Teacher discipline on Long Island: Why some educators accused of misconduct are fired — while others keep their jobs

A math teacher sent sexually explicit messages to a former student.

A science teacher texted her male high school students that they were “destined” to meet.

And an art teacher allegedly told a student that systemic racism didn’t exist.

Two of the educators lost their jobs while a third was suspended, allowing her to return to the classroom this fall.

In all, the fate of these educators’ jobs was determined by a state-mandated disciplinary process known as 3020-a, which recently gained attention as two Long Island districts sought to fire school principals.

Last month, in a case that made national headlines, a hearing officer ruled against the Amagansett district, which had tried to terminate Principal Maria Dorr over the alleged theft of a $25 gift card. Earlier this month, hearings began for a principal whom the Plainview-Old Bethpage district alleged inappropriately touched two female employees and made sexual innuendoes — accusations the principal, Karen Heitner, denied.

The two cases are focusing new attention on how often districts seek to fire tenured educators and how likely they are to succeed in what can be a very costly proceeding. In Dorr’s case, the arbitrator cleared her of all administrative charges after seven hearings spanning months, with legal costs to the district reaching more than $85,000.

In extreme cases such as that of a Lindenhurst High School teacher accused of verbally abusing students, it took nearly three years and close to $500,000 in legal expenses before the district won its case in 2022. 

“It’s a very high bar to terminate a tenured teacher," said Howard Miller, an attorney who has represented districts in 3020-a cases. In addition to legal costs, he said the districts are often paying the teacher until there is a resolution. "You're taking the teacher out of the classroom and then you are paying for a replacement.”

The same process applies to tenured administrators and staffers.

A Newsday review of disciplinary hearing reports issued on Long Island in the past two years found 17 instances in which a district sought to fire a tenured educator over allegations ranging from texting students improperly to falsifying time sheets. State law requires districts file charges with the state Education Department, which are then heard by an arbitrator.

In about half the cases, a hearing officer ruled the educator be terminated. In the remaining cases, an arbitrator imposed lesser penalties, such as suspensions and fines, according to the documents obtained from the state Education Department and districts through records requests.

The success rate for districts is likely even lower, since in situations like Dorr’s where the educator is exonerated, their disciplinary records are expunged.

Arthur Scheuermann, general counsel for the School Administrators Association of New York State, argued that tenure protects educators from unfair firing and gives schools stability. Districts typically award tenure to educators after their fourth year of probationary employment.

“It serves an important purpose to allow people to manage school districts and to teach children without the fear of losing their job,” said Scheuermann, who represented Dorr in her disciplinary hearing and now represents Heitner. “Otherwise, boards of education can simply get rid of administrators for any reason.”

Because the costs — in time and expenses — for the 3020-a process are so steep, many districts opt to circumvent it. In 2023, a Newsday investigation found district officials on Long Island persuaded 103 educators to resign over a decade, using confidential agreements approved by school boards that did not detail the reasons for their exits.

Settlements can avoid the uncertainty that comes with an arbitration, said Thomas J. Lilly, a hearing officer who has overseen 3020-a cases involving Long Island schools.

“Lawyers since Abraham Lincoln have been encouraging their clients to consider settling and ‘control your own destiny,’ ” Lilly said.

Critics of these so-called quiet resignations say such settlements fail to hold the accused accountable and allow the educator to get a job elsewhere. School officials, however, say districts initiate a separate disciplinary process with the state that could lead to the educator losing their teaching certificates. In some cases, districts said they stipulate in the settlement that the person cannot seek work in another district.

Here are a few of the recent cases that have landed a seasoned educator in front of a hearing officer:

Lucas Georgiadis

The content of the texts Georgiadis sent to an 18-year-old former student was not in dispute. What the math teacher and his employer, the Glen Cove City School District, disagreed on was whether those texts warranted firing him from his job of 19 years.

Georgiadis admitted the messages were inappropriate but he argued they were “at worst distasteful language with another adult," even though the former student had graduated from Glen Cove High School just months prior, according to a ruling in which the hearing officer summarized witness testimonies.

Georgiadis declined to comment through his attorney, Stewart Lee Karlin, who also declined to comment. Superintendent Maria Rianna declined to comment as well.

The student, according to the hearing officer’s summary, became acquainted with Georgiadis because her mother had been his student and they came to consider him a family friend. The teen ate lunch in Georgiadis’ classroom every day during her senior year.

