If only the gym teacher were a principal. If her was then he could be incompetent, a sexual harasser, insert his tallywhacker into copy machines, put relatives on payroll, steal, commit perjury, force people to attend their own church, recruit teachers for bible study in the library, and do whatever and not lose their jobs. Better, nine times out of ten they get removed to a cushy desk job at Tweed.

But gym teacher Brett Belsky played 20 minutes of Fortnite with two students and he lost his job. All Brett wanted to do was to make a personal connection with a couple of troubled students and give them an incentive to due better in gym. His heart was in the right place. There was nothing nefarious.

Now, is Fortnite social media? The Crack Team reach out to the only person who could answer this question, my 17 year old son. My son when asked if Fortnite is considered social media unequivocally exclaimed, "Fuck no!" He then went back to playing Madden online with his friend who is several miles away.

Facebook is social media. Twitter is. So is what's left of Myspace.

How is playing 20 minutes of Fortnite any different Belsky played catch with the students after school? Or if he saw the students in the corner bodega after school and bought each of them a Coke as reward or incentive to do better in school? Hell, we bribe kids every day with the promise of some prize or tchotchke every day. What Belsky did was no different.

But SCI got involved.They found cause the Belsky did not follow the DOE's own social media guidelines. But not only is there anything in the guidelines pertaining to online gaming, the guidelines only mention social media of which Fortnite is not!!

But for some reason the arbitrator decided that teacher with a spotless record for all of his eight years in the DOE must be terminated. That the way to deal with a mistake. Screw over someone's life.

Belsky did make a mistake. There was no malice and children weren't endangered. His heart and soul were in the right place. In a 3020-a hearing the arbitrator does and must look to see if the teacher's conduct can be changed and if there is remorse. I doubt very much that Belsky contradicted this.

To make matters worse, SCI has come out and...

suggested that the DOE clarify its employee “Social Media Guidelines” to make clear that teacher-student gaming is out of bounds.

So now the guidelines need clarifying? It goes to show that the guidelines were already vague when it comes to gaming. How can someone get fired if his investigators are already agreeing that the "rules" were not clear?

The arbitrator, in this case was arbitrary and capricious. Brett Belsky deserves a fair hearing and his job back.