December 15, 2003


Hon. Nina Gershon, U.S.D.J.
 U.S. District Court, E.D.N.Y.
 U.S. Courthouse
 225 Cadman Plaza
 Brooklyn, N.Y. 11201

Re: David Roemer v. Board of Education of the City School District of the City of New York, Public Employment Relations Board, Herbert Monte Levy, Joyce Coppin, and Tom Pappas, O1-CV-1105 (NG) (SMG)

Dear Judge Gershon:

I am the plaintiff pro se herein. In my letter dated November 26, 2003, concerning the briefing schedule on my motion for reconsideration, I requested oral argument. I got the order dated December 8, 2003, which makes no mention of oral argument. I am writing now to respectfully ask your honor to reconsider this request.

Another objection I have to the order is that it does not allow me to respond in writing to the defendants' response to my Memorandum in Support of Motion for Reconsideration. By the order's foreclosing all ability by me to respond, both orally and in writing, to expected memoranda in opposition to my reconsideration motion, I believe that the order unfortunately deprives me of procedural due process of law, and that this should be reconsidered. Clearly Local Civil Rule 6.3, applicable to a reconsideration motion, contemplates at a minimum a right to a "reply memorandum," even if the timing of such be regulated by the individual practice rule of your honor concerning motions.

Reading Judge Gold's Report and Recommendation dated December 30, 2002, and the Memorandum and Order dated November 6, 2003, causes me to believe that this court does not understand my lawsuit. I mean no disrespect in saying this, but can't think of any other way to justify asking for the opportunity to explain the case to your honor. This is what I want to explain, for as it stands it seems I have no further opportunity:

I began teaching at Midwood High School in Brooklyn in September 1984 with a license to teach Physics and General Science. Each term I was given a teaching program in Physics which is a rigorous course culminating in an examination given by the Board of Regents.

In February 1990, I was excessed and transferred to Erasmus Hall High School where there was only one section of Physics, compared to the 12 to 14 sections of Physics at Midwood. At Erasmus, I taught General Science and developed a learner-centered method of teaching.

At every lesson I distributed a handout which explained the science concepts the students were expected to learn and which listed activities, problems, and questions the students worked on in class. With this approach, students could learn from my oral presentation, from my written explanation, by doing the activities, and by having one-on-one conversations with me or their classmates. The children in my classes could learn at their own pace according to their individual learning styles.

In September 1994, I transferred to Edward R. Murrow High School. I employed the method of teaching I developed at Erasmus to teach Regents Physics. My supervisors at the new school, being accustomed to more highly-structured lessons and satisfied if not proud of their student's progress in science, gave my lessons unsatisfactory ratings.

I applied for conciliation under Article 24 of the collective bargaining agreement. In December 1994, the Director of Related Staff Services of the Office of the Chancellor sent a letter authorizing conciliation for "the approach that should be used for the teaching of Physics." The conciliation process provided for the assignment of a conciliator who would attempt to draft an agreement binding on both sides and including an enforcement paragraph.

My supervisors did not conciliate in good faith and indeed threatened to file charges against me under Education Law. In May 1994, I filed a grievance against my supervisors pursuant to the collective bargaining agreement.

In September 1995, I was given a teaching program. If defendants truly believed my teaching merited charges, they should not have given me a second academic year of teaching with which must follow a necessary intention to jeopardize the education of students. I am alleging that my supervisors' motive for doing this was to fabricate a fraudulent case against me for incompetence and insubordination. My supervisors' goal was to subvert the conciliation agreement in an unlawful manner.

In March 1996, I was removed from the classroom and in November 1996, the members of the Board of Education voted that there was probable cause for the charges of incompetence and insubordination against me. The defendants, I am alleging, maliciously interfered with my employment with the Board of Education by drafting a misleading specification of charges and making false representations. The specification of charges was misleading because it omitted any reference to the conciliation agreement and to the unresolved grievance. A positive falsehood in the specification of charges is that my supervisors attempted to help me improve my teaching for two school years.

In April 1997, at pre-hearing conferences with a hearing officer held pursuant to Education Law, the dispute was settled. I agreed to be suspended without pay for two months and to give up my appointment to Murrow by transferring to another school.

I claim that the short-lived settlement was unfair because it required me to pay a penalty. I am alleging that my behavior while employed at Murrow was above reproach. I carried out my professional duties as a teacher and subordinate in an exemplary and commendable manner. It was the defendant's behavior that was blameworthy because they brought about an Education Law sec. 3020-a proceeding under false pretenses and in bad faith.

I never felt that I had done anything wrong. I signed the stipulation of settlement to take the matter out of the control of the hearing officer who was not an educator but an attorney on an American Arbitration Association list. The hearing officer selected was well known to the defendants and was beholden to the defendants for past and future assignments as a hearing officer.

Another claim in this lawsuit concerns the breakdown of the settlement. I am alleging that the members of the Board of Education refused to approve the stipulation of settlement (and continued to refuse to approve the stipulation of settlement until the time of the adverse decision of the hearing panel) to retaliate against me for exercising my right to free speech. The free speech occurred in 1994 and 1995 when I was publicly critical of the Board of Education's science curriculum initiatives, school safety programs, and the disagreement between my supervisors and myself about the better method of teaching science.

The failure of the agreement to settle the charges resulted in a seven-day hearing. The evidence was undisputed that the Physics Regents examination results of my students were in line with the other students at this good public high school. The decision of the hearing officer and one panel member was to terminate me. The other panel member said that I should suffer no penalty at all, other than to be remediated at Murrow or to be given a transfer to another school.

I am alleging that my termination was conscience shocking in the extreme. I was never able to get a judicial review of the merits of my termination in New York State court, because of the severe limitations of judicial review prescribed by New York State Education Law sec. 3020-a(5), and I submit that the Education Law sec. 3020-a procedure since 1994 is unconstitutional generally, against the guarantees of procedural due process and equal protection of law. These important subjects on my reconsideration motion, in a case which has seen no discovery and my allegations must be assumed to be true, do not now warrant foreclosing my ability ever to have a day in federal court.

Respectfully submitted,

David Roemer
 345 Webster Avenue, Apt. 4-O
 Brooklyn, N.Y. 11230
 718-438-7375

Plaintiff pro se
CC:
Michael DeLarco (MD 7702), New York City Law Department, 100 Church Street, Room 2-173, New York , New York 10007
Claude I Hersh, New York State United Teachers, Legal Services-New York City, 52 Broadway, 9th Floor, New York, New York 10004
David B. Cohen, Office of Attorney General, 120 Broadway, New York, New York 10271-0332
Herbert Monte Levy, 551 Fifth Avenue, 27th Floor, New York, NY 10176