Metro

City tries to cut down teachers without permanent jobs

The city is trying to reduce a stockpile of 1,131 outcast teachers on the payroll without permanent jobs — first by offering buyouts, then assigning them to school vacancies.

But the efforts will barely make a dent in the Absent Teacher Reserve, which costs taxpayers $100 million a year, critics say.

Educators in the reserve pool, known as ATRs, mainly rotate from school to school as substitutes. They have until Monday to accept severance offers, with the maximum buyout — for a teacher with at least 20 years experience and the current top salary of $100,049 — of 10 weeks pay, or $19,240.

Many ATRs call the offer “insulting,” and experts predict few will bite.

Starting Oct. 15, ATRs also “will be given a temporary provisional assignment” in schools with vacancies in their license ­areas, the Department of Education agreed in the new teachers contract.

But despite the contract’s strong wording, DOE officials say principals have “no obligation to use them in a vacancy,” and can always toss them back into the ATR pool.

“There is no forced placement of these teachers,” said DOE spokesman Harry Hartfield.

ATRs and critics doubt the city’s plans will break the costly logjam.

“There’s nothing in there that’s going to get rid of the ATR pool. The only way to do that is simple — place us,” said James Eterno, a 28-year social-studies teacher who became an ATR in June when Jamaica HS closed.

“It’s frustrating looking for work like I just got out of college,” he said.

Before 2005, principals had to hire excess teachers before recruiting new ones. Under then-Mayor Bloomberg, principals gained sole discretion in hiring, thus causing the ­excess pool to balloon.

Higher-paid ATRs say principals have snubbed them in favor of rookies at starting pay because teacher salaries come out of a school’s budget.

While many ATRs lost their jobs in school downsizings or closures, a growing number are branded with a “problem code” after the DOE tried unsuccessfully to fire them. In the past two years, hearing officers have slapped at least 221 teachers with fines and suspensions for misconduct or incompetence — and most were sent into the ATR pool.