Still rotating

Some are rotating still, albeit on a yearly basis. Are you one of these folks? How do you get excessed?

UFT ATR meetings this week - Placement is the front and center issue

Official UFT ATR meetings where 
the UFT will discuss 

placements and evaluation 

and other questions we may have.

Which plan for observations will be put under? The one for probationers?

How can we can the DOE place us 
without getting proper Danielson training and new technology practice?

We'll be compared against teachers who entered the system after Danielson was introduced. To add insult to injury, we often did coverages for teachers who were out if the classroom for such training.

Will principal's have a say, and will we be Funded from the central budget?

And will the UFT allow the DOE to cynically hire new people during the summer, as they do every year? The new contract says nothing about eliminating Fair School Funding which incentivizes against hiring experienced teachers.

Watch ATRs mainly get placed in schools that were unable to find anyone before Labor Day, unintroduced to their their program or room. 

All times are 4 pm, at the UFT boro offices.

Mon., October 15: Queens, 97-77 Queens Blvd

Tue, October 16: Bronx, 2600 Halsey Street

Fri, October 19, Staten Island, 4456 Amboy Road

Mon., October 22, Brooklyn, 335 Adams Street

Fri., November 2, Manhattan, 52 Broadway

'The Chief,' the paper of NYC labor, gives front page coverage to ATRs and their testimonies

The teacher and counselor members of the New York City Absent Teacher reserve know first hand the ramifications of the reformers' attack on senior teachers, and the attack on the schools in underprivileged (and now gentrifying) neighborhoods. As the schools get shutdown, trimmed down or are given the "Renewal" treatment by Bloomberg/De Blasio, the teachers there get punished for serving the needier students: they become excessed into the DOE's ATR pool.

While other so called labor papers talk the talk about representing teachers and supporting rank and file workers,

'The Chief-Leader' actually walked the walk: it is the ONLY labor paper to print ATRs' story, allowing them to speak in more than sound bytes.  

Pick up a copy of the paper with Crystal Lewis' "Preparing for Return to Classroom, Teachers Lament Unfair Stigma."

https://twitter.com/TheChiefLeader/status/922953601160396800

https://www.facebook.com/TheChiefLeader/posts/1853153928031482

Why is the UFT allowing supervision of ATRs by two different types of supervisor? Or 'The stealth revision of the contract'

Beware the agreements that the UFT gets from the NYC DOE. It usually means something toxic has become in the power of the DOE. Witness the end of seniority transfer. Witness the forced overtime at the schools under the guise of professional development.

Now we are hearing all over that the DOEUFT has a new protocol, that as part of the end of rotation of ATRs that we will be observed by the roving field supervisor as well as the school administration. Clearly, this is a breach of the contract.

Notice how there have been big changes in the ATR experience almost immediately after the new chief supervisor of ATRs, Randy Asher (former principal at Brooklyn Technical High School, reviewed here) took over. ATRs are being held in one school until June. And ATRs are now being told that their field supervisor will be observing as well as the school administration.

WE NEED A GRIEVANCE AGAINST THE UNION: IT HAS FAILED TO BARGAIN IN GOOD FAITH. IT HAS FAILED TO COMMUNICATE. ONCE PER YEAR, AT MEETINGS THAT ARE ILL-ANNOUNCED, IS NOT SUFFICIENT. ISN'T THIS LESS FREQUENT THAN THE LEGAL REQUIREMENT? ARE THERE ANY ATRS REPRESENTING US IN THE NEGOTIATIONS WITH THE DOE? IF SO, WHO ARE THEY? WHEN DO THESE REPS MEET WITH THE DOE? Isn't it interesting that other UFT members are better informed and have more frequent meetings?

Apparently, the UFT has allowed the DOE to circumvent the contract. What other bags of tricks are coming? Why did the DOE just drop people into assignments last Monday without so much a notice of what they would be doing? Couldn't emails have been sent alerting teachers what they would be teaching? Or couldn't the field supervisors have sent these messages? Will the school administration try to use Danielson/Advance on us? These are evaluation systems that ATRs have not had proper training or introduction for. Why are ATRs not getting meetings of the sort that we get in October, to clarify the new protocols for the use and observation of ATRs? Why are we getting no official statement to ATRs?

Of course, this leads to a host of other questions, many of which ATRs have been asking for quite a while. Is it any wonder? This is regarding a union-city relationship that has our leaders openly endorsing mayor Bill De Blasio without so much as a membership discussion and vote, a mayor that is really Term Four of Mike Bloomberg, great chutzpah when the city is targeting teachers just as fiercely as ever. Why don't we have a page in the UFT's 'New York Teacher'? Why don't we have a chapter? Why don't we have clear official stats on the numbers of teachers truly placed (not simply temporarily placed for a month or until June)? Why do we get no information about changes from the district representatives, and instead only get happy "how are you?" visits, free of any meaningful substance as to the new topsy turvy conditions we've been thrown into?

Six basic questions that neither Farina nor Mulgrew have had the sense to address about the coming closures of 3 Brooklyn schools

Now that three (3) "troubled schools" in Brooklyn will be closing next year for "under performance and under enrollment", why hasn't anyone put this complex question to

FARINA and MULGREW...

1) Where do these teachers go when they are excessed??

2)  If they will be placed, how can they be placed when there are over 

     1,500 ATRs still waiting for placement?

3)  If these teachers are leaving the "closing" schools for other placements in

     "vacancies", will ATRs be placed in that "coverage" (provisional positions)

      when the school officially closes?

4)   How can the ATR pool go down when the DOE/UFT is creating this cycle?

5)   During an election year, will anyone address this "dark secret"?

6)   Who will acquire the available space when the schools are closed - 

      charter or the other public school?

If these questions are already answered, and the newspapers haven't put 2+2 together for the QUANDARY that will arise in 2016-17, then this dilemma is not addressed in some plausible way!!

Keep in mind, the next salary increase happens in MAY 2016 and many of our ATRs are reaching salary levels that are going beyond the compensatory levels within school budgets. (Despite Principals being told, it's not coming from their budgets unless over the allotted "average teacher salary in the bldg) This will definitely put a major strain upon hiring any ATRs for 2016-17 budget levels. For example, those teacher reaching 15 yrs are now prime targets for being "over budget and over age" and the most senior teacher in some schools will be 13yrs, if that!!  Hence, where do these teachers start to find positions especially when majority of positions are not on the DOE website or advertised as expected.