Schools Chancellor Wants To Freeze Full-Time Salaries For Absent Teacher Reserve
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The city schools chancellor wants to put a stop to teachers he says are milking the system by getting paid full salary, without a full time job.
Figures released yesterday show almost 1,800 teachers are on the city's Absent Teacher Reserve list.
Schools Chancellor Joel Klein says the lack of effort many of these teachers are showing to find new jobs is troubling.
Appearing on "Inside City Hall," last night, Klein said it is time for them to stop putting a costly job protection tactic ahead of students.
"Let's give people a reasonable period of time, six months, to get a job. And this way they'll be incentivized to look for one, and if they can get one that's great for the system," said Klein. "But we can't afford -- right now we'll be paying over $100 million, money that I need to give to our schools to be able to hire more teachers, to hire teachers they want, to hire teachers that can help our kids."
In a statement, the head of the United Federation of Teachers blamed the Department of Education for the issue, saying it created the personnel system over union objections, and called on Chancellor Klein to assign teachers to fill vacancies.
Over 700 teachers are on the ATR list, after their positions were cut from individual schools. However, they remain in the system, collecting salary and benefits until they find a new position at another school.