by James Eterno Jamaica High School Chapter Leader
UFT President Randi Weingarten told us Tuesday at a Citywide Chapter Leader meeting at the Brooklyn Marriot Hotel that there was a smooth opening to the school year. She added that it was the smoothest opening she had seen in years. She went on to say that there were only 4,000 class size grievances filed compared to 6,000 to 17,000 in years past. Randi also stated that the open market transfer plan has led to 3,400 people transferring and members at all seniority levels were taking advantage of the open market in greater numbers than under the old seniority plan.
Randi continued by saying that there were two problem areas that the UFT was focusing on: Absent Teacher Reserves and people in Rubber Rooms. She noted that there were about 500 Absent Teacher Reserves who were funded centrally and that the UFT was seeking a Board of Education moratorium on hiring until all of the ATR's who want a position are placed. She added that people from closed or redesigned schools should have preferences for available jobs. She also noted that members can't be laid off unless there is a city fiscal crisis. For people with unsatisfactory ratings, Randi said that justice delayed is justice denied and that she is pushing Joel Klein, who she noted cannot fire tenured teachers, to move forward cases that by law will be heard by independent arbitrators even though she understood that some of our members are so traumatized that they don't want their cases to be pushed. She said she put a three person team together to work with people in the rubber rooms.
Randi also told the Chapter Leaders Teachers' Choice allocation has been increased. Finally, she reported on some good news and bad news. The bad news was that reauthorization of No Child Left Behind might include a mandate for individual merit pay based on student test scores so she wanted all of the Chapter Leaders to sign letters to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and their local Congressperson objecting. She also said that 55 years old and 25 years in the system retirement plan proposed as part of the last Contract is still being negotiated with the City but talks may have been slowed down because of the United Auto Workers strike. Other topics touched upon were helping a school library in New Orleans, the organizing drive for the home day care workers and an update on grievances.
Since the UFT leadership gave a relatively upbeat assessment on the start of the school year, it leads to a few questions that we would enjoy hearing answers to from our readers:
Is the opening of this school year as smooth as Randi portrayed?
Is 2,000 fewer oversized classes a cause for celebration or disgust considering how the city's school's budget has increased over the last few years? Is the money really going to the classroom if there are still 4,000 oversize classes?
Is the open market transfer plan a true improvement over the old seniority and SBO plans?
It seems that whenever the UFT leadership compares the situation today with the process that existed before the punitive 2005 Contract, they only compare seniority transfers with open market transfers. This is an apples to oranges comparison. Before the 2005 Contract, approximately half of the schools were using the SBO Transfer and Staffing plan where hiring committees (not Principals alone) selected staff while the seniority plan was limited by its nature since only half of each school's vacancies had to be posted. In addition, in the new system people who are excessed who find a job on the open market are counted as transferring. The point is if we add all of the seniority transfers, SBO transfers, people who were excessed and then placed in a different school, members who used the integration transfer plan, hardship transfers as well as administrative transfers under the old system, then we would have a little more of an apples to apples comparison of the new and old plans. The UFT spin is obviously tilted toward the open market plan which we maintain has turned school staffing into a patronage mill for principals.
Why not push every UFT member to sign a letter to Pelosi and their local congressperson opposing the current reauthorization of No Child Left Behind? Couldn't this be a great organizing tool in the schools?
Please comment as we want to know what members who follow this blog think about the state of the schools today.
We guess ICE melts slowly.
ReplyDeleteGood suggestion on the letters to Pelosi. However, it's already on UFT website.
http://www.uft.org/news/nclb092707/
Still complaining everytime huh?
Another aspect of open market that is hardly ever mentioned is that senior teachers rarely get a decent choice of schools, if any at all. Under the seniority transfer system, a senior teacher could go where he or she chose--almost always to a better environment.
ReplyDeleteUnder open market, if a senior teacher gets a transfer at all, it is likely to be to a more difficult school. And the only reason a senior teacher would want to go to a worse school is due to harassment forcing him out.
So open market effectively achieves Klein's goal of being able to shift senior teachers to troubled schools. Unfortunately for us, it's often against our wishes.
How about getting the UFT website material on the letter to Pelosi out in a packet to every chapter leader and have them distribute them to all the members in their schools? It's called organizing and unions used to do it regularly.
