Opening at the high school? What opening?

An ATR, seeking placement write the UFT:

Dear Amy and Mike,

This is a follow up to my phone call last night. On the "good news", the environment at [a HS] is nothing less than refreshing compared to ______ HS. From the Principal to the teaching staff, I have not felt this welcome in weeks. The chapter chair here came over to me to introduce himself and also took my email to keep me in the loop at the school. What he also said, and I believe that it was given to all c.c. was that we are to be kept at our present location till the end of the school year. He had stated that it was to be included in city wide c.c. elections. It would be nice if we are to finish the school year in our present rotation.

On a "not so good news" event, I met the new social studies teacher for the _______ School [in mid-town]. Why am I telling you about this? When I applied and interviewed at that school in the first week of December, I was encouraged to formally apply for a formal interview by that principal. I never received a formal, nor was I surprised. What is upsetting is that because of the agreement between the UFT and the city on bloombitch's "fair funding" initiatives, senior aka higher paid teachers will, in most cases, be exempt from being able to get another position. It will also trap senior teachers in horrible, bloombitch-influenced principal, schools, where the only results will be ineffective ratings, forced retirements or worse.

The union MUST force the city to eliminate this farce. Thank you again for listening and supporting me in the past.

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.