School Handbooks
Your principal must
adhere to the guidance issued by the Department of Education about school
handbooks. While school handbooks may be used to notify staff of school
procedures such as safety drills and student dismissal, they may not contain
directives that contradict the DOE-UFT contract. For example, handbooks may not
establish a staff dress code or mandate a specific timeframe for requesting a
personal day. In addition, members can be asked to sign and acknowledge only
the receipt of the handbook — not that they have familiarized themselves with
its contents. If you think the DOE’s school handbook guidelines are not being
adhered to in your school, have your Chapter Leader contact your UFT district
representative for assistance in resolving any issues. For more information,
read the DOE
school handbook notice.
The DOE gave principals total control of the hiring process as a result of the 2005 contract so they "hired the cheapest and not the best teachers" for their school. The Fair Student Funding adpoted by the DOE in 2007 is also discriminatory against senior teachers but the UFT agreed to it. That is another reason that they are targeting experienced teachers with 16 years or more of experience so they can be replaced by a newbie or made an ATR. Then the Field Supervisors come in to continue with the agenda to get rid of ATRs through harassment. Then they do press releases saying ATRs are bad teachers, and they are costing too much money, etc. It is hypocritical and wrong. These policies are hurting our schools, and the reputations of many good experienced teachers. Ultimately they are hurting our students the most by depriving them of an experienced teacher. Reserarch shows that students with an experienced teacher do better in tests. The Union has a new slogan for newbies we want you, and another for ATRs you still have a job even if you are abused.
ReplyDeleteJames, can you post the DOE school handbook notice somewhere?
ReplyDeleteThe link you provided leads to a login page on the DOE Employee Intranet.
What a crock of shit. We all know that school handbooks are not binding to our jobs but if we make a stink about it we get targeted via Danielson. We are doomed either way. This job is going down the toilet and that is the way it is.
ReplyDeleteThe UFT sould be brought to PERB for adopting policies that discriminate opder teachers.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the info, James. To Anonymous 9:37... if you use James' link and sign in with DOE login info, it takes you directly to the school handbook info. Roseanne
ReplyDelete@Roseanne (Anon. 6:47 A.M.)
ReplyDeleteSome people, such as retirees, may not have DOE login info.
Password protected material can be posted on Google Drive, Scribd, Dropbox, etc., to increase access.
The UFT doesn’t enforce the contract. They haven’t even printed one. Principal do tell teachers what to wear. That bald headed motherfucker at Fordham Law at the Roosevelt campus told me I couldn’t wear jeans or sneakers. I called the Bronx UFT and they said just do what he says or you’ll be in trouble.
ReplyDeleteExactly they have by become useless.
DeleteAbusive Principals like Dwarka has violated every article in the contract, and she has harassed anybody with a brain,
ReplyDeleteand the UFT never did anything for the older teachers.
There is no dress code for teachers.
ReplyDeleteThat being said, why would you come to school looking less than professional. If you want to wear jeans and sneakers go work on a loading dock somewhere. Respect begins by the way you carry yourself. The way you carry yourself in part is directly related to how you appear to others.
Try wearing a jacket and tie for a year. Bring your shoes to a high gloss shine. Perhaps the Principal will stop bothering you and the teachers will call you “To Sir, With Love”.
Then Again, you are right, wear whatever you like.
I wear a bulletproof vest to my school in the South Bronx.
ReplyDeleteI’m not the person above, but I will wear sneakers because I stand on my feet all day and they are the best for me. I will wear jeans because they are comfortable, have pockets and cheap. You want me to wear better clothes, pay my rent.
ReplyDeleteThe last time someone told a teacher in my school what to wear, I told the person to tell the Principal that they were uncomfortable and felt violated that a male supervisor is telling a female teacher what to wear. (I would use that line whatever the sex of the teacher and supervisor.) No one was told what to wear since.
But keep paying dues? Oh yeah, it will get worse if we don't pay...