ReplyDeletePlease post on ice-mail blogs.
ReplyDeleteTeachers may be interested in this leaflet (attached
and below) about the situation in D79 we distributed
at the Chapter Chairs meeting last night.
------------------------------------------
Urgent: Students and Teachers “At Risk” in D79
Reorganization
How many at-risk students have been "lost" in the
chaotic reorganization of GED Plus? How many
experienced teachers are sitting in ATR sub pools?
When sites are closed, when years of
teacher-counselor-parent-student community networks
and resources are torn apart, students and teachers
bear the brunt.
The NYCDOE cynically motivated slashing D79 programs,
saying they could serve more kids with a little more
than half the teachers! Here is a snapshot of the
real situation:
Students
Where are the 16-17 year olds? They are excluded from
the new “GED-Plus,” which only accepts students aged
18-21. Are they going back to schools they left in
the first place? To new transition schools? Dropping
out? What do you think?
Where are the ESL students? Last year, Auxiliary
Services for High Schools (ASHS), Tenzer site on the
Lower East Side had over 360 students--now less than
200. There were 16 classes there--now 7. Students at
some new “hubs” are “wait listed” and told there is a
3-month wait! The semi-privatized “empowerment”
schools refuse to take ESL or Special Ed kids,
claiming they have a two-year grace period.
Why are some students still waiting for a “call back”
three weeks into the school year?
Why aren’t predictor tests and GED test dates being
given in a timely manner?
Why are GED and ESL students being put back to lower
levels because there are no teachers available for
their level? (Answer: The teachers are sitting in ATR
sub pools)
Why are students from Pregnant and Parenting Teens
being referred back to schools they already left,
where they feel vulnerable?
Teachers and School Personnel
How many skilled longtime teachers are sitting in ATR
sub pools? What is the state of their grievances?
Joel Klein says he wishes he could “terminate” them
(see New York Daily News, September 3, attached).
What is our union doing to make sure their jobs are
defended in the upcoming contract?
Why should teachers “interview” for the same jobs they
held for years? Why did the UFT allow anyone with an
“S” rating to be declared “unqualified? Why are some
ATR teachers back and others not? We’re tired of the
spin.
ATR teachers want and need their own UFT chapter! Now
they are dispersed and isolated.
Why did D79 teachers have to read about their
situation in the Daily News and The Chief before it
was finally reported in the New York Teacher?
The NYCDOE is manipulating statistics to justify their
abandonment of “at risk” students, GED students, ESL
and Special Ed students. The last three years has seen
a constant attack on alternative education, with the
budget for adult, evening and GED programs cut by
billions of dollars! We can read the handwriting on
the wall.
We need our union to fight for the kids and the
teachers of D79!
--Marjorie Stamberg, former ASHS/Tenzer UFT site rep,
ditto.
September 25, 2007
It is in the teacher's interest to delay the the 3020a proceedings as long as possible since the longer it takes, the more likely the so-called witnesses will fail to show up or not remember the petty charges filed against that teacher.
ReplyDeleteRandi's misguided assumption about getting DOE to expedite the case is good for the teacher is wrong!
If Randi wants to help the "rubber room" teachers, then file a lawsuit about how DOE is misusing the 3020a process. Further, a true independent investigation should be done not the one-sided and biased OSI/SCI investigations conducted at present.
How about us non-resident teachers who want to enroll our children in NYC schools? One month into the school year, and no word as to whether or not our applications have been accepted!
ReplyDeleteJoel Klein (means "little") is a little man, a Little Dictator, who needs to be himself TERMINATED. and thanks to the Randy-hegemony a 20+ year veteran teacher is no longer entitled to the "plum" assignments that were avaiable in the former seniority transfer system - what I waited for all these years - gee thanks. now I am stuck forced to teach out of license without support or services for my students. I can and do grieve but nothing happens. this is hell.
ReplyDeleteTHE DOE, IN COLLABORATION WITH THE UFT, IS NOW FIRING TEACHERS OUTRIGHT.
ReplyDeleteTeachers are being thrown out of their classrooms, and sent to "rubber rooms" without any explanation.
