Catherwood LibraryILR School

A source of great embarrassment for the city of New York and the United Federation of Teachers (UFT) - rubber rooms for teachers - have been done away with in an agreement reached yesterday between Mayor Bloomberg and the city's various teachers unions. Rubber rooms are the infamous holding tanks for teachers accused of misconduct or incompetency, where teachers might wait for months or years, showing up to work every day for full salary but with nothing to do. Under the new agreement, accused teachers will be assigned to administrative or other duties during an investigation/trial. Additionally, the agreement hopes to speed up the process of removing teachers - 550 NYC teachers currently spend the workday in rubber rooms, and only three have been fired in the last two years. The agreement sets new time limits for reporting and filing charges against teachers.