ReplyDeleteI was a young man on November 1, 2009. That was the last time I remember looking handsome in a mirror, the last time I can remember being able to stay out all night and still make it into work to the next day, the last time I can remember ladies giving me a passing glance when I walked by.
It was also the last time the New York City Department of Education did not owe me money.
In the months and years thereafter, there ensued a war against teachers in New York City so vicious that union leaders and politicians alike were felled and a movement -created specifically to push back against the Ed-reform movement- was born (or should I say wrought? hmm).
History will someday record that the fissures within the Democratic party have their roots in the decisions made around education during those first few months of that Obama administration -which happened to coincide with the third term of mayor Bloomberg.
So, of course, a new contract and a raise for teachers (like me) was nowhere to be had. And every day thereafter, as I become less and less youthful and gradually more worn until old, the City of New York started to owe me money.
When we finally did get a raise, in a contract I completely opposed, the money that I was owed, called Retroactive Payments, was rolled into a ridiculously confusing formula that ensured I would be getting paid a small amount every year (or so) until 2020.
Said one teacher, "we won't be made whole until some of us are dead and gone". And it was this -not being made whole for another 6 years- that represents price we teachers paid for suffering through the many affronts we experienced at the hands of politicians during a war against public education that took direct aim at us.
So each year, in October, we're given a little bit of the money that has been owed to us since we were young men and women. Almost like a pitty tip given to the Goodfellas character Spider after being callously shot in the foot for no reason.
And each year in October, the inevitable question among us arises: How much is the retro going to be?
And you know I'm going to tell how you to figure it out -of course I am!
But you also know that I wasn't about to go telling you without first making you read and remember the reason why we are owed this money in the first place. We are owed this money because countless politicians and leading members of our own unions felt that subjecting thousands of innocent teachers to be either fired, or terrorized in the workplace or humiliated in the press was somehow OK in the name of "progress". This isn't a Susan Gregg Gilmore novel and it surely isn't free money.
Sent to the UFT Executive Board...I see on the DOE website that it says the September Open School is 4:30 PM until 8:00 PM. Don't you think that is a little, or a lot, ridiculous? We get there well before 8 AM, we work straight through until 3 PM or later, we have a few minutes to sit down, or prepare for the evening, and then we have 3 and a half hours straight? Really, this is the brainchild of whom? Where is the union on this? For all we know it could be 97 degrees that day, my school has very little AC...A 13-14 hour day? Also, since we are so buddy-buddy with the Mayor and Chancellor, how about getting the balance of retro paid in the next few months? You realize it would have tripled in the last 8 years in any basic investment? We did the work already, going back many years... This should be top priority. Doesn't the city have billions in surplus? Is the cupboard still bare? How much did all of you defer in the last 10 years? And what about the grade fraud which continues? And what about no discipline code being enforced? And the daily sexual harassment going on in schools?
ReplyDeleteIt says in the contract that those extra nights are to be 3 hours long.
ReplyDeleteAnonymous 9:15. Just think. If you had left teaching early on you wouldn't be owed any money. Nor would you have been wasting dues money. The DOE and UFT turned a handsome young man ten years ago into an old crow and he blames them instead of himself for putting up with it. If a job did that to me I would have found another job if I was young enough to do so. Unless this is a case of he who can does, he who can't complains about teaching and everything else. Take back your damn dues and shut the hell up already.
ReplyDeleteWed, Sep 26, 2018
ReplyDeleteHigh School: Evening Parent-Teacher Conferences
4:30 PM - 8:00 PM All NYC DOE Schools
So, because I was stupid enough to be a teacher I should have had that ridiculous contract agreed to by my union and I should be owed $50k over 10 years with no interest? Along with all the other stuff...
ReplyDeleteRe: Parent-Teacher Conferences---
ReplyDeleteSpecific start and end times, within this time frame, will be determined by each school.
The conference is three hours long, within the 4:30-8:00 time frame.