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Accused LA teachers can report home rather than to 'rubber rooms'
Music classroom (stock).
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Stock photo from uncle-leo/flickr Creative Commons
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Los Angeles teachers who are accused of misconduct no longer have to report to so-called "rubber rooms" while they wait for their investigation to be completed.
For years, those teachers have been required to report to the facilities, which are scattered across the district. They usually sit at a cubicle for their eight-hour shift and get paid to do nothing.
Starting Tuesday, they can wait at home instead. Under the new L.A. Unified School District policy, the teachers still have to check in and out at the beginning and end of their shifts. And they are not allowed to leave their house unless it's an emergency.
Teachers' union president-elect Alex Caputo-Pearl believes this is a positive move in the right direction. But he says the district still needs to completely overhaul the way it investigates teachers, because "as of now, there are many, many educators who are housed and who need to be back at their school with their students doing what they're paid for."
Caputo-Pearl says some 300 teachers will be affected by the new policy change.
LAUSD officials say the policy will also be in effect next school year.
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