LIVE BLOGGING FROM APRIL REMOTE DA

I was patched in around 4:20 p.m. Michael Mulgrew held a moment of silence for UFT members who died of COVID-19. DA would just be a President's Report and questions. Trying to do a real Delegate Assembly in May. President has done a bunch of Focus Groups to talk about what is going on. Doing them daily. Everything is a wild-west show.

Quick synopsis about where we were and what we face moving ahead. Need safety measures moving ahead. The last time we met was Wednesday, March 11. Safety guidelines that were put in effect that week weren't being followed. We went into the weekend when that Friday afternoon when we came out to get the schools closed. Hard work that weekend. If not for our advocacy, we believe schools would have been opened another week. We went to the week of planning which also wasn't a good idea. Planning could have been done remotely. Should have only gone in for equipment. No plan by DOE. Teachers had to figure out how to make remote learning work. 100 schools trying to recreate school day in spite of Chancellor saying that is not what he wants. We figured out how to do remote learning.

Working in DC on the first federal lifeline package at that time. The state budget looked like NYC. (We lost Mulgrew at this time. They tried to get him back on. Delegates had to press zero on the phone to ask a question. So all were screened.)

Mulgrew returned talking about the federal lifeline. There was a line item for education-based off Title 1. That was in the state budget. The city only lost 15 million dollars from the state budget recently passed compared to last year.  Governor took away spring break. We had to work through two holiest days. We told the mayor we were not happy about that. Households were full of fear, anxiety, and anger. Teachers talked about problems in focus groups. Members said they don't like certain things. Teachers know the role we are playing is helping the front line people, nurses. UFT nurses at Northwell and other systems. UFT nurses doing phenomenal work. Over 3,000 volunteered to help. Governor and mayor now acknowledging teachers' work which is why we put out the commercial.

Two main focuses of the Union right now are making sure we keep safe and making sure we keep our jobs. When we open up, there will have to be real protocols in place based on science, not what a politician wants. We must also keep doing the end of the year work of the union. The grievance process is suspended. Hoping to have non-precedential arbitrations in June. Using  committee complaint process instead. Only one case is going to central committee. School is in session, buildings are closed. We are working our 180 days to fulfill state mandate.

Preference sheets going out. Every school must hold monthly consultations and submit notes to UFT. DOE and UFT differ on preferences. No finalized calendar. Must finalize the calendar. 4000 SBO's last year. Need a calendar to do SBO's. Will have technology to do votes on SBO's. Consultation with Chancellor on Friday. There will more than likely be major excessing this year. Cash flow deficit with tax day going from April 15 to July 15. Business is down dramatically. City $6-7 billion in red. State is $9-10 billion in red. Most excessing in twelve years. We win most grievances on this. We all have to play by the rules. DOE must train HR directors to know all the rules. Now monitoring as City Hall says there is a hard and fast hiring freeze. Trying to put something together to get paid for the additional 7 days we worked. We worked with DC 37 and CSA to negotiate. Everyone who was supposed to be off those seven days got four CAR days added to sick banks. We are not giving up our rights to be compensated for the 7 days. Putting case together.

Member Assistance Program inundated with folks asking for help. We have been inside our houses for a long time.

Parent focus groups. We need a citywide standard grading policy according to the Chancellor. We are supporting that decision. Parents at Focus Groups happy with us. Parents have wanted us to pull back on the work. Grading policy: do what you normally do for this marking period. Parents recognize that there are different grading policies from school-to-school. Parents are concerned about individual students. No standardized assessments. Want assurance that there is equity across the system. We must listen to parents.  Focus Group with teachers saying 2/3 of the school year was done before we went remote. That's a big deal. In high schools, students only went 1/3 of the way through the spring term. If a child is performing well up to when we went remote, teachers finding out what is going on. Teachers going above and beyond to find what is going on at home with the kids.  Use standardized grading policy to see who needs Academic Intervention Services or summer school. We are trying to come up with a grading policy that says kids who did well before and during remote learning move ahead; kids who did so-so; kids who struggle. This new policy will be for the end of the school year, not now.  Enemies like the Manhattan Institute want to freeze our pay. Some parents want all to pass. Moving a child forward who is not ready does that child a disservice and also the other kids who are in that child's class next year.

Summer school: We don't know if it will be remote or live or how long it will be. Mayor is saying physical schools closed. It's just a chess game between mayor and governor. Even schools reopening businesses are keeping schools closed.

Political action: Must get through next school year by keeping everyone in their job. City taking big losses. Big budgets for years. Raise already budgeted for. City had surplus; state did not. City taking faster losses than the rest of the state. We were the only large system that didn't have layoffs during the Great Recession. City Council is very important. Political activity is so important. Other goal is around safety.

We believe the federal government will do a second lifeline package. The federal government is finally recognizing testing for COVID-19 is their job. Federal government throwing lifelines but in the end there has to be a big piece of the federal package for states and cities. We have even Republican governors looking for help from the federal government. It will be a heavy lift. We have to work with the City Council too.