Once in a "rubber room," some senior teachers have already received letters from OUR OWN LAWYERS up in Albany declaring that:
IF THE TEACHER DOES NOT RESIGN FROM THE DOE, FORMAL CHARGES WILL BE BROUGHT AGAINST HER/HIM.
UFT "suits" have been advising teachers to quit for years now.
The UFT, led by Weingarten, is collaborating with the DOE to destroy every public school in this city.
They are succeeding.
They are collaborating to push out EVERY TEACHER and to replace them with non-teacher individuals who will cycle in and out of "schools" within 2 years or less.
I predict that within 5 years, non-teachers will walk in and out of classrooms in 6 months, routinely.
Hundreds, if not thousands of your colleagues, have already been and are being terminated, deprived of salary, doctors' care, the ability to have shelter or food for themselves and their families.
Some teachers are threatened with seizure of their assets (homes, etc.) BECAUSE THE DOE IS ATTEMPTING TO EXTORT TENS OF THOUSANDS OF DOLLARS FROM THEM.
Wake up, folks.
YOU might be next at any minute.
Randi Swinegarden has no intention of helping the teachers who have been exiled to the RUBBER ROOMS. The fact is that there is a discriminatory practice of hunting for senior teachers.
ReplyDeleteThe demographics of the RUBBER ROOM bear out the fact that most teachers are over 40 and have been teaching for 10 to 15 years. The age dicrimination law suit that the UFT proposed seems to have vanished. The UFT is a willing partner in the destruction of senior educators' careers.
The reason that the UFT is complicit is economic. A new drone/teacher will gladly goose step to the twisted orders that are issued by the shake-and-bake adminstrators without question. They will pay the same dues that a senior member pays and there will be two new drones for the price of one senior teacher. This will double the amount of money being harvested by the UFT-dues- collecting organization.
The bottom line is the bottom line.
When do any members recall returning to their schools in September and not suffering with new demands, new demands on us in contravention to the terms of the contract?
Who do you think bargained away our rights each summer?
Do you think that as you get close to a higher salary or retirement that you are as immune from a likely career-destroying 30-20a proceeding
as the toadies and sycophants who lick the boots of the administrators?
The UFT is the Mafia of the NYC DOE and no amount of posturing will change that.
The new horror is that our paid- for attorneys from NYSUT are now issuing stipulations to the unfortunate victims of the Rubber Rooms. The stipulations are resignation letters issued before charges have been preferred. The prevailing climate is that if you are in the Rubber Room, you are finished. Those who are hired to protect your rights are now siding with your enemies. The NYSUT attorneys don't need to go to trial. They think that you will lose.
What self-respecting member of the the legal system would advise a client to sign away their rights before they were even charged? It seems that our paid for defence has concluded that our chances are nil before there are even charges! If this is the case, it is time to accuse the UFT and NYSUT of being in collusion with the DOE. The game has been fixed.
The constitution and rule of law have been circumvented. We have no rights at all. Shades of the Third Reich and Stalinism are clear.
It is time to initiate a RICO suit against the DOE and the UFT!
The only union to bargain away seniority rights is the UFT, also known fondly as the United Federation of Turds.
ReplyDeleteSwinegarden and her ilk must be removed forthwith. Do not allow these pigs to damage us any further.
The Reich Chancellor Klein is a petty little despot, a failed lawyer and corporate succubus who was handed the world's largest education system. This, while the the ugly clown has no background in education.
What went on at the state level to grant this little troll a variance? Could it be the money of Der Fuhrer Bloomberg?! Der Fuhrer is, of course, another petty swine who seems to think that the city is a business.
A good idea would be to draw and quarter these two pigs on live television. This would certainly get good ratings.
Another craven swine is none other than her majesty, Randi Swinegarden, clearly the most disturbing and troubling of the whole rotten lot. While lying that she represents the teachers, who pay her outrageous salary, she has come to bury us! Never before in the history of organized labor has a so-called leader done so much to damage to the interests of her dues paying members. She has set the clock back to the industrial revolution. Instead of Pinkerton, we have the SS from the UFT destroying individuals and their families, with true glee.
Examine the cold reptillian stare of your union representatives as they tell you to resign, or have no answers. Their minds are on their double pensions, expense accounts and cell phones that we pay for. Most likely they are contemplating the next paid for junket to some exotic locale.
