I had some time to read yesterday's NY Post piece on parking permits. We wrote about Michael Mulgrew's letter to us on parking on Tuesday and then Mulgrew talked about it at the DA on Wednesday. He said we won an arbitration on this issue to obtain more placards. However, the Post had a link to the website for the Council of Supervisors and Administrators (the principal's and AP's union) where the story reads a bit differently.
Here is a portion of a letter that is on the CSA website:
Here is how it will work. What follows is according to a statement by the Department of Education. The DOE will shortly begin to issue parking permits to school-based and other members of CSA, DC 37 and UFT.
These permits only allow the user to park at schools in the designated school parking areas as indicated on parking signs, and in no other locations. The city is issuing the permits as a result of a legal decision and negotiations between unions, the DOE and the city of New York. [CSA litigated and won the permits but the city decided on its own to grant permits to teachers as well.]
The permits for school-based staff will be school specific – that is, they will indicate the name of each school and the permissible streets for parking. These school-specific permits can only be used to park in the designated areas at the school displayed on the permit and not for any other school. School-based staff who work in more than one school will be issued permits for each of the schools they work in.
If I recall correctly, the permits in the days before Bloomberg made the changes were not school specific; they were good for any "No parking, except Board of Ed" spot by any school in the city.
CSA explains the flaw in this "victory" and why I think this isn't a big win:
Please note that there is no increase in the number of parking spaces for each school.
Therefore, the additional permits will not increase the ability of staff to obtain a parking spot in a designated area.
This is a gain for people who arrive at school before anyone else as parking will be first come-first served.
According to the Post, however, it's a major victory for all of us:
Paul Steely White, executive director at Transportation Alternatives, warned that streets will become “more chaotic and dangerous” since staffers will likely abuse the parking perk.
“People get entitled with what they think the placard will entitle them to,” he said. “There’s a wink-and-a-nod culture where placards are seen as a license to leave your car wherever you want. There are a very real repercussion for innocent New Yorkers.”
We are not the police. In the days when we all had Board of Ed placards, I don't remember using it to park anywhere I wanted to. If someone was not in the school zone, we were given tickets or often towed.
I very much doubt the new DOE parking permits will entitle us to leave our cars anywhere.
Dear James,
ReplyDeleteThank you for explaining this. Everyone has their own issues, in their own order of importance. The parking feels trivial to me as an ATR, partially because we're constantly denied school parking even when it's available. A much more important issue for us are the changes that are being rumored and informally discussed, without any information being shared from the UFT or the DOE concerning these changes. Imagine it being hinted that all teachers will be removed from their current schools and placed somewhere else - and then when they call or email the UFT they are denied the information or openly lied to. We'd like to get some answers. Thanks, James - you should be the UFT president.
I will try to talk to our friends on the executive board to see if we can get some answers on the ATRS but don't bet on them telling us anything. Hang in there; I understand that being an ATR is not an easy life. I've been there and it was only three months. Most of the rest of the last three years I was provisional. Not appointed until this year.
ReplyDeleteI cant understand the silence on atrs.
ReplyDeleteMy dues are paid on time however the disrespectful behavior of ignoring me, continues simply because I am an ATR.
ReplyDeleteDamn
Dear ATRs,
ReplyDeleteWhy haven't you gotten the hint? We here at the UFT would like to see you all disappear. Please retire or quit. We aren't telling you what's planned for September because we don't want to hear your outrage. We will wait until late August so, so no one will be in our offices to take your calls or see you. Thank you for your decades of service, but now is your time to retire or drop dead.
Fraternally Yours,
Michael
There is more respect for illegal immigrants in nye than teachers its a disgrace
ReplyDeleteThere's more respect for convicted felons on Riker's Island than there is for teachers in NYC - that's not an exaggeration; and I'm not saying they don't deserve respect, all living creatures do, but we're teaching the future adult members of society. They see how we are treated. How will they treat society? No one is putting manners on them, neither their parent(s) or the schools. Society better start building a lot more jails. School to jail pipeline - now we have restorative justice - what a joke! Coddling thugs is going to keep them from going astray? It's going to come to a point where gun hating liberals like me are going to have to start packing a gun. Eva should privatize the jails - there's going to be tremendously more money in prisons than charters.
