SCHOOL ON MONDAY, DECEMBER 23 A MAJOR UFT SCREW UP THAT WILL RECUR

We've done the research on school being open on Monday, December 23, 2019 for the first time ever when Christmas Eve falls on a Tuesday. We thought President Michael Mulgrew's remark that the Department of Education was "adhering to contract" was rather cryptic so with some help from the commenters, we looked it up and discovered the UFT made a big mistake by neglecting the calendar in contract negotiations and so now everyone will have to pay the price.

The New York City Department of Education and the State Education Department have long since not really been on the same page on whether passing time between classes should count as instructional time. The city DOE believes it should and SED has traditionally been silent but let the DOE slide as long as there were a minimum number of 180 instructional days in the calendar. That is until April 2018 when the State Education Department put out new regulations on the minimum number of instructional days and instructional hours required in a school district's calendar. The state Union, New York State United Teachers (NYSUT) put out a Fact Sheet on the regulations that was updated in September 2018 when the Regents approved the new regulations.

From the Fact Sheet:

The new regulations change to a yearly instructional hour construct that requires grades K-6 to have a minimum 900 hours of instruction per year and grades 7-12 to have a minimum of 990 instructional hours spread out over a minimum of 180 days. A half-day Kindergarten program is required to have 450 instructional hours over a minimum of 180 days.  

Sounds like no big change, right? Well no because the next paragraph defines what counts as instructional time and then explains how passing time between classes does not count.

While we are still awaiting field guidance from the Department, SED has produced a spreadsheet to provide districts with the methodology to calculate their instructional time over the course of a school year.  This spreadsheet (a link to this document is at the end of this Fact Sheet) indicates that “passing time” between periods and homeroom do not count as instructional time. In the past SED had only specified that recess and lunch were excluded from a typical school day to determine the length of the “instructional day.”  

You can review the spreadsheet yourself as there is a link to it on the NYSUT Fact Sheet.

It is clear, as NYSUT says, they are excluding passing time from instructional time.

New York City Public School teachers work a 6 hour and 20 minute day with the students and then there are 155 minutes of extended time each week for Professional Development, Parent Outreach and Other Professional Work. Let us do the math ourselves based on the 6 hours and 20 minute regular day to see if we are in compliance with the regulations.

990 hours (secondary schools) for a school year÷180 days=5.5 hours of instruction per day.

I am no expert but I cannot see what the issue is in an elementary school. There is not passing time so there are still 50 minutes for lunch and elementary schools only require 900 instructional hours. They look to be easily in compliance.

For secondary schools, it is a bit more complicated. 5.5 hours is 330 minutes of instructional time. 330÷7 periods= 47 minutes per instructional period. That leaves 50 minutes for lunch and passing in a 6 hour and 20 minute school. 2x7=14 for passing and there are 36 minutes for lunch. I see where it can be an issue in many schools with multiple lunch periods but it looks like an easy fix. 

If we are short one day according to the SED or maybe more in future years when Eid and the Lunar New Year don't fall in August or on a weekday, take 10 minutes from Monday and  from Tuesday's extended time and change them into instruction and all of a sudden we have an extra day 2+ days of instruction. Nobody would notice the change, believe me. Maybe some kids would be helped by the extra few minutes. 145 minutes are still left for those "extremely important" Professional Development and other activities. We have enough time in our work day if DOE is really interested in adjusting this. Add 12.5 minutes to be certain and I think we have a full three days of added instruction and still 140 minutes of extended time each week.

For a big school with a 6 hour and 50 minute day, it is easy to get in 330 minutes for instruction ÷7 periods =47 minutes per class. Add another 47 for lunch and 28 for passing (4×7) and we still have 5 left over to make the State Education Department extra happy. Obviously, passing time could be reduced to make the State Ed Department ecstatic. They have three minutes for passing at Queens Technical where my wife works. They are well in compliance it seems.

The hundreds of different schedules in New York City schools didn't seem to work for the State and so instead of fighting them or negotiating an adjustment to the daily schedule with the UFT, the DOE added December 23 as a school day. This is why Mulgrew said the DOE was "adhering to contract."

Since the UFT knew these were the new state regulations in September of 2018, why did they agree to a contract that didn't address the time issue? This is a huge error on the part of Mulgrew and company. Look at the final paragraph of the NYSUT Fact Sheet:

Existing Collective Bargaining Agreements

The regulations provide that no existing collective bargaining contract need be altered to comply with the new regulations. However, this does not absolve a district from complying with the 180 day statutory requirement and these regulations. As a result, if a district has less than 900/990 instructional hours in a year and if the contract is not altered then the district will incur a financial penalty in the 2018-19 school year.  State law provides that school districts will lose 1/180th of their Foundation Aid for each day the district is short of 180 instructional days.  Future collective bargaining agreements will need to comply with these regulations.

The UFT was fully aware they had to comply with the new regulations in September of 2018. At that time the UFT and the City/DOE were negotiating a contract due in February 2019 that they instead agreed to early in October of 2018 without dealing with the calendar issue.  The UFT agreed to keep the time schedules from the previous contract instead of being 100% sure they were adhering to new state regulations.

Hence, we are stuck with more days than many surrounding districts, just about as many work hours but with fewer days off. The time schedule should have been altered by collective bargaining and then cleared with the State Education Department before any new contract was signed.

The UFT has a liaison with the State Education Department and plenty of people in NYSUT who can advise us. In the final analysis, school on December 23 when it falls on a Monday would not have happened without UFT ineptitude.

The worst part about this is that the 990 hour problem will recur again next year and the year after as commenters pointed out. It will be worse when all of the holidays fall on weekdays so we will have to deal annually with which days off we want to give back. This is truly sad and totally preventable if someone at the UFT was awake and bothered to read and then act on what NYSUT put out in September.

I am almost positive nobody will be held accountable for this error at the UFT but what to do now?

Mulgrew's answer is to beg the Regents to reconsider the regulations. Maybe that will work. A better answer might be publicity and militancy but don't expect the UFT to lead any of that. Teachers, parents, principals, other administrators, students and others don't want Monday, December 23 to be a school day. We'll have to fight this one without the UFT it seems.