Court says teacher wrongly prevented from hearing student’s testimony

On Board Online • May 27, 2013

By Pilar Sokol
Deputy General Counsel

A state appellate court has remanded a case in which a teacher who was the subject of a disciplinary proceeding under section 3020-a of New York’s Education Law was excluded from the hearing while the complaining witness testified. A lower court had previously confirmed the hearing officer’s decision in favor of the school district.

The complaining witness in Stergiou v. NYC Dep’t of Education was a student who alleged the teacher hit him. The teacher argued her exclusion from the hearing while the student testified violated her constitutional right to confront the witnesses against her. In addition, it violated an absolute similar right afforded by Section 3020-a of the state’s Education Law.

The Appellate Division of state Supreme Court, First Department, disagreed that section 3020-a confers such an absolute right. In any event, her failure to object to her exclusion during the hearing waived that argument.

However, the First Department noted that nothing in the record indicated the existence of a “compelling competing interest” on the part of the student which might have warranted the teacher’s exclusion during his testimony. The record was devoid of any finding that the teacher’s presence would have caused the student trauma or interfered substantially with his ability to testify.

The First Department sent back the case for the hearing officer to take testimony from the student in the teacher’s presence