ReplyDeleteRamblings of a mad person @11:07
DeleteI think those comments are very insightful. Be careful on a train, bus, sidewalk or school. Everyone is carrying some type of weapon - mostly box cutters. They slash and run, you don't know you are cut for a couple of minutes. I've seen it happen several times. I drive to work now, so I'm glad about the parking.
DeleteAnd you get upset when the media and the general public paints all teachers and/or the teaching profession with the same brush.
DeleteI sincerely hope these are not educators (anon 11:07 and 2:10 and any others).
I hope you're not one either.
DeleteWhy do you hope I'm not an educator @5:31?
DeleteBecause you live in your head. Take a train in the Bronx sometime. Or visit the Bronx sometime.
DeleteMulgrew is trying to spin this shit like the UFT "won" getting us our parking permits back. Nothing can be further from the truth. The CSA (principals union) won getting their parking permits back. They were the only union entitled to get their parking permits back but DeBlasio decided to give teachers their permits back as well since he thinks it will get him more votes for his re-election. It is awesome that we are getting our permits back but don't kiss Mugrew's ass since he did absolutely nothing to get us our permits back. Thank DeBlasio for this as he was the dude who made this happen.
ReplyDeleteI agree that the parking permit issue may be a win for those working in schools that have on street DOE-only parking (congratulations to them) but for members in my Queens school it means nothing because we don't have a even a single on-street parking spot allocated for DOE parking. Instead, most of us park in a private garage a few blocks away and pay $95/month (going up to $105 in July). So yeah, no win here. Mulgrew's email just got members' hopes up only to be dashed once the details emerged. (Like so many other UFT "Wins".)
ReplyDeleteYet, even though we're paying an extra $100 that teachers in other schools may not have to pay, the major concerns of teachers in my school continue to be the gotcha observations, excessive data requirements, lack of curriculum, time-wasting and unsanitary breakfast in the classroom, PD (aka professional learning which isn't PD but another way to make demands for more data) all of which are causing so many to repeat these words on a daily basis: "I'm done!"
We need help. Working conditions for teachers have deteriorated over the last few years. Where the hell is our union? We pay nearly $120 a month for representation. If the union leaders don't step up the level of support for schools they can expect to lose far more than 20% of dues if the Janus decision goes against us.
Mary
If the UFT gets us 2 observations it will be a massive push to keep people as UFT members. I agree with the above poster that if current 4 observations continue, we will see a lot more than 20% of teachers leaving the UFT. It is such an easy thing to get 2 observations. All the UFT has to do is ask!!!
ReplyDeleteAnd what do we do when Farina says 4 observations? We endorse her boss.
ReplyDeleteHEY UFT GET US TWO OBSERVATIONS
ReplyDeleteGet us a decent buyout! I want out!
ReplyDeleteWhy would you want the UFT to observe us at all?
ReplyDeleteYou know things are bad when we can't distinguish between the UFT and the DOE.
ReplyDeleteThey need to figure out free ctle hours too.
ReplyDeleteAmy sent me an email, said no new atr agreement, atrs can be placed in district as always.
ReplyDeleteFake news..."no new atr agreement 😅" how about clueing us in on an "old atr agreement" such as why the rotations stopped in February? I wonder why she didn't volunteer that information. Oh what the heck, I'm just an ATR to both the DOE/UFT--A teacher reject!!??
DeleteBut to me and the people who are aware of my abilities-Im exceedingly capable.
Will the child who keeps whining about 4 observations please just GROW UP already. What do you have to hide? Your incompetence?
ReplyDeleteIt is a reasonable request. Most teachers in NYS have two observations. Why not in the city?
DeleteLots of people here are not happy with 4 observations. Hey Anno 13:00PM, would you rather have 2 or 4 observations?
ReplyDeleteBut thinking getting 2 will be easy is rather stupid or at least naive.
