as far as the snoozing. In September 2006 Francis was asked to go to a special ed. class to help with dismissal. The para for that class had been receiving special treatment in being allowed to leave school early by Principal Ramona Duran to get to her undergrad classes. Francis was in no way supervising the class, the teacher was already there, nor was he giving a lesson. Francis sat down in the rocking chair and dozed for ninety seconds. He was woken up by AP Beverly Andrews.
Now in no way is Francis' actions being condoned. Shit happens. The day before Francis injured his back. He had never done anything like this before or since. He apologized profusely the following day. Yet, Principal Ramona Duran chose to put a letter in his file when she could have very well have given him a counseling memo. She was out to nail him. Plain and simple.
Why did the arbitrator decide to come down so hard on Francis? He owned up to the dozing off. Others, and the arbitrator admitted it, have continually lied and offered false and perjured testimony. Is that not right Ramona Duran? It is not like Francis committed some lewd and lascivious act in an adult book store a la DR Mychael Willon. So what gives here?
Francis is out over $18,000 becuase of a vindictive, lying principal. He is out $18,000 because of some LIS who can't wait till he gets home to pleasure himself and has a false doctorate choosing to continue to show a lack of character and testify falsely against Francis.
He is out over $18,000 because the system and those that run it are out of control.