Teacher and coach Raymond Ramirez shattered a 15-year-old girl on DeWitt Clinton HS’s swim team in August 2012 when he remarked to a teammate that she should “deal with the hair” on her bikini line.
“Now I don’t feel comfortable around him, especially in a bathing suit,” the girl told school officials, sobbing. He often made the girls uneasy, she recalled, by “holding our hands, kissing our cheeks, blowing us kisses goodbye, touching our backs — it was all just a little too much.”
Such behavior had gone on for years. In 2010 and 2011, letters put in Ramirez’s file warned him to stop commenting on girls’ weight and appearance after two girls complained.
But it still wasn’t enough for the city Department of Education to fire Ramirez, who also coached the girls’ swim team at La Guardia HS in Manhattan.
Last December, after an administrative trial stretching from July to October, hearing officer Doyle Pryor let Ramirez off with a $5,000 fine and a requirement to take a workshop on harassment.
“It’s an outrageous outcome and an example of how the interests of adults are put ahead of the interests of kids,” said Dan Weisberg, executive vice president of the New Teacher Project, a Brooklyn nonprofit that works with schools on teacher quality.
It’s the type of case that led a California judge to rule last week that the state’s tenure rules make it difficult to fire bad teachers and violate students’ right to an equal education.
New York gives teachers similar job protections. State law requires that an independent hearing officer decide whether a tenured teacher is guilty of charges and, if so, set the punishment.
Each termination case, including witness testimony, cross-examination and arguments, can drag on for months and cost hundreds of thousands of dollars.
Of 133 educators taken to trial since 2013, the city Department of Education has gotten just 50, or 37.6 percent, fired, it said. In 77 cases, hearing officers found the employees guilty of poor performance or wrongdoing, but imposed lesser penalties. Six cases were dismissed.
Among the cases:
- Cheating while administering or grading Regents exams didn’t amount to a fireable offense. Osman Abugana, a teacher at Medgar Evers College Preparatory School in Brooklyn, erased and raised the scores for five students on a Regents physics exam in June 2011. His defense? It was “scrubbing,” and everybody did it. He claimed ignorance of a rule forbidding it. A hearing officer suspended Abugana one semester and ordered him to bone up on testing and grading.
- Howard Stiefel found firing too harsh for Louis Volpato, a gym teacher at Francis Lewis HS in Queens, who repeatedly made offensive comments to his charges in 2010-11. “These Chinese students need to go back to their country. They don’t belong here,” teens quoted him as saying. Two kids asked to be removed from his class. Stiefel slapped him with a 60-day suspension.
- Gross ineffectiveness wasn’t enough to get some teachers tossed by hearing officers who felt they deserved a chance to improve. Ingrid Linton, a teacher at the High School of Hospitality Management in Manhattan, stood by as her students slept at their desks, read magazines and played video games. She was fined $10,000 and required to take a course on classroom management. Maggie Maksuta, a second-grade teacher at PS 72 in The Bronx, ran a classroom where students played with rulers and jewelry, talked about tattoos, and sat at computers that were turned off. She was suspended six months and sent to another school.
Michael Mazzariello, a former chief prosecutor of DOE teachers, faults administrators.
“The principals say we need to get rid of these teachers, but it’s the principals who gave them tenure and rated them ‘satisfactory’ year after year,” he said.
Deven Black, librarian
Castle Hill MS, Bronx
Touched a 13-year-old girl and told her she “looked sexy” after being warned about making inappropriate comments to students.
30-day suspension
Nancy Green Madia, ESL teacher
Manhattan Academy for Arts and Language, Manhattan
Ran a “chaotic” classroom so loud that other teachers repeatedly checked in to make sure no one was getting hurt.
Four-month suspension, required courses.
Nicole Moreno-Lieberman, dean
Bronx Expeditionary Learning HS, Bronx
Failed to alert parents about a suicide note their son wrote in school until after he cut his wrists and threatened to jump off a roof.
$700 fine
Raymond Ramirez, teacher and girls’ swim coach
DeWitt Clinton HS, Bronx.
Repeatedly touched and kissed girls. Told one, “I noticed your tan lines are quite dark.” Suggested to a girl that her teammate should trim her pubic hair. Warned before not to comment on girls’ weight and appearance.
$5,000 fine; required to take a workshop on sexual harassment
Joseph Puleo, social studies teacher
New Dorp HS, Staten Island
Cursed repeatedly in front of his class, and called a student a “spic.”
$5,000 fine