NY1 VIDEO: As NY1 News revisits its 20-year history, the station looks back at reporter J.D. LaRock's February 29, 2000 story about how parents of New York City school kids were just finding out about the broken system that wasted millions of dollars on teachers who weren't even in the classroom.

NY1 FOLLOW-UP: It took a decade, but in 2010, the Department of Education and the UFT finally reached an agreement to abolish the use of so-called "rubber rooms."
Now, instead of showing up at schools without having any work to do, teachers who the DOE is trying to fire are assigned to administrative duties or non-classroom work while their cases are being decided. The investigative process has also been streamlined and speeded up.