Perhaps their minds are on weightier things such as the War or Darfur while they roll over and sell us out. We, the unwashed masses, clearly irritate this uber class of union representatives, who have not deigned to step into a classroom in many years. It is simlilar to Mr. Bush's trouble understanding what it is to have problems just paying for the basics.
Just observe them in their expensive clothes (and pinkie rings!) and understand that they despise you. We are just a means to an end to them.
Without us, they could not afford the things that we can never hope to have or be able to buy.
I say rise up and create another union just as the cabbies have done.
The only solution to the excesses of the UFT is to unload them. It is time that they earned a living and stopped parasitizing us.
Did you encourage people to vote in the union's election?
ReplyDeleteAre you willing to organize people into a group?
To the "Anonymous" who asks if the previous "Anonymous" encouraged UFT members to "vote" or is willing to organize UFTers to form an alternate union:
ReplyDelete1. Have you encouraged folks to vote?
2. Are you Unity or a Vichy collaborator of another stripe?
3. Teachers don't vote, in keeping with their reluctance to either think intelligently or marshall any integrity and courage on behalf of their precious individual selves, or god forbid, their colleagues.
4. Even when teachers do vote in UFT festivities, the elections are rigged so that there is no way in hell anyone other than thieving, lying, thoroughly despicable and rotten creatures will be authorized to protect teachers.
5. There is no room within the UFT (or AFT or other national teacher unions) for dissenting voices such as those speaking from ICE or TJC. They are silenced and cut off at the knees financially and politically.
6. Finally, why have you chosen to address none of the issues such as the destruction of the noble people who are our senior teachers, along with their children, wives, husbands, others? Why not righteously rail against the lack of civil liberties guaranteed by the U.S., constitution, the casual abrogation of due process under the guise of "administrative procedures?"
It is very interesting to see the complete apathy displayed by the majority of our collegues.
ReplyDeleteIt is not enough to whine and complain about whether "Anonymous" did anything to organize the teachers or encourage them to vote in the rigged UFT elections.
What, if anything, have YOU done?
At least someone is displaying some moxie by stating the unpleasant obvious facts.
The Department Of The Dead From The Neck Up and The United Federation Of Turds are in bed together.
It is indeed time to form a better and honest union,an organization that is actually trying to represent us rather than merely puporting to do so, while laughing all the way to the bank.
Just read the minutes of the executive committee which contain the resolutions on the Middle East and other issues that have nothing to do with us.
Why, in fact, is there no attention being paid to the deplorable working conditions and pitiful salaries we are forced by the UFT to endure?
I do not recall having taken a vow of poverty to become a teacher.
I also did not expect to live as a Maoist in a capitalist society!
One central question should nag at all educators, which is the following: Why does sanitation get paid more to pick up the garbage than we do to teach it?
To strike is to commit guerilla warfare. Let the gorillas walk freely in the streets. Maybe the upsurge in crime would at least get us paid as much, if not more than screws in the penal system.
Answer to question 1. Yes I encourage people to vote.
ReplyDelete2. I can't stand the Unity Caucus and have nothing to do with the Caucus.
3. There's the problem. We need to work to convince our colleagues that they can stand up for themselves.
4. I don't think UFT elections are rigged.
5. Last time I looked there was still a first amendment.
6. I'm a senior teacher myself and I support senior teachers fully.
Nice to see that Randi still reads the blog. We got emails this weekend urging us to fax Congress opposing merit pay.
ReplyDeletePrevious commentor --
ReplyDeleteDid you get an email from Randi this week? I didn't. I wonder if she sent it just to Chapter Leaders or was it a general one?
I USED to be on UFT email list, maybe I'm not anymore... Can you clarify?
Thanks
The Fourth Reich is alive and well. The meek shall inherit nothing. The Rubber Rooms are living testament to the tyranical rule of ReichChancellor Klein and his Gestapo underlings.
ReplyDeleteImagine being frogmarched out of your school as though you are a criminal. Think about being defined as unfit to enter your place of work or teach your students. Imagine turning up at a teacher relocation center.
Imagine your dismay and horror when you look at a room full of your fellow inmates. They number over a hundred and most are between the ages of 40 and 60.
You are told that you may not leave and that you must punch a time clock. You are also told that your duties are to sit there all day with nothing to do.
