School Year to Begin and More than 1,700 Teachers Without Permanent Jobs

New York City has 1,779 teachers still without permanent positions who remain on the payroll. The teachers lost their jobs, in many cases, because their schools were closed or had to cut their budgets. They work as substitutes while waiting in what's called an “excess pool” (or Absent Teacher Reserve) of staffers who can apply for jobs at other schools while receiving their salaries.

The Department of Education says a total of 3,000 teachers were in this excess pool over the summer and almost half did find other positions. But it says 59 percent of those who didn't find jobs haven't attended a recruitment fair or applied for a single position. The department also says there are 726 teachers who have been in the pool since before the spring of 2010, and that hundreds of them have been without permanent positions for more than two years without searching for permanent positions.

The excess pool costs $100 million annually and the Bloomberg administration has been pushing for a one-year limit on how long teachers who lose their positions can remain on the payroll. The teachers' union, however, blames the city for creating the excess pool. Union President Michael Mulgrew also says Schools Chancellor Joel Klein has the power to assign those out-of-work teachers to any vacancies.

There are currently 1,242 vacancies, which isn’t enough to employ the 1,779 excess teachers. Many of the positions also require specialized licenses. Meanwhile, the city has a hiring freeze on new teachers to encourage principals to hire from the excess pool. But there are exceptions for teachers in hard-to-staff areas such as special education, science and bilingual education.