Here is the mayor's full comment on why so few sexual harassment complaints are substantiated at the Department of Education as reported by Politico:
“Any sincere reporting, whether it’s about sexual harassment or, you know, cheating on tests or anything, we take very, very seriously,” de Blasio said during an unrelated press conference on Wednesday. “But it is a known fact that unfortunately there’s been a bit of a hyper-complaint dynamic sometimes for the wrong reasons. So I think that has inflated their numbers. We need to address that cultural reality within the DOE."
Who is this guy kidding? He even doubled down on his dumb comment in explaining himself.
“Some are absolutely sincere — many, I’m sure, are absolutely sincere. We take them very seriously, we have to investigate everything. We treat everything with equality when it comes to investigating,” de Blasio said. “But I’m also trying to be honest about something that’s different at DOE than at a lot of other places, and it’s a pretty well-known thing in the education world. Some people inappropriately make complaints for other reasons, not just — I’m not even sure it’s ever about sexual harassment. But it is unfortunately part of the culture.”
This blog has said for years that DOE employees are not taken seriously when they use the Department of Education's internal review procedures, including oftentimes the UFT grievance procedure, for any complaints.
On sexual harassment, the actual numbers show that only seven out of 471 sexual harassment complaints were substantiated over the last four years. That's less than 1.5%. 98.5% of us are inappropriately making complaints "for other reasons" according to the mayor.
There are 135,000 DOE full time workers according to Politico. Seven substantiated sexual harassment complaints in four years with over 135,000 employees? In case you are wondering, the average substantiation rate across all city agencies for sexual harassment is 17% according the Politico. Something is very wrong at the DOE. For Mayor de Blasio to claim that they take our complaints "very seriously" is totally not borne out by the numbers.
Meanwhile Sue Edelman from the NY Post continues her excellent reporting exposing the DOE's nonsense. Her latest piece concerns a principal who suspended a teacher's aide because she yawned.
Marie Desforges, the head of PS 328 in Brooklyn, suspended a teacher’s aide for five days without pay last week for “professional misconduct” — yawning.
In a disciplinary letter, Desforges told Edsheda Brown, “You yawned loud enough for me to hear you while I was walking down the hallway” outside a staff meeting.
What’s more, Desforges accused the aide of insubordination over the yawn.
When the principal told the aide the yawn was “inappropriate,” “you stated to me, ‘What, that is how I yawn,’” the letter says.
Teachers said Brown, aghast, asked the principal, “Are you trying to reprimand me for yawning? It’s a bodily function.”
Faculty at the East New York elementary school have felt under siege by Desforges since she took charge last September in her first days as a city principal.
Yet another principal from hell in New York City schools.The scariest part for me is that nobody who works in the schools will be in the least bit surprised by either one of these two articles. These should be shocking stories.
More likely, people will yawn and say, so what else is new? For which they could be reprimanded by another principal from hell.
Our Union is corrupt too.
ReplyDeleteDeBlasio should apologize for that comment - it was insensitive, untrue and outrageous. If a teacher said it to a principal he or she would be in the rubberroom. Live under DeBlasio is worse than under Bloomberg, and Mulgrew still has his nose in his anus.
ReplyDeleteJames,
ReplyDeleteThe sexual harassment problem is actually worse than anyone thinks.
In 2016, more than 75% of NYC public school teachers were women. In the same year, 58% of all NYC employees were women and the only reason that there is such a preponderance of women in NYC government is because of teachers--think about the number of female NYC police officers (20%), firefighters (0.5%) and sanitation workers (2.9%) and you realize how much the entire NYC workforce is made up of female teachers.
This means that there are a vanishingly small number of female teachers whose sexual harassment complaints are ever substantiated.
I hope the MORE-NA members of the UFT Executive Board will make this an important issue at the Board's next meeting....it's that important.
https://steinhardt.nyu.edu/site/research_alliance/2017/02/28/what-is-the-gender-breakdown-of-nyc-teachers/
Extremely urgent. I saw a kid grab a teacher’s buttocks with both hands. 23 year old teach and 17 year old thug. I was in the room - teacher ran out crying. Nothing was done to the student because the principal told her to forget it if she wanted tenure and a good evaluation.
DeleteHarassment complaints have got to be taken seriously and in a way that encourages people to come forward when they feel they have been infringed upon. No doubt.
ReplyDeleteAbout complaints *in general*, though, there is a culture of complaints in the doe. It has caused a lot of letters to file and cost a lot of people their jobs. That gotcha squad is real and it felt great seeing a mayor call it a hyper-complaint dynamic. Those in the know (the ones who have been through a 3020) know that people's jobs. ...from osi investigators to the lawyers on both sides and even the hearing officers ... depend on this hyper complaint dynamic. I am saying this anonymously out of fear for being investigated, James. But there is close to $8 million I'm salaries at OSI last time I checked and they're not about to lose their jobs. If those comments were also about that complaint dynamic .. which is how I had read them .. then I am glad he made them and I hope he dismantles the process (which can still be done with the stroke of a pen!).
If he was just talking about sex harassment, then i agree with you.
NYC's "Brightest" voted for the clown that endorsed this clown.
ReplyDeleteThe people get the government they deserve, and the union gets the leadership they deserve.
9:35 Sunday, I did not read the Mayor's comments the way you did. I read it as the mayor saying we the employees do the hyper-complaining.
ReplyDeleteHarris, Thanks for adding to this. That makes the case even stronger that the system is a farce.
ReplyDeleteWe need more than an anoynmous comment to do anything here.
ReplyDeleteSimple, give us the name of the principal and school and we will have it in the NY Post tomorrow and hand this info to the Chancellor.
ReplyDeleteHowie, It was several years ago - principal is gone and teacher is gone. It wasn't the first time I've seen crap like that - I was in a class last year and the whole class sexually harassed a teacher - she ran out of the building. I reported it to the principal who did what he could - the whole climate there was terrible for the very good looking, predominately white female staff. Both that teacher and principal are gone. If you report this stuff you put a target on your back - no one will back you, including the sexually harassed staff that are afraid of discontinuance and crappy UFT.
ReplyDeleteI would have done it for you. Post it next time, with current info...
ReplyDeleteIf the DOE was to suspend or take action on every student that told a teacher to "Suck my D...", the schools would be half empty every day.
ReplyDeleteThis student grabbed...
ReplyDeleteThe only way it gets cleaned up is if people come forward immediately in droves. We have to tell it like it is.
ReplyDeleteIt was my first class at a new school back in 1988 and the kid said "suck my d--k". I asked the class if anyone had a microscope. That was the end of that. The class was hysterical and the asshole was silenced. No dean or security necessary. The kid putting his hands on me would have had a much different outcome. That would never have happened back then but this shithole mayor without a brain thinks crap kids like that should get "restorative justice" or whatever the bullshit cliche of the week is. That and calling the parent at 6:45 or 7 AM on a workday, or putting my narrative into Google Tramslate and calling the Spanish speaking parent at 9 AM on a Sunday, translation in hand. DeBlasio is horrible
ReplyDeleteI remember a teacher who called a parent at 2:30 in the morning! I don't know how he kept his job-later he was even offered an administrative job, at another school.
ReplyDelete