ReplyDeleteNYS law says 2 observations is all that is required. UFT wanted 4. DOE wanted 2. (This is what we have heard at least) So, it seems like all the UFT has to do is re-ask DOE for 2 observations and send that agreement to NYSED for approval and that is it. Done and done. Anybody want ti chime in on this???
ReplyDeleteMulgrew at DA said for the record UFT wanted 2 but was turned down. This was right after Unity voted down a motion calling for 2. I wrote and introduced the motion calling for two.
ReplyDeleteNo new ATR agreement because the city doesn't need one to put ATRs back in the classroom. How they do that is something that has to be agreed upon and which was done so the first week of April and signed off by Mulgrew, according to him. Arudell works for Mulgrew, not ATRs. You can bet Amy's pleasant smile there's a reason the UFT isn't forthcoming.
ReplyDeleteHere is what the contract says on placement:
ReplyDeleteArticle 17 B, Rule 4. Teachers in excess in a school unit or office under the jurisdiction of a
community district must be placed in vacancies within the district to the fullest degree
possible. For school units, districts, or other organizational units under the jurisdiction of
the central board, teachers in excess must be placed in appropriate vacancies within the
district or central office.
Article 17 B, Rule 11. Unless a principal denies the placement, an excessed teacher will be
placed by the Board into a vacancy within his/her district/superintendency. The Board
will place the excessed teacher who is not so placed in an ATR position in the school
from which he/she is excessed, or in another school in the same district or
superintendency.
As long as they keep us in our district, they can place us whenever they want. It's principals who can turn us down. If there is anything that overrides this, please let me know. I don't think the DOE needs any new agreement to place every teacher. They just have to tell the principals to accept us.
If the UFT voted down motion for 2 observations that means they did not not want nor believe in having 2 observations. This is the sticking point in the anger over the UFT. Every single teachers I know is wishing for 2 observations and the UFT seems to be doing nothing about it. Lastly: I thought the DOE had to request a waiver to have the "outside observers" removed from our evaluation system. In fact, our entire 2017-2018-evaluation system with the 4 observations has to be accepted by NYSED. Has NYSED accepted the evaluation system that was hashed out by UFT/DOE around Christmas? Info on this is much needed!!!
ReplyDeleteJust look at SED website. We linked to it when agreement came out.
DeleteNYC TEACHERS WANT *TWO* OBSERVATIONS
ReplyDeleteNOW
teachers denying parking to "innocent New Yorkers?"
ReplyDeleteI guess the scapegoating of teachers has sunk so deeply into the collective consciousness that we're all automatically "guilty," no matter what the issue is
@9:53: Many "anonymous" folks on this site do the same thing. They report ALL or majority of students do not want to learn, can't learn, curse all the time,etc. These "anonymous" can dish it but can't take it when "we're ALL automatically guilty" no matter what the issue...
DeleteDo you see how it works: You generalize/malign ALL, you are measured with the same ruler.
Amy Arundel lies by omission, not by what she says.
ReplyDeleteAmy Arundel lies by omission, not by what she says.
ReplyDeleteTeachers dont have to malign students, the stats, college ready rates, free grades, make up a year of work on june 23 with a packet, crime in school, violence in school, disrespect in school, those things prove it.
ReplyDeleteThe public is using a singular ruler just as those "anonymous" who love to "prove" All students are criminals and lazy....bitter pills
ReplyDeleteHuh? What do the numbers say?
ReplyDeleteThe numbers??? The numbers say grad rates have improved!!! College readiness hasn't improved....students don't give out diplomas!
ReplyDeleteStudents don't create "packets". Violence in schools (have you any knowledge of the violent rants of Donnie's people and the history of America). Allllll the students do this? Folks think Allllll teachers are not educating students...see the error
Phew open your eyes in order to see beyond....The Post gets it wrong but I'm thinks it's right. Labeling ALL students as "negative..." is WRONG.
ReplyDeleteWhat does 3 % ready rate say at Jefferson?
ReplyDeleteThe Post would probably say "ALLLLLLL or a majority of the teachers at that school aren't teaching" they must be correct, right?"
ReplyDeleteBye