Safety: What will schools look like when they are back in session? We have to be able to assure people that they are safe. We need testing if someone has the virus and/or antibodies. We need an evidence package that shows that everybody entering a school is not causing the virus to spread. We need to take temperatures outside of the school. Until there is a vaccine or a cure, we can't go to school like it was. Class changes in hallways and cafeterias make social distancing impossible in a school setting. Will we split the school day up? How many children can be in a school to do social distancing? Do we do two week school periods? These are real discussions that are happening. There is no way without a vaccination or a cure that we can go back to how it was. We will start a petition to have a testing-evidence package to go to the federal government and the state. We must have the assurance of safety.

Enemies are going to show how remote learning can be done all of the time. We have won the debate on remote learning. It is more time-intensive than working at school. How do we envision using remote learning in the future? We want to drive this discussion. We are the experts on how to make remote learning effective. We will have real conversations on how to use the technology.

We got through Bloomberg and Sandy and this one is the greatest one. Nobody will argue that the educators in NYC figured it out in the crisis. Thanks the Delegates.

Question: Excess paperwork. AP wants to know what we are doing every week.
Answer; File excess paperwork complaint.  CSA sending out information but some principals don't get it. Operational complaint form has to be filed. The principal has two days to rectify it.

Question: How much work can be mandated? Have to be live?  Must be on screen as much as possible. This is kindergarten.
Answer: Go to operational complaint form. Chancellor has said that being live is not mandated.
This is in District 9.

Question: How will the UFT enforce safety meetings being on the agenda and inform members?
Answer: We need to have safety meetings. Teachers in elementary schools want access to their buildings for supplies. Process by next week to have people able to get into buildings. Principals must contact school safety and custodian to be able to have access to schools. All need to do consultation committee meetings and get notes to UFT. Safety committees need to decide how to have access to schools. Use the School Leadership Team to get cuts how chapter wants them. Refrigerators and coffee pots must be emptied and unplugged.

Question: Can you ask the governor not to refer to us as childcare providers?
Answer:  We have told him to stop that. Businesses and schools not tied together in terms of reopening.
Followup: Preferences given this morning with name, what you taught before and what do you want for next year?
Answer: Talk to District Rep about it. Some of it gets technical.

Question: Going forward, guidelines vague on remote learning.
Answer: We need to form groups of people who are doing the work. DOE not doing this work. Only teachers know what we are doing. Chancellor came into a focus group. Services, we are trying to be in compliance.

Extra Answer: One attendance on Friday for the entire staff. Finding best practices for remote learning. Brick and mortar school will always exist but we have to envision how to make remote learning work. We have to be proactive.

Question: Two related service providers. One person had COVID-19 thanking UFT for not losing sick bank days. Provider was issued Chromebook which was not adequate. Using own computer and phone.
Answer: DOE was not being very helpful and wants to look to hire consultants. We have to be proactive and say what tech we need.

Question: ED TPA and CSD certification. If people can't complete certification, being threatened with firing.
Answer: Got State Ed Department to grant everyone an extension.

Question: Excessing, are people going to be ATRS?
Answer: Find where the vacancies are. We did a good job this year. It's the lowest number of ATR's in 18 years. With hiring freeze and retirements (no answer from City Hall on possible retirement incentive but we shouldn't bank on it). People couldn't do per session so there probably won't be as many retirements.  We are hoping it won't cause an increase in the ATR pool.

Question: Regents week, is remote learning going through until June 26 since there will be no Regents?
Answer: Afraid graduation rate will drop; use the two weeks which would have been for Regents to do credit recovery. Child has seat time but has not demonstrated proficiency in a subject. It has to be real and authentic learning. Kids will get Regents credit if they are passing the class and were scheduled to graduate. Thinks it goes for other grades and Regents classes too.

Question: What about observations?
Answer: We supported State Ed Department looking for executive order to waive APPR for the year (Annual rating). No agreed upon provision on how to do remote observations. Hoping to get that executive order (from the governor) since it is a state law. Everyone should get highly effective with the 85% student attendance.

Question: Will we be getting retro pay?
Answer: Governor suspended state worker raises. Budget has pay bill in it. They only can take away raises if it is part of state budget. During the economic crisis in 1970s, city tried to take away raises. It wasn't done but we had layoffs but still kept raises. One time in history Nassau County proved chaos was imminent and that was the only time raises were taken away. City standing behind contracts that are signed.

Question: Zoom?
Answer: Company has been a problem. Zoom needs to change some things.

Question: Condolences to 82 UFT members who have been lost.
Paraprofessional concerns on social distancing. Go to one-to-one.
Answer: It will be on the table. Go to UFT memorial page please.

Question: Cuts?
Answer: Budget cuts came from City Office of Management and Budget, not the DOE. They are sick of hearing us complain about how many people work at Central DOE.

Question: Hiring freeze, teaching in an art school. Some are retiring. Can we hire from DOE schools or only ATRs?
Answer: This will be a consultation issue with Chancellor. We understand hard hiring freeze but this is a special program.  Attrition is possible. Can hire from DOE schools. Can use open market where thousands of teachers transfer every year. Myths about open market.

Goals are safety and trying to make sure everyone keeps their livelihoods. It's tough right now. All feeling anxiety, fear, frustration, and anger.  We miss seeing people. Go to page honoring people. Thanks everyone again. Town Hall tomorrow.