AN APPLE & A FIX FOR THE TEACHER

What do you do with someone who has an eight-bag-a-day heroin habit
along with an inordinate attraction to marijuana and booze? Let her
teach fourth grade in New York City, of course. Hey, she's gotta pay
for her drugs somehow.

The individual in question has been conducting — if that term is
applicable here — a special-education class at Public School 134 in
Brooklyn. She has worked at the school for about a year, and her
supervisors reportedly have been keeping special tabs on her since
September. Isn't that reassuring?

The woman is said to have smoked pot daily and used her lunch hour to
get in a heroin fix or two, but word is that her supervisors suspected
only a "run-of-the-mill" behavior problem.

Makes you wonder how "behavior problem" is being defined in the city's
schools.

Supposedly, she wasn't fired because the school had no one to replace
her. That's funny. Cheech and Chong aren't doing much at the moment.
They could have filled in.

The woman's not-insignificant drug problems came to public light only
when, in the throes of withdrawal, she checked herself into a private
hospital. Doctors were appalled to discover she was a teacher.
Convinced that she posed a significant threat to the children in her
"care," the docs wanted to buck confidentiality laws and release her
medical records to the Board of Education. They filed suit, and the
spit hit the fan.

Luckily, the junkie is only a substitute. Ergo, she cannot avail
herself of the United Federation of Teachers' tenure protections.
Thank heavens. Yesterday, as the educrats finally prepared to give her
her walking papers, she spent her time in a district office — the
standard reassignment gig for city teachers facing disciplinary
action. We cannot be hasty in such matters, you know.

That apparently was also the guiding principle for her supervisors,
who placed a classroom full of children in her charge day after day
for months. Poor thing. They merely judged her to be a demoralized and
ineffective teacher.

Well, then, no wonder she wasn't ousted. That's par for the course in
some New York City classrooms.

Just how long her presence in the school would have been tolerated is
anybody's guess. It is the stuff of nightmares.

But if that's not enough to scare you, think about this: Is she the
only one?