Sunday, December 11, 2005
New Contract Demonstrates DOE Plan to Pit CSA Against UFT
The current confusion over the implementation of the new contract is turning out to be a first look at just how the DOE will cause principals to absorb all of the blame for the contract’s failure. It is no secret that by shifting an unprecedented amount of discretion to principals the UFT leadership will join in this attack. In the end, no doubt, the teachers and students will suffer.
Two cases in point.
Under the new contract many schools will be starting a 37 ½ minute period for struggling students. The contract states, quite clearly, “The parties agree, effective February, 2006, to extend the teacher work day in “non Extended Time Schools” by an additional 37 1/2 minutes per day, Monday through Thursday following student dismissal. Friday's work schedule will be 6 hours and 20 minutes. The 37 1/2 minutes of the extended four (4) days per week shall be used for tutorials, test preparation and/or small group instruction and will have a teacher student ratio of no more than one to ten. In single session schools, the day will start no earlier than 8:00am and end no later than 3:45pm.”
The leadership’s massive spin machine “sold” this provision to the membership guaranteeing that this would not turn into another class period. The most blatant signal that this is or is not a “teaching period” is whether a lesson plan is required and whether it may be formally observed. As to the lesson plan we were and are continually assured that this is not necessary. No quick answers on formal observations yet but it is hard to imagine how they could be permitted if no lesson plans are required.
Then comes the regional principal meetings in which regional superintendents throughout the city are ordering their interpretation of this period. Are lesson plans required? No, according to at least one regional superintendent.
“But what happens when I walk into a classroom and no learning seems to be taking place?” a principal asks.
“Ask for a lesson plan,” is the reply.
Another issue starting to boil came up in these regional meetings. Under no circumstances may any teacher opt out of the 37 ½ minute period. That includes deans, programmers and other comp time positions. Disruptive students in this period under this plan will, we surmise, be supervised by supervisors.
And we haven’t even discussed Circular 6R. Stay tuned. It gets worse.
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14 comments:
What happens on Mondays during after school faculty conferences.
If elementary school ends at 3:17 and a faculty conference is 40 minutes long, then teachers have to stay til 4pm on those Mondays.
But does the contract state that school ends no later than 3:45 pm?
Principals are now saying that teachers need to stay til 4pm for the faculty conference or they are insubordinate.
Can someone please explain to us how long a faculty conference will be on these Mondays and what time the faculty conference is over.
Faculty conferences can be no longer than 40 minutes. Your school will have to start earler.
What happens to D75 teachers who are told they will not be doing small group instruction during the extra minutes?
I work for D75 at a Gen. Ed. High School and was told that we are going to follow the High School policy of 37.5 minutes 4 times a week instead of 30 minutes 5 times a week. No problem but, according to the sup't we will just add the time to the school day and not bother with small group instruction. Am I not reading the new contract correctly. What happened to small group instruction?
Jeff:
What is the procedure for impeaching Randi Weingarten?
So we will be forced to start school earlier so we can accomodate a once a month faculty conference.
No thanks! I'd rather keep it the way it is.
And for all this our union dues are going up over $6 per month...we will now be paying a shade under $1000 per year. FOR WHAT???? For a great contract??
When are the union dues ever going to be lowered to something reasonable like $100 per year per member? What do they do with all that money????
And try, just try to get rid of an incompetent CL or DR.
For an idea of how the dues are spent check out the staff budget on the ice home page. Scary.
As for faculty mtings., what about having them during a working lunch? Think you can sell that one?
Bottom line-we who probably didn't vote for this are going to be responsible for working out the kinks.
I have a question. Are the salaries of DRs, Field Reps, etc., that are listed on the UFT salary declaration (see ICE website home page) in addition to teachers' salaries?
D75 AP stated today that they no longer will pay teachers for bussing (AM or PM). They will still keep a few paras but will not have a budget for teachers.
In my 16 years of teaching I was always told never, even for a second, leave a classroom unsupervised (w/o a teacher) but now all of our students can be left with school aides and paras during bussing.
Salaries of all union reps who are expected to do any teaching at all – Dist Reps and maybe some others supposedly teach 1 period a day – get their regular DOE salaries and the UFT reimburses the DOE for all but that 1 period. That info is buried somewhere in the LM-2 report in a general category that adds up to millions of dollars. So you must add the salary to the number you see in the LM-2. It is different for each rep because it is based on the number of hours they log and naturally the salary is based on what step they are on.
transit workers' leader rose up through the ranks unlike ms. weingarten who was annointed by the late, and in my opinion, not so great, sandra feldman who shifted the focus of the uft to social issues rather than meeting the needs of the classroom teacher. that's why we've been so far oiff-base ever since. (by the way, "bussing" means kissing, should be spelled BUSING)
Randi must be getting ready to annoint unity's next brilliant leader any minute now.
High school teachers in particular are screwed more by Unity than their counterparts--we don't even gewt to dselect our own VP, thatnks to their self-serving, blatantly undemocratic system.
We need to start our own union, and break away from the corrupt, entrenched, useless UFT.
NYC Educator:
I disagree when you say "High school teachers in particular are screwed more by Unity than their counterparts – we don't even get to select our own VP" since all of the divisions - elementary and middle schools are in the same boat.
As an elementary school person most of my career I often find myself responding to high school teachers who somehow think they are getting screwed more than others.
Elementary school classroom teachers have always taught a 6 period day and now almost a 7th. We also had the testing, micromanagement craze hit way before it hit the rest of the system. There's lots of militancy in elementary schools but there are so many of them it is hard to get a handle on it.
As for leaving the UFT to form another union, I am hearing that more and more. Some people want to get the UFT desertified and bring in teamsters, etc. I am personally against it - If we can't organize people to challenge Unity why do you htink having another union bureacracy run things will be any better? The answer lies with getting enough people active to do something about the undemocratic nature of Unity. If more groups like the people at Port Richmond HS in SI became active Unity would be in real trouble.
NORM:
6 period days??????
We do 8 period days. You need to catch up!
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