Matter of E.I. and UFT Charter School

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E***** I***** (“complainant”) submitted a complaint regarding the termination of her employment with the UFT Charter School (“school”).  The complaint must be dismissed.

Education Law §2855(4) provides that any individual or group may bring to a charter school’s board of trustees a complaint which alleges a violation of Education Law Article 56, the charter school’s charter, or any other provision of law relating to the charter school’s management or operation.  Thereafter, if the complainant determines that the charter school’s board did not adequately address the complaint, the complainant may present the complaint to the charter school’s charter entity, which must investigate and respond.  If the complainant subsequently determines that the charter entity has not adequately addressed the complaint, he or she may present that complaint to the Board of Regents (“Regents”), which shall investigate, respond, and issue appropriate remedial orders.  Section 3.16 of the Rules of the Regents delegates to the Commissioner of Education the authority to receive, investigate, and respond to complaints, and to issue appropriate remedial orders.

Complainant alleges that she submitted an Education Law §2855(4) complaint to the school’s board of trustees in July 2014.  Complainant is a former teacher at the school whose probationary employment was terminated in the 2014-2015 school year.  In her complaint to the board, complainant alleged that unfair treatment and her conflicts with the school principal, and not complainant’s performance, led to her termination.  After receiving no explicit response from the board, complainant submitted her complaint to the school’s charter entity, the Board of Trustees of the State University of New York (“SUNY”).  SUNY dismissed the complaint, finding that it “[did] not allege a violation of [Education Law Article 56], the school’s charter or other provisions of the law.”  SUNY also determined that there was “no clear indication of the [board]’s response to” the complaint, therefore finding that SUNY did not have jurisdiction over the matter.  Subsequent to receiving SUNY’s determination, complainant filed her complaint with the Regents.  As relief, complainant requests that her final evaluation with the school be expunged from her record or, alternatively, revised to reflect what complainant believes to be an accurate evaluation.

I have investigated and examined complainant’s allegations and all materials submitted by complainant to support the complaint.  There is nothing in the record to suggest that the termination of complainant’s probationary employment was improper.  Moreover, there is nothing in the record which establishes that the school – which has ceased operations as a charter school - maintains any personnel records on complainant which could be revised, as complainant has requested.  To this end, there is nothing in the record which establishes that the relief sought can be granted.  Accordingly, the complaint is moot with respect to its demand(s) for relief.

As a result of the foregoing, therefore, the complaint must be dismissed in its entirety.

THE COMPLAINT IS DISMISSED.

IN WITNESS WHEREOF, I, Betty A. Rosa, Commissioner of Education of the State of New York, for and on behalf of the State Education Department, do hereunto set my hand and affix the seal of the State Education Department, at the City of Albany, this                    day of                2021.

Commissioner of Education