Come Teach at Our Charter School but Don't Get Pregnant

Advocates for charter schools have argued that the right to hire and fire teachers should be in the hands of principals, while unions argue that teachers need job protections. This argument may play out in the upcoming mayoral race, with Mayor Michael Bloomberg, an advocate for charter schools, stepping down.

A policy right out of 1984 : Have babies in the Summer or you're FIRED.

Against this backdrop, El Diario La Prensa reported on two Spanish teachers in the Bronx who say they were dismissed from a charter school because they became pregnant — and that they were then subjected to the indignity of having lesson plans stolen and being coerced into writing a positive evaluation of the school. The article, which did not include a response to the charges from the school’s principal or the Department of Education, is translated from Spanish below. 

Two teachers at a charter school denounced the way that they were fired. They called the school administration autocratic and discriminatory, and said that favoritism rules.

Loyda Suero, of Dominican heritage, and Leslie Cruz, of Puerto Rican descent, taught Spanish to 5-year-old children this past spring semester in the bilingual Jardín de Infancia classroom, at South Bronx Charter School for International Cultures and the Arts, located at 577 East 139th Street in the Bronx.

However, although both teachers said they had a good relationship with the children, the parents, and the school administration, Suero said that in her case, everything changed when she announced she was pregnant.

“The principal, Evelyn Hey, told me that she wanted a teacher who was going to be with the children for the entire year,” said Suero, age 24, who will give birth in February and promised to only take one month of maternity leave.

Hey told Suero, “I would love for you to come back, but I had a daughter and she got sick with a heart condition, and it took me seven years to return,” indicating to her that teachers have to plan to give birth in the summertime.

[Because the teachers worked at a charter school] “They don’t have the same type of protection that union members have. They can be dismissed without a reason,” said Richard Riley, head of public relations for the United Federation of Teachers.

... full story here

We'd all like to say we're surprised but are we really? Isn't this the model the corporatists are pushing for everywhere and especially hard in eduReformcation these days? They want a timid, terrified workforce of dutiful proles who know BIG REFORMER is watching. They want teachers who can't teach but will try to teach subjects they know nothing about without complaining. They demand complete submission to any and every asinine policy they can spit out over mineral water and sushi at one of their backroom brainstorming sessions. And what better vote of confidence in teacher's unions  could any of us ask for than to sit back and watch how these freaks eat their own. Hieronymus Bosch just sat up in his coffin and banged his head. 

Charter School Reformers Discuss Strategy on Pregnant Teachers

The Principal told the pregnant teacher that she should have her kids over the summer. I guess the world needs more Cancers and Leos ? Has the Commissioner of Education in NY State been appraised of this situation I wonder. As a person of hispanic heritage I have to wonder how he feels about these two hispanic women being harassed and terminated for having families. If there's one thing above all others (o.k. food for one) I admire about the hispanic friends I have met over the years, it's their unflinching devotion to the family. Yet the students in this school will never experience the joy of their teacher returning from the birth of a baby, the stories, the pictures, the name of the baby. Anyone with half a brain and even a small heart still grasps the idea that a teacher having a baby is a party of a huge learning experience. Maybe if they figure out how to squeeze your teacher giving birth into a standardized test somehow the "reformers" can join with the rest of humanity and celebrate life.  Closing remarks from the two fired pregnant teachers : 


“Teachers live in fear of what will happen at the end of the year,” said Cruz. “Will I stay or will I go? We don’t have a union, but with a union, a teacher has rights. It wouldn’t be like this if we had one.” “It’s all a show. They exploit you and then they give you the ax,” declared Suero.


THEY EXPLOIT YOU THEN THEY GIVE YOU THE AXE.   Pretty much, yeah.