The union tells you, after many months of rotting in place, that as long as you are recieving your pay and benefits that everything is just hunky dory. This is your union; the people who tell you this garbage are LIVING LARGE BECAUSE THEY PULL APPROXIMATELY $1,000 YEARLY FROM YOUR SALARY SO THEY CAN LIVE WELL AND HURT YOU.
You sit in utter depression and watch your fellow suffering and aging educators being tortured and fired.
Some of them get massive fines. MANY HUNDREDS OF DOLLARS ARE WITHHELD FROM EACH PAYCHECK FOR YEARS.
The contract takes on the significance of Chairman Mao's little red book. You thumb through its dog-eared pages looking for some ray of light.
You actually come across Article 21.g in the contract that purportedly protects your rights.
This tells you that if you are not charged within 6 months, you have to be repatriated to the cesspool that sent you to Aushwitz in the first place.
You contact your spiffy and expensively dressed union rep. He tells you not to file any grievances. But what about our contract's Article 21.g? "Don't worry!" You are hardly reassured, but are convinced that OUR contract is on your side.
Maybe your students have been coerced into writing statements alleging that you hurt them in some Byzantine way in order to get you thrown out of your school. You have seen the statements written by illiterate students who strangely use adult language such as "innapropriate body language", "words to that effect" and "offensive statements". These phrases are correctly spelled yet all others are spelled incorrectly.
You are only to aware that these kids know NONE of these words or phrases. They certainly couldn't spell them correctly.
Worse, and more troubling: those well-written testimonies against you contain THE EXACT SAME WORDS AND PHRASES WRITTEN BY THE GESTAPO/ADMINISTRATORS IN THEIR OWN LYING STATEMENTS THAT SENT YOU INTO THIS LIVING HELL.
You cringe like a whipped dog waiting for the inevitable charges and the issuance of a 30-20a procceding. The Gestapo tactics of those administering the misery decide that September to start instituting security procedures more stringent than our airports. You come in to Aushwitz and have to put everything in your pockets through an x-ray machine. You are also walked through a metal detecting archway or a magnatometer. To add insult to injury, you are also wanded with a handheld metal detector. After being forced to wait on line by three School Saftey Officers, you then get to punch in late. The Nazi timekeeper at your last school will deduct this from your pay, although it is not your fault.
The level of fury rises and finally a level two grievance is filed. As soon as the union gets involved the charges mysteriously appear during month eighteen. A full year after you were thrown out of your place of work. Twice the statutory limit of the contract.
Six months later you meet your NYSUT attorney who tells you that although the law and the contract say that you should be returned to teaching, this will not happen. Rather, he or she actually say to you: "We ignore the law and the contract. We do whatever we want to the teachers so that the arbitrators can make a living. The pipeline of teachers to do this to (HURT and possibly DESTROY, along with their families) is endless."
Please note that the arbitrators are paid by the DOE and UFT and "earn" $ 1,200 - $ 1,400 daily, which we, as UFT members, pay for.
When asked to request a dismissal on procedural screwups, your attorney might well respond that he/she "would have no capital with the arbitrator" if he/she were to do so.
So there you are, screwed, blued, tattooed and dangling on a loose noose in the wind with little hope of being declared innocent of charges which were entirely fabricated to run you out of your profession and to cause you every kind of injury you can imagine - for years - and then some!
Class sizes are still growing. My school is receiving new admits all the time. Apparently teachers are scrambling for more desks and chairs; someone is taking them out of my room!
ReplyDeleteBy the way, not everyone complains about class size being too big because they're afraid of making waves.
I saw a lot of teachers doing nothing but lounging at the ROC. How about putting them to work, like helping with ECLAS.
Putting people to work to lower class sizes would work so why bother? It would make sense.
ReplyDeleteIn my school my Principal has placed a mixture of Cluster teachers, Paras and other services providers (ELL, ESL, etc..) 1-2 periods a day and has labeled this class size reduction. To quote my Principal "Your union keeps screaming for class size reduction, lets see how it works in this school." To those who will listen I point out that adding 1 teacher into a room for 1-2 periods a day is not class size reduction. It's the same with 37 1/2 minutes. Many rooms have more than the allowed 10 students, but they place 2 teachers in the room. This isn't actually so bad because it's nice to have some adult company at the end of the day, but still. The actual reality is that the classroom teacher keeps her 10+ students in their room while everyone else is picked up for dismissal, and doesn't get any help until about 10 minutes already into 37 1/2. This because some teachers pick up and dismiss and grades like Pre-K and K dismiss their own. By the time their done it's a good 10 minutes into 37 1/2 and most classroom teachers have been alone with 10+ for 10 minutes. Just another new reality brought to you by UNITY.
