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The DOE’s yellow star branding of disciplined teachers is such a bad idea, the apotheosis of anti-teacherism, that the mayor will soon kill it and apologize for its HUAC echo.
Not to brag, I’ve earned eight flags courtesy of OSI, OEO, and SCI. With no help from the UFT or NYSUT I beat every rap. In 2010, an Arbitrator acquitted me of three preposterous charges and wacked the DOE’s theories, investigators, and witnesses.
While I salute Lynne Winderbaum’s broadside, I wish that she had discussed the UFT’s unconscionable abandonment of members to the rogue cops of SCI and the DOE. In Winderbaum’s roll of anecdotes, why was there no mention of UFT representation at the OSI or Superintendent level when there is still a chance to stymie a fraudulent case. The answer is that the UFT does NOTHING for us until we’re already trapped in the quicksand of 3020-a (termination) charges. And even then, milquetoast NYSUT attorneys win few acquittals.
As District rep, why didn’t Winderbaum blow the whistle on corrupt investigators bent on destroying the lives of her brothers and sisters? Why do we let Mulgrew and the Unity gang get away with forsaking us when we need them the most?

Philip,
   It’s great to hear you beat the charges. I have not been charged yet and sit in the rubber room. My story is last on the list above. Could you give me some advice?
Francesco Portelos
protectportelos.org

So glad you asked. The DOE charged me with two counts of corporal punishment and one count of discrimination. Hearing Officer Roger P. Kaplan threw out all three specifications in his December 21, 2010 decision, noting that key DOE witnesses lied and that the DOE investigators were incompetent. However, as you point out and as I have written elsewhere, Kaplan capriciously fined me $10,000 for two matters that I was not charged with, neither of which violated any regulation, and one of which the DOE attorney specifically said on the record that I was not charged with. That is what I meant by beating the DOE’s charges. What I did not beat in my pro se way was the shameful proclivity of arbitrators like the imperious Kaplan to cheat justice by splitting verdicts to hang on to their lucrative jobs. Hold your nose and read on:
Specification 1, wherein on May 10, 2007 I allegedly “a) Grabbed Student A by the arm” and “b) Pushed Student A toward the classroom door.”  From the beginning I affirmed a harmless, fleeting grab of a boy’s arm while attempting to quell a major classroom disruption inflamed by a large 10th grade girl who had made a recent death threat. I denied the push and the Arbitrator believed me. He wisely judged that the fleeting grasp of Student A did not fit the Chancellor’s Regulation defining corporal punishment as “any act of physical force upon a pupil for the purpose of punishing that pupil.”  Thus he concluded: “Nobile did not violate A-420 by imposing corporal punishment on Student A.” Nevertheless, he went hardcore on me: “[Nobile’s] use of physical force on Student A was totally unacceptable. That is so even if A thought it was no big deal.” Thus a split verdict: innocent of a punitive push, but guilty, guilty, guilty of a non-punitive grab (i.e. inappropriate physical contact–which under Chancellor’s Regulation A-420 does not rise to chargeable misconduct! 
Specification 2, on May 29, 2007 I allegedly “a) Grabbed Student D by the arm and b) Pushed Student D into a wall.” This incident began with a mini-riot among students. Principal Ken Cuthbert did not alert the Online Occurrence Reporting System as required by Chancellor’s Regulations, nor in violation of Chancellor’s Regulations did he inform the police of my assault complaint against Student D, who jumped me as I tried to break up the fight.  At the school’s subsequent Safety Committee meeting Cuthbert congratulated himself for covering up the donnybrook. His secretary’s meticulous minutes read: “Mr. Cuthbert said that the alternative for the students involved in the fight was having a stain on their records, because of the severity of the fight.” My record, however, was suitable for splotching. Without bothering to interview me, the principal hastened to input my alleged manhandling of Student D, which of course never happened. The only witness to my alleged corporal punishment was Michelle Williams, a grudge-bearing para. Kaplan determined that she lied:
“The Department urged the undersigned to credit Ms. Williams’ account of what happened between Student D and Mr. Nobile. I am unable to do so. There are major credibility problems with Williams’ testimony. … Williams’ testimony did not hold up under cross-examination. Her version of events was internally inconsistent. … The discrepancy between her note and her testimony is fatal to her credibility. … Nobile immediately and consistently denied grabbing and pushing Student D. He immediately formally complained about Student D assaulting him. There is every reason to believe Nobile, and several reasons not to believe Williams and student D. Specification 2 is not sustained.”
Kaplan also took a shot at the notoriously corrupt OSI investigator Dennis Boyles for what I argued was planting damaging evidence and excluding exculpatory evidence in his report: “Nobile claimed that Boyles was biased against him. While I find no reason to conclude that Boyles was intentionally biased, there are discrepancies in Boyles’ handwritten notes and his investigative report which raise questions about how the Department would have handled this allegation had it been privy to both Boyles’ notes and report.”
 
