A Queens elementary- school teacher brazenly helped fourth-graders cheat on the state’s high-stakes English exams, even though there was a second proctor in the room, probers found.
Former PS 19 teacher Joel Rauch walked around the test-taking room with an answer key in his hands, and told pupils when they had answered questions incorrectly, teachers and some students testified.
Rauch appeared to help only kids in his class — and not those taught by other teachers, students said.
When a teacher who had seen Rauch’s conduct told him what he had done was unethical, he “shrugged his shoulders, saying he wanted to know ‘how [his] kids were doing,’ ” the report found.
Rauch, 64, denied the allegations, and said his students scored among the highest of any class in the school the next year, when he wasn’t a proctor. He retired in June.