An ATR's letter to Mulgrew on phony mandated interviews

A letter to UFT president Mulgrew, whose union represents also paraprofessionals, who get placed when excessed from a school, but cannot ensure the same for excessed teachers.  Remember that this president has been reported as using WNYC's phrase "unwanted teachers" referring to ATRs while on the station, when the fact is that ATRs have higher salaries which principals will avoid in favor of new recruits. Fair Student Funding creates this incentive to hire new teachers. This is why ATRs will very rarely stay in a position beyond June. Somehow Mulgrew cannot bring it to himself to utter these facts.

To: Michael Mulgrew
Cc: Amy Arundell; Michael Sill
Subject: Mandated Interviews

Michael, 

    I have just returned from my "mandated interview" at A. Phillip Randolph H.S.  I was told by the secretary that all of the interviews had been cancelled last week.  We were all given letters, by the principal, to this affect.  This is not what I am writing you about.  It is the blatant effort of Tweed to paint all ATRs aka, The Walking Dead, as unhireable and therefore need to be terminated.  

   To back up this statement, a rash of senior teachers, in the pool, in the outer boroughs are being hounded and setup by supervisors for "U" ratings.  I have also learned, in confidentiality, that we are being deliberately sent on interviews that are nonexistent, which is a violation of Art. 16, paragraphs 2 & 3 of our contract.  

    You need to fix this now. Not in 2 months or 2 years, but now.  We have dedicated our lives to the children of the City of New York and we deserve better than this.  We are tired of hearing that the union can't demand that we in the pool (ATR) not be terminated.  You are the president of the UFT.  If they don't want to budge then there should not have been a contract until the city did come around and negotiated a viable, honest and respectable solution to this madness.

   I hope to hear from you concerning this latest in a very long history of abuse of the senior teaching staff in the city and union.