NEW YORK—It was a slow death for Jamaica High School in Queens. After it was set for closure four years ago for poor performance, the school phased out one grade a year. It shut the doors for the last time in June of this year.
The students moved to other schools, but dozens of their teachers were left in limbo. They are protected from being fired by their union contract, but largely unable to find new jobs. They now rotate from school to school as substitutes, part of the Absent Teacher Reserve (ATR).
James Eterno started his career as a substitute teacher in Jamaica High School.
Now, after teaching social studies for 28 years at the same school, he’s a substitute again.
There are about 1,100 ATR teachers, about half from the almost 200 schools closed during the Bloomberg administration. The other half are teachers charged with misdemeanors who are waiting for the results of their “due process,” as well as teachers rated ineffective by their principals.
ATR teachers still collect full pay and go to work every day, but their assignments aren’t very fulfilling, Eterno said. They hardly get to know the students they teach and spend only a couple of weeks in each school they’re assigned to.
Also, schools don’t need a substitute all the time, so ATR teachers end up helping with other tasks, not necessarily related to teaching. Some reported on social media doing office work or doing nothing at all.
But that’s not something Eterno would be happy about. He'd much rather have a proper job. “I don’t want to spend the rest of my career as a substitute,” he said.
Job Hunting
ATR teachers are free to look for jobs in the city’s 1,800 public schools, and by contract they have to be excused from their temporary assignments for job interviews. The Education Department now even arranges job interviews for them.
Eterno has been to about seven interviews since September, but to no avail. Three of the positions were already filled when he arrived, and the rest fell through.
