Official UFT meetings for ATRs are coming soon, starting this Tuesday

Initially, this semester there was no news of UFT ATR meetings, but there was news of career training meetings, "Success Strategies for ATRs," that we would have to pay $10 for. This fiasco was covered by the Chaz blog a short while back. Why should we have to pay for a training? This is our union. We should be getting meetings and trainings, without special fees.

Now, the UFT has announced that it is granting official meetings for ATRs, a month later than usual. But similar to previous years, some of the meetings are being scheduled on days when there are mandatory school meetings we as NYC DOE teachers must attend, for parent-teacher conferences. The latter are absurd in themselves, as we only know these students short term, and often just days before the meeting.

Does the UFT really not want ATRs to attend informational meetings? They don't want us in the same place, so that we can see that these are AARP gatherings? Or for the reason that too many of us might have important questions?

We should ask for honest responses on what the DOE-UFT side agreement to the contract stipulates to us -what does the sunsetting of the ATR side agreement mean for any changes for us this year, on whether anything has changed in conditions that we can expect with field supervisor meetings and observations, on the union's progress in opposing the Fair Student Funding (FSF) fiasco (the true reason why we are not truly hired at schools), on what the union is doing to combat the media smears against ATRs, on what the union is doing to make sure that schools can tolerate actual safety threats to teachers. Chaz recently discussed the FSF policy and certain media talking point myths against ATRs here. (In addition to opposing ATRs for monetary issues, the DOE does not want ATRs because they as veteran teachers carry an institutional memory of the DOE BOE pre-Bloomberg when schools functioned better and teachers were treated with more dignity.)

When will the UFT stop playing along with the DOE's fictions, like we don't get hired because  any issue other than our higher cost? When will the UFT stop playing along with the DOE script that the field supervisors are here to find us positions when the UFT knows full well that their function is to meet a quota to terminate us? When will the UFT publicly call out that the field supervisors ultimately play no useful function for the students or for the teachers? The UFT knows full well that the DOE each year hires five to six thousand new teachers a year when it can draw from the pool? When will the UFT confront the DOE's preference to keep certain positions unfilled, with a rotating teacher every one to four weeks, rather than place a teacher, many of these classes being in Regents exam subjects?

Usually the union likes to focus on what the schools can or cannot do with ATRs or issues like bathroom keys, but we should also press issues that cut to our ability to keep our jobs. Why won't the UFT enforce the contract and force schools to humanely furnish us with critical keys or secure lockers for our belongings?

Informational meetings will take place in each of the UFT borough offices:

Brooklyn, 335 Adams St.
Tuesday, Nov. 1, 4:30 to 6:30 p.m.

Bronx, 2500 Halsey St.
Thursday, Nov. 3, 4 to 6 p.m.

Manhattan, 52 Broadway
Monday, Nov. 14, 4:30 to 6:30 p.m.

Queens, 97-77 Queens Blvd.
Tuesday, Nov. 15, 4:30 to 6:30 p.m.

Staten Island, 4456 Amboy Rd.
Thursday, Nov. 17, 4 to 6 p.m.

You are welcome to attend the session that is most convenient for you. We hope to see you there.