Harlem Teacher Fired For Student Massages Sues City Schools: Report

HARLEM, NY — A teacher fired from her tenured position at a Harlem elementary school in 2008 is suing the city school system for $100,000 and to be removed from a blacklist on public teaching jobs, according to a report.

Monica Johnson was fired from PS 123 Mahalia Jackson — located on West 140th Street between Frederick Douglass Boulevard and Edgecomb Avenue — when investigators confirmed claims that she had students rub her legs and feet and comb her hair, the New York Post reported. Johnson, 49, is not suing the Department of Education because she's blacklisted from all teaching jobs affiliated with the city, according to the report.

“They’re looking at the past. I have learned from my mistakes,” Johnson told the Post.

Johnson, who suffers from an inflammatory disease that causes limb swelling, told the Post that her students at PS 123 only rubbed lotion on her legs because they saw her struggling and wanted to help.

The former public school teacher was automatically disqualified from an after-school director job affiliated with the DOE when she applied last year, the Post reported. That rejection sparked her lawsuit against city schools.

Read the full New York Post article here.

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