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One of the Department of Education’s longest-serving top deputies is leaving — but he won’t be going far.

The city announced late Monday that Michael Best, the department’s chief lawyer since 2004, would return to City Hall, where he was a top deputy to Mayor Bloomberg at the beginning of the mayor’s tenure. Now, he will be counselor to the mayor, a position that is being vacated by the new pick for president of New York Law School.

Best’s replacement at the DOE, Courtenaye Jackson-Chase, has been at the department for more than half a decade. Chancellor Dennis Walcott promoted her to become Best’s second in command last May during a slew of leadership appointments a month into his tenure.

According to the city’s press release, Best and Jackson-Chase worked together on efforts to close the “rubber room” for teachers who were removed from the classroom after being accused of misconduct and to streamline disciplinary hearings for department employees.

State officials have cited the city’s teacher discipline timeline as a model as they work to shorten hearings in other districts. But news reports in recent weeks have suggested that the process has not been perfected and that the city has assigned several teachers to desk duty after courts ruled that the teachers could not be fired even though they were found guilty of misconduct. (more…)

The Department of Education is moving to fire eight employees who continued to work in schools even after being found guilty of sexual misconduct.

The eight people were identified during a thorough review launched last month after multiple school workers were arrested and charged with inappropriately behavior toward students.

Chancellor Dennis Walcott said today that he was disturbed “as a chancellor and a parent and grandparent” by some of the “horrendous acts” that the review had turned up. He said the review had highlighted inadequacies in the teacher discipline process, a process over which the city would like more authority.

The review examined all school workers found to have behaved inappropriately since 2000 and referred by investigators for discipline. Walcott told reporters today that he personally examined about 250 cases and concluded that in some of them, appropriate action had been taken. In others, he said, the workers had left the system. And in even others, the investigations had concluded more than three years ago, meaning that it is too late for the department to issue a new punishment, even if one was merited.

Walcott said the department had alerted principals who supervise workers the department would prefer to discipline but legally cannot. Those people will be monitored closely in the future, he said.

“I am not going to tolerate any individual having any improper contact with any of our students,” Walcott said.

After the winnowing process, the department identified eight people – including four tenured teachers — whose punishments Walcott determined had not been adequate. (more…)