In Specification 3, the DOE accused me of stating in a Brooklyn rubber room in October 21, 2009 “words to the effect of: (a) I will control those Negroes at that table (referring to a table containing African-Americans).” Note the qualifier—“words to the effect of”—meaning that the DOE was vague as to what I actually said.
Where did DOE lawyers come up with that paraphrase? It was not in the findings of the original report from the Chancellor’s Office of Equal Opportunity. OEO officer William Brewton offered a different construction of my remark: “This investigation has substantiated that by stating, in sum and substance, ‘I’m going to tell these Negroes to quiet down,’ Mr. Nobile violated Chancellor’s  Regulation A-830.” (emphasis in original)  Note the switch from “control” to “quiet down” and the continuation of a qualifier.
The conflict in language sprang from two versions of the incident—the complainant’s and mine. Richard Walker, the complaining black teacher, told OEO that on one morning I approached him in the rubber room and just blurted out: “I will control those Negroes at that table.” Nothing more. I told OEO a different story: I was merely quoting Walker who asked me first, “Are you going to tell those Negroes to quiet down?” referring to a noisy faraway table and my periodic requests to lower the volume in our overcrowded space. Thinking he was joking, I  replied, “No, I’m going to tell these Negroes to quiet down,” referring to an often noisier nearby table where he sat.
Although the OEO investigator and the DOE lawyers could not agree on my verb–whether the polite “quiet down” or the uppity “control,” they were unanimous that “Negroes” was discriminatory per se and violated Chancellor’s Regulation A-820, though they cited no evidence of the supposed racist tinge.
Granted the preponderance of indecision around my remark, Kaplan hedged on my exact saying. On page thirty-one of his thirty-nine-page decision, he wrote: “Nobile acknowledged saying words to the effect I am going to control those Negroes.” Yet four pages later, without explanation or proof, he erased the “word to the effect of” ambiguity for strict literalism:
“While [Nobile’s] statement did not contain a racial epithet, that does not mean it was an appropriate statement in the workplace. Nobile was an employee just like the other people in the Center. He was not in a position of authority. He had no right to control any group of employees. He also did not have the right to announce in a loud voice that he was going to control any group of employees.  … Specification 3 is sustained.”
Once again, in order to placate the DOE, which lost its odiferous racist charge, Kaplan went beyond the actual DOE specification which was discrimination re Chancellor’s Regulation A-820 to make a personal and capricious ruling.  First, consider that my statement related to manners, not authority. Kaplan zinged the DOE for neglecting the context behind “Negroes” (e.g., “Nobile’s use of the word Negroes should have been considered by the Department in the context in which it was made.”), yet ignored the context of “control.” Anyone has the right to request a zone of relative peace and quiet from admittedly rowdy colleagues in the workplace without being impugned and fined for overbearing behavior management as imagined by Kaplan.
Second, the DOE neither placed quotes around control in the text of Specification 3, nor did the prosecutor subsequently argue in the hearing that I said the word, nor did she distinguish between the alleged verb (control) and admitted noun (Negroes) at any time. My supposed “racist remark,” the gravamen of Specification 3, was never chopped into parts of speech. Once Kaplan killed the racism charge as “unconvincing,” even citing the Supreme Court in my defense, Specification 3 should have been dismissed outright. 
Third, Kaplan’s skewed finding rested entirely on the testimony of a perjurer. Walker swore on direct that he did not “recall” posing the Negro question first. But minutes later on my cross-examination he miraculously recalled that he did not initiate an exchange and righteously denied saying Negro, ever: 
“I would never use that terminology, okay. This is a problem that’s system wide in the Department of Education. They allow the young people to run around the school using the ‘nigger’ word. Now I don’t like that. Thusly, I would never use Negro either because I feel that that’s offensive, too. So I would never use that word.”
His testimony was full of lies. Two African American rubber roommates swore that they heard the teacher ask me about Negroes on the fateful day and two said that he used “nigger” in conversations with them. Consequently, Kaplan wrote: “I find that [the teacher] did make the statement first to Nobile.” If the teacher lied about speaking first and using “Negro” and “nigger,” why would Kaplan grant him absolute credence on control?
I rest my case.

Don’t get involved with Philip Nobile.  He will ruin you like he had done so many other people.  Do your research about him first.  He will drag you down a path you do not want and then turn on you in an instant.