Things took a turn, as hearing officer Leah Murphy noted, after the student graduated in June 2023, beginning with a text Georgiadis sent in July: “You know you are turning into a woman right?”

In the following months, Georgiadis texted the then-college freshman that she was “looking hot.” Murphy described some of the texts as “bizarre,” “cringe-worthy” and ultimately “appalling” when they came to include details about the men the student dated.

The young woman, who testified, said she felt “betrayed,” as she had viewed Georgiadis as a trusted adult.

Georgiadis testified that he regretted discussing his former student’s dating life in intimate detail and wished he could take back the “horrible language” that he used in certain texts.

Despite his remorse, Murphy noted, Georgiadis referred to the student as an adult, “as if her being eighteen years of age, made the conduct less reprehensible.” The hearing officer sided with the district in ruling for termination last fall.

Georgiadis was also found guilty of trying to access erotic literature websites during the school day. He said in court records that the content was inadvertently accessed because his personal phone was automatically connected to the district Wi-Fi.

Georgiadis sued the district in October, seeking a court order to vacate Murphy’s decision. A Nassau Supreme Court judge dismissed the case earlier this month. Karlin on Thursday did not respond to a request for comment about the dismissal.

Stacey Byrnes

• “I feel forever fortunate that you came into my life as a sophomore and I know that our story is far from over.”
• “Aww [heart emoji] that means it’s our 1 year anniversary of knowing each other…I knew literally from the day I met you that I wanted you in my life for the long haul.”
• “I’m going to bed. Night boys :). Love you guys… thx for always making me smile [heart emoji].”

These messages were part of the texts Byrnes, a science teacher at Huntington High School for more than two decades, sent to several students. 

District officials, who discovered hundreds of texts between the teacher and three male students, called some of them “the language of a lover" and characterized them during her disciplinary hearing as flirtatious and confusing to the teenage boys, who were at an impressionable age.

The texts were sent at all hours of the day and night, for at least one year beginning in March 2022, the district alleged during the hearings.

Byrnes did not respond to multiple requests for comment but in the hearings she “unequivocally” denied she had any romantic intentions, according to the arbitrator’s summarization of her testimony. Her “sole intent” was to develop a connection with the students to help them academically, she said.

Teachers texting students is the “cultural norm,” she argued. A mention of a “lunch date” was a reference to lunch meetings and one message was sent on a school-sponsored “P.S. I Love You Day.” Those messages, she argued in her testimony, were to encourage good behavior and show she cared about her students.

In a decision issued last September, hearing officer Julie Torrey wrote she found Byrnes' contention that writing, “You are the one who can light up my room with your smile or calm my chaos with your presence” as a means to encourage good behavior “shocking.”

While Torrey found some of the texts “clearly inappropriate” and Byrnes' misconduct “grave,” the arbitrator considered termination too harsh. The teacher had no prior disciplinary history and was rated effective in her annual performance reviews.

Torrey instead ordered that Byrnes be suspended without pay for the 2024-25 school year.

In a statement, Huntington schools Superintendent Beth McCoy said, “The district has a policy in place that prohibits relationships between staff and students which go beyond professional involvement."

Byrnes’ attorney, Junou Odige, did not respond to messages seeking comment.

Anthony Abruscato

In charges the Westbury district filed against him, the high school art teacher allegedly made the following comments to a student and another teacher:

• “Systemic racism didn’t exist,” and told a student: “If there was systemic racism, why does your mom have such a good job”;
• “Being asexual is a mental illness”;
• “Sicilians are also a minority” and “Indigenous Peoples Day was invalid” or “taken away from Italians.”

But in an interview, Abruscato said the man described in those charges and the hearing officer’s decision was not him. “That’s a character they created,” he told Newsday.

Abruscato has sued the district, seeking a court order to reverse hearing officer Robert Douglas's February decision to terminate him.

What he told the student, Abruscato said in legal filings, was that systemic racism doesn’t exist “legally” in America. Abruscato testified he believes system racism does exist. He brought up the student’s mother’s “good job” to encourage her, he said.

“You're trying to encourage them that there's not going to be a barrier to stop you,” Abruscato told Newsday.

The conversations Abruscato had with the teen also included discussion of LGBTQIA+ issues, which rose out of the teen’s exploration for an art project.

Abruscato said he told the teen, “Asexuality was the last identity that was considered a mental illness.” In court papers, his lawyer argued that the nature of that discussion was academic.

