The New York Times recently reported that an arbitrator fell asleep while presiding over a teacher termination hearing in New York. The hearing concerned a New York City school teacher with nearly a decade of experience in the school system who had received three unsatisfactory ratings between 2005 and 2008. Teacher termination hearings are notorious for their complexity, as both the teachers’ union and the board of education typically present voluminous evidence regarding a teacher’s ability to perform effectively in the classroom. In Connecticut, both tenure and non-tenure teachers can be terminated for the following reasons: (1) inefficiency or incompetence; (2) insubordination against the reasonable rules of the board of education; (3) moral misconduct; (4) disability, as shown by competent medical evidence; (5) reduction in force; and (6) other due and sufficient cause. To read the full text of the article, please click here.