ReplyDeleteUnitymustgo!
Seperated at birth???
ReplyDeletehttp://img.youtube.com/vi/Qa8HR058eVc/default.jpg
and
http://image.comicvine.com/uploads/item/41000/40816/66582-ras-al-ghul_150.jpg
BWWWAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!
why is "everyone" anonymous on this blog?
ReplyDeleteWe're afraid of reprisals from the DOE and the UFT.
ReplyDeleteWe can complain but what must be done?
ReplyDeletea. Expose the absurd chancellor's reg.'s on child abuse, corporal punishment, and sex abuse, i.e.: "if the child feels uncomfortable"
b. Get rid of the permanent arbitration panel where arbitrators have a fiduciary interest ($1600 a day) in the way they rule: i.e.: "Splitting the baby" to please both sides.
c. Give teachers a choice to use NYSUT lawyers or "Go out of network" and get reimbused for private lawyer legal fees.
d. Compare the rights we have lost re: 3020A with the majority of other teacher unions in the state.
Response to Marjorie Stamburg
ReplyDeleteIn response to the posting that was left my the teacher complaining about the District 79 reorganization, I would strongly advice that she get her facts straight before she rambles on incorrect information in public forums.
This lady states, Where are the 16-17 year olds? They are excluded from the new “GED-Plus,” which only accepts students aged
18-21.
THIS IS RIDICULOUS. THE NEW ORGANIZATION DOES ACCEPT 17 YEAR OLD STUDENTS, IT JUST ATTEMPTS TO ADVOCATE MORE FOR 16 AND 17 YEAR OLD STUDENTS WHO ARE BEING FORCED TO LEAVE SCHOOLS DESPITE THE FACT THAT THEY WANT TO GET THEIR HIGH SCHOOL DIPLOMA. SCHOOLS THROUGHOUT NYC CITY ATTEMPT TO KICK KIDS OUT WHO ARE NOT GOING TO GRADUATE WITH THEIR COHERT. WHY DO THEY DO THIS? TO MAKE THEIR GRADUATION DATA LOOK BETTER. DISTRICT 79 CARES ABOUT KIDS AND BELIEVES THEY SHOULDNT BE KICKED OUT OF MAIN STREAM SCHOOLS JUST BECAUSE OF HOW THE DATA WILL LOOK ON PAPER. IF DICTRICT 79 DIDNT CARE THEY WOULD TAKE ALL OF THOSE 16 AND 17 YEAR OLD STUDENTS WHO WOULD MAKE THE GED PASSING RATE DATA HIGHER AND MORE FAVORABLE ON PAPER. HOWEVER IT IS BELIEVED BY D.79 THAT KIDS SHOULDNT BE FORCED TO GET A GED DIPLOMA
Where are the ESL students? Last year, Auxiliary
Services for High Schools (ASHS), Tenzer site on the
Lower East Side had over 360 students--now less than
200.
OK, LETS MAKE SURE WE INCLUDE ALL THE INFORMATION HERE. THE TENZER SITE WAS 2 PART-TIME PROGRAMS LAST YEAR. STUDENTS WERENT GETTING ENOUGH INSTRUCTIONAL TIME TO LEARN AND PASS THE GED. THIS YEAR D.79 MADE AN ATTEMPT TO TURN THIS PART-TIME PROGRAM INTO A SEMI-FULLTIME PROGRAM SO KIDS COULD GET MORE INSTRUCTION!!!!!!!!!! HENCE, THE LESS CLASSES. THIS IS ABOUT QUALITY NOT QUANTITY AND ANOTHER ESL PROGRAM WAS CREATED TO OFFER MORE SERVICES TO STUDENTS AT THE MANHATTAN HUB. YOU TALK ABOUT SPINNING INFORMATION...WHAT DO YOU THINK YOU DID HERE??????
