About 160 instructors and others get salaries for doing nothing while their job fitness is reviewed. They collect roughly $10 million a year, even as layoffs are considered because of a budget gap.
For seven years, the Los Angeles Unified School District has paid Matthew Kim a teaching salary of up to $68,000 per year, plus benefits. His job is to do nothing.
Every school day, Kim’s shift begins at 7:50 a.m., with 30 minutes for lunch, and ends when the bell at his old campus rings at 3:20 p.m. He is to take off all breaks, school vacations and holidays, per a district agreement with the teacher’s union. At no time is he to be given any work by the district or show up at school. He has never missed a paycheck.
In the jargon of the school district, Kim is being “housed” while his fitness to teach is under review. A special education teacher, he was removed from Grant High School in Van Nuys and assigned to a district office in 2002 after the school board voted to fire him for allegedly harassing teenage students and colleagues. In the meantime, the district has spent more than $2 million on him in salary and legal costs. Last week, Kim was ordered to continue this daily routine at home. District officials said the offices for “housed” employees were becoming too crowded.
About 160 teachers and other staff sit idly in buildings scattered around the sprawling district, waiting for allegations of misconduct to be resolved.
The housed are accused, among other things, of sexual contact with students, harassment, theft or drug possession. Nearly all are being paid. All told, they collect about $10 million in salaries per year — even as the district is contemplating widespread layoffs of teachers because of a financial shortfall.
In New York City public schools, which make up the country’s largest district, teachers are confined to “rubber rooms.” About 550 of the district’s 80,000 teachers spend school hours “literally just doing crossword puzzles, waiting for the end of the day” until their cases are resolved, spokeswoman Ann Forte said. Some have been there for years.
Most cases take months to adjudicate, but some take years. “It’s a glaring example of how hard it is to remove someone from the classroom and how the process is tilted toward teachers,” said school board member Marlene Canter, who recently proposed — unsuccessfully — to revamp the disciplinary process.
This is ridiculous, why on earth should it take so long to resolve these cases? And why are the Unions allowed to get away with restricting reassignment of these teachers to temporary duties? What is wrong with light clerical duties for these people?
