IN RE: Cynthia JOHNSON (2019)

Order, Supreme Court, New York County (Debra A. James, J.), entered on or about May 2, 2017, which denied the petition to vacate an arbitration award terminating petitioner's employment as a schoolteacher, and confirmed the award, unanimously affirmed, without costs.

The court properly denied the petition and confirmed the award.  Petitioner failed to meet her burden of showing any ground that would warrant vacatur (Education Law § 3020–a[5];  CPLR 7511[b][1] ) or that the award was arbitrary and capricious or unsupported by adequate evidence (see City School Dist. of the City of N.Y. v. McGraham, 17 N.Y.3d 917, 919, 934 N.Y.S.2d 768, 958 N.E.2d 897 [2011];  Matter of Asch v. New York City Bd./Dept. of Educ., 104 A.D.3d 415, 418–419, 960 N.Y.S.2d 106 [1st Dept. 2013] ).  The Hearing Officer's determination sustaining charges of incompetency is amply supported by the evidence, including six written reports of formal and informal observations of petitioner's teaching over the course of two years.  While the Hearing Officer found that the testimony of the assistant principal was not credible, he did credit her written contemporaneous reports of formal observations, as well as the testimony and observation reports of the school principal and a peer intervention observer, all of whom consistently found petitioner's teaching and classroom management skills to be unsatisfactory.  There exists no basis to disturb the Hearing Officer's credibility determinations and his weighing of the evidence (see Matter of Asch, at 420, 960 N.Y.S.2d 106), and petitioner's assessment of the quality of her lessons was insufficient to overcome the evidence of her deficiencies.

Under the circumstances presented, the penalty of termination does not shock our sense of fairness (see e.g. Matter of Broad v. New York City Bd./Dept. of Educ., 150 A.D.3d 438, 53 N.Y.S.3d 295 [1st Dept. 2017];  Matter of Ajeleye v. New York City Dept. of Educ., 112 A.D.3d 425, 976 N.Y.S.2d 68 [1st Dept. 2013] ).