NJ teacher missed 213 days of school, faked test scores
ELIZABETH — A veteran teacher in this school district will lose her job after missing hundreds of days of school, according to a decision this month by the state commissioner of education.
Sheralyn Conrad, who had been working as a teacher since 1994, began racking up "excessive absenteeism" in the district in 2014.She missed 33 days during the 2014-2015 school year, 49.5 days the following year, and 129.5 days during the 2016-2017 school year.
The seven months worth of missed days over the course of three years would be enough to flunk one of her students several times over. New Jersey requires students to be in school at least 180 days of the school year.
The district requested medical documentation to explain the absences but did not get an answer until Jan. 9, 2017, when she "indicated that the necessary medical certificate would be sent as soon as her doctor filled it out." No documentation was ever submitted and Conrad was absent for the remainder of that school year.
The decision by the commissioner also cited an undated guilty plea by Conrad to charges of driving while intoxicated, which was not reported to the district. She also admitted to making up Developmental Reading Assessment scores in April 2014 for all of her students because she had not completed the assessments.
Conrad did not respond to the charges when notified by the commissioner's office, so they were upheld, allowing her to be dismissed. According to Data Universe, Conrad was making an annual salary of $67,970.
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