Why are some students still waiting for a “call back”
three weeks into the school year?
THIS PROBLEM WAS ADDRESSED BY D 79 EARLY ON. THERE ARE NO WAIT LISTS ANYMORE...KIDS ARE SERVED AND SERVED WELL.
Why aren’t predictor tests and GED test dates being
given in a timely manner?
THIS IS RIDICULOUS AND COMPLETLY UNFOUNDED.
Why are GED and ESL students being put back to lower
levels because there are no teachers available for
their level?
THIS IS SO UNTRUE AND ABSOLUTELY ABSURD. WHO SAYS THERE SHOULD BE LEVELS ANYWAY??? MAYBE YOU NEED TO START THINKING OUTSIDE THE BOX.
Why are students from Pregnant and Parenting Teens
being referred back to schools they already left,
where they feel vulnerable?
DID YOU NOT SEE THE ARTICLE ON THE FRONT PAGE OF THE NEW YORK TIMES????? HELLO, THESE PROGRAMS WERE SEPERATE AND NOT EQUAL. NOW THESE YOUNG WOMEN DONT GET ISOLATED FROM A MAINSTREAM POPULATION AND GET THE SUPPORT OF AN ACADEMIC INTERVENTION SPECIALIST ASSIGNED SPECIFICALLY TO WORK WITH THEM ONE ON ONE...SO THEY DONT FEEL VULNERABLE. AGAIN, WHO'S SPINNING THE FACTS????
How many skilled longtime teachers are sitting in ATR
sub pools? What is the state of their grievances?
Joel Klein says he wishes he could “terminate” them
(see New York Daily News, September 3, attached).
What is our union doing to make sure their jobs are
defended in the upcoming contract?
BECAUSE OF INCOMPETANCE!!!!! NOT ALL ATR'S ARE SKILLED AND COMPETENT OR S RATED TEACHERS. MANY OF THEM WERE U RATED WITH EXCESSIVE ABSENCE
Why should teachers “interview” for the same jobs they
held for years? Why did the UFT allow anyone with an
“S” rating to be declared “unqualified? Why are some
ATR teachers back and others not? We’re tired of the
spin.
ONE QUESTION, WOULD YOU WANT THESE ATR'S (MANY OF WHICH GOT MULTIPLE U'S) WORKING WITH YOUR CHILD???? DONT ADVOCATE FOR PEOPLE YOU WOULDNT WANT TEACHING YOUR OWN CHILDREN.
The NYCDOE is manipulating statistics to justify their
abandonment of “at risk” students, GED students, ESL
and Special Ed students.
YOU ARE MANIPULATING STATISTICS!!!!
FINAL NOTES
TEACHERS WHO WERE SLACKING IN THEIR JOB PERFORMANCE AND PROTECTED BY AN UNREASONABLE, OVERLY PROTECTIVE UNION ARE UPSET BECAUSE THE ARE NOW BEING FORCED TO ACTUALLY PERFORM. GET A LIFE PEOPLE!!!! IF YOU WERE IN THE CORPORATE WORLD YOU WOULD GET FIRED AND HAVE NO RECOURSE. WHY DONT YOU TELL THE PUBLIC THE TRUTH..EVEN THESE LOUSY ATR TEACHERS ARE STILL COLLECTING A PAYCHECK DESPITE POOR PERFORMANCE. STOP CRYING AND DO YOUR JOB. IF YOUR NOT HAPPY THEM WORK HARDER TO MAKE THE NEW REORGANIZATION THE BEST IT CAN BE.
To the person who went on and on about how the DOE/UFT are serving District 79 students:
ReplyDeleteFirst off you are illiterate, do not know the first thing about writing acceptable English, and have a penchant to "scream" at folks online.
Second, upon consulting any reliable psychiatric diagnostic manual, you would learn that you are narcissistic, likely fulfilling the indices necessary to diagnose you as a psychopath.
Pyschopaths possess no conscience, no ability to understand that other humans are deserving of compassion and simple respect.
Psychopaths are missing crucial elements necessary to function fully among humans and other creatures.
You clearly do no work yourself, feel entitled to collect money for doing nothing except inflicting grievous damage upon humans who work very hard for the betterment of other humans.