Principal throws out teachers' desks to stop them from sitting down during class

Getting rid of the chairs wasn’t good enough for one principal’s crusade against teachers sitting down on the job. Their desks went next.

The purge happened at PS 24, the Spuyten Duyvil School, in the Riverdale neighbourhood of New York City, according to the New York Post.

The order reportedly happened while classes were in session. Instructors were told to push their desks into the hall before they were collected and tossed out by custodial staff.

“It’s the 21st century – you don’t need desks,” Donna Connelly, principal of the kindergarten to grade 5 school, told The Post.

The glorified tables weren’t the only casualties, staff were also told to clear out their filing cabinets so they could suffer the same fate.

As to their concerns over where they would store their supplies and belongings, Connelly told them to “figure it out,” according to The Post.

The move doesn’t just affect pencils and paper caches, it’s also left teachers with no place to keep items like first aid supplies.

“All their stuff is in boxes, bags, and on the radiators,” a source told the paper.

Desk-gate has caused a major shakeup at the school where students reportedly score well above the city average on tests. It has left teachers outraged and forced to do all their marking in the lunch room, according to the source.

A spokesperson for the city’s Department of Education told The Post the furniture was removed “to facilitate better instruction.”