Similarly, his comment that Sicilians were a minority referred to the historical treatment of Sicilians during certain periods in U.S. history, Abruscato and his attorney said.

Abruscato said his comments about Indigenous Peoples Day were about recognition, not invalidation, of both Native and Italian Americans.

The teen, who was 17 when she testified last June holding three stuffed animals, said some of Abruscato’s comments upset her, according to a transcript. She also noted, however, that she liked visiting Abruscato’s classroom after school ended to chat and study.

“He didn’t only talk about the things that I would consider inflammatory,” she said. “He talks about a lot of things that are … often insightful or philosophical.”

Abruscato's attorney argued in the suit that many of his client’s statements took place outside the contractual hours of the school day and were protected speech. Some of his comments were also “misconstrued” when they were meant to “foster critical thinking,” Abruscato argued.

Westbury schools Superintendent Tahira A. DuPree Chase declined to comment.

But officials in the hearings cited examples of other inappropriate comments allegedly made by Abruscato, including when he called a woman “ugly” and said someone else looked good, which a female art teacher said was objectifying women. In another case, Abruscato gave an overweight music teacher the nickname “fat music.”

Abruscato said those remarks were made in jest, which he regrets, and acknowledged that he struggled with impulse control because of his attention deficit hyperactivity disorder.

The district also said Abruscato repeatedly left his classroom unsupervised, leaving teenagers with access to art supplies like knives. Abruscato said he had to take frequent bathroom breaks due to medications requiring him to drink a lot of water and he had left his students in the care of other teachers in his connected classroom.

The hearing officer wrote Abruscato “repeatedly demonstrated difficulty controlling himself” during the four days of hearings and did not show "credible remorse" for his behavior. He found the totality of his actions “so egregious” that he agreed with the district to terminate him.

For Abruscato, who taught in Westbury for more than 15 years, the future is unclear. He said he may move to Florida after selling his mother’s house.

“I am dying inside,” he said. It’s like “taking everything that I have ever known about myself and what I've done and what I built, and it just destroyed [it]. … I felt like I was underwater. No one could hear me, especially about the disability.”

Laura Riekert

It began with a piece of artwork created to celebrate Black History Month in 2022.

Riekert, an art teacher at Harborfields Central School District since 1999, assigned high school students in her studio art class to emulate the work of sculptor Augusta Savage. The clay head sculpture a student made, however, appeared to resemble blackface, and Riekert instructed him to fix it, according to a ruling in which a hearing officer summarized witness testimonies.

But while the piece was being fixed, Riekert said during the hearing, a Black student saw it and confronted her.

Riekert testified that the piece was placed behind a student’s desk with cups of paint and other supplies in the back of her classroom. But hearing officer Julie Torrey, the same arbitrator as in the Huntington case, agreed with the district's contention that the sculpture was in open view and wrote in her summary that she found it “objectionable” that Riekert “failed to have any regard for the feelings of African American students in her school,” including the student who was offended and complained about it.

In her defense, Riekert said she made a few “inadvertent mistakes” but accused the district of making her “a scapegoat for a politically sensitive incident involving the sculpture.”

Riekert’s attorney, Paul Bartels, said in a phone interview that the teacher did her best to navigate a difficult situation, noting that she identified the sculpture as potentially offensive and worked with the student to fix it. He said the student who noticed the sculpture in the back of the room was not in her class and should not have been in the classroom.

“What could Laura have done differently?” he said. “Should she destroy a project created by a student?”

After that incident, district officials said they discovered Riekert falsified time sheets used to document the length of home instruction students received. They charged her with dozens of violations involving the instruction of multiple students over months.

Riekert argued the “bookkeeping errors” were unintentional and made due to lack of proper training and technical issues.

The arbitrator, however, wrote Riekert showed “a flagrant disregard” for the district’s “legal obligations to educate students on leaves of absences" when she failed to correctly document the instruction time a student received. She ruled in favor of termination. 

Bartels acknowledged that Riekert’s time sheets “were not perfect,” but said the district officials admitted during the hearing they did not do a similar review of any other educator’s time sheets.

Bartels said Riekert has not been able to find full time employment since the district fired her.

“I don't think Laura got a fair shake,” he said. “She’s a seasoned, qualified, incredible teacher with a long tenure of success, and she was fired for political reasons.”

A spokeswoman for the Harborfields district declined to comment.