City moving to fire teacher who blogged his “rubber room” days
A screenshot taken Thursday afternoon of a calendar clock on teacher Francesco Portelos’s website protectportelos.orgshows that it’s been 365 days since he was in his classroom.
On his one-year anniversary today of being pulled from the classroom amid allegations that he had misbehaved, Francesco Portelos learned that a team of investigators had not substantiated any of the most serious allegations against him.
Then, he found out that the Department of Education is planning to try to fire him anyway.
Portelos, a teacher at Staten Island’s I.S. 49 who became famous for blogging and live-streaming about his experience in the “rubber room,” learned about both developments in his case from the press.
“The DOE has not contacted me at all,” he told GothamSchools. “The union has not contacted me.”
The report that Special Commissioner of Investigation Richard Condon released today represented the conclusion of 35 separate allegations made by Portelos and his colleagues at The Berta Dreyfus School I.S. 49 against each other. Investigators found that Portelos might have violated city ethics rules by conducting personal business at school, but they