Michael Loccisano
Slapping fifth-graders across the face. Creeping up behind students in class and whispering, “I will hurt you.” Putting 10-year-olds in chokeholds. Threatening a colleague, “Cash me outside, I will cut you, bitch.”
A tenured New York City public school teacher was recommended for termination by Board of Education (BOE) officials after an internal probe found him guilty of—among other things—corporal punishment, excessive physical force, inappropriate contact, neglect of duty, and conduct unbecoming his position. But when an arbitration hearing officer gave Christopher Nickelson of Brooklyn’s Elijah G. Stroud Elementary School little more than a trivial rebuke over his alleged wrongdoing, the BOE sued to have the decision vacated and Nickelson fired.
“[T]he only rational penalty to be imposed is termination or another penalty matching the severity of the misconduct,” BOE lawyers said in a court petition filed Friday and obtained by The Daily Beast.