Why is the ATR pool still growing under deBlasio? Plus some questions ahead of the upcoming UFT ATR meetings

What's happening with the growing ATR pool?

It is unconfirmed that the Absent Teacher Reserve Pool has grown to as many as 4,000. What is driving the increasing number of excessed DOE staff? Despite the end of Bloomberg era closures, the growth of new schools and the growth of charters continues. As newer schools grow, taking more students, more classrooms, more teachers, existing schools lose students, lose space and lose staff. For those not in the know, the ATR pool includes guidance counselors (colloquially called ACRs, as they number in the hundreds), social workers, psychologists, librarians, besides strictly instructional staff. And by the way, the UFT has failed to unionize or demand that the DOE permanently hire various professionals such as part-time or itinerant nurses and guidance counselors. The UFT tolerates this privatized staffing, euphemistically called "service providers."

The DOE/UFT tell us that people are leaving the ATR pool. The DOE and the UFT both play the same numbers games, not giving us straight numbers about the ATR pool.

Members need to ask the UFT directly:

--How many people have been appointed from the pool, into schools?  That is, how many people have truly, permanently, left the ACR/ATR pool?

--How many people are filling a maternity or illness leave position?

--How many people are are in a position only for a semester or only for the current academic year?

--Given that the Fair School Funding formula, also known as the Fair Student Funding formula, has been the reason that principals themselves cite for not permanently placing or hiring staff out of the pool, why is the UFT not aggressively fighting the Fair School Funding formula?
--Why is the UFT not fighting for an amendment to the contract to bring seniority rights into hiring practices?

--Why is the UFT not fighting the well-known practice of DOE administrators to hire new staff over members of the Absent Teacher Reserve?

Does the UFT really want all ATRs to attend their meetings?

New excessing will occur in October, as class registers stabilize, after schools have accounted for student attendance patterns. According to the DOE's arcane excessing guidelines the excessing is concentrated in batches of staff in certain licenses, for example, a school can be found compelled to excess three teachers because of declined enrollment. As a result schools, can lose vital staff such as special education teachers, librarians or guidance counselors.

The timing of the meetings at the end of September and very early in October is not the best for the excessed staff. Many teachers and other DOE staff across the city will lose their positions in schools and will enter the ATR pool, yet they will not be introduced to the DOE's protocols for ATRs, as they would receive in the official UFT meetings for ATRs.

Here again are the official ATR meetings that the UFT has scheduled for the next two weeks:

Note that many of the meetings conflict with DOE staff obligations at schools. The 2014 contract introduced new obligations for teachers and other staff to stay late at schools. At most schools these dates fall on Mondays and Tuesdays. 

We hope that your year is off to a good start. As promised, we are contacting you to let you know that the UFT will be holding informational meetings for ATRs in the coming weeks. Whether you are new to the ATR pool or not, we want to make sure you have the opportunity to ask questions and get answers.

Here are the dates and locations. Note the changed dates and times, since the announcements earlier this week, following complaints:

Queens

• Date: originally, Monday, Sept. 28. Rescheduled to Wednesday, Sept. 30, due to complaints about Sept. 28 falling on Sukhot (the UFT has not shared this change thru mass email; details and of this change have spread by word of mouth)
• Time: 4–6 p.m.
• Location: UFT Queens borough office at 97-77 Queens Blvd. Directions »

Bronx

• Date: Monday, Sept. 28, still, despite = Sukhot
• Time: 4:30–6 p.m. Note the later start time, but not the later finishing time.
• Location: UFT Bronx borough office at 2500 Halsey St. Directions »

Manhattan

• Date: Thursday, Oct. 1
• Time: 4–6 p.m.
• Location: UFT headquarters at 52 Broadway Directions »

Staten Island

• Date: Thursday, Oct. 1
• Time: 4–6 p.m.
• Location: UFT Staten Island borough office at 4456 Amboy Road Directions »

Brooklyn

• Date: Monday, Oct. 5, difficult for many teachers because 2014 contract compels teachers to stay late on two days, usually Monday and Tuesday; and at many schools faculty conferences (a late day, UFT brass, in case you didn't know) fall on the first Monday of the month
• Time: 4:30–6 p.m. Later starting time, but original finishing time, asinthe Bronx meetings.
• Location: UFT Brooklyn borough office at 335 Adams St. Directions »

Tired, old, excuses

  Yesterday was the last day of the school year, 2014/2015.  It was the year that all of us had longed for, after 12, long, agonizing years.  Finally we were to be made whole once again.  We had a mayor [sic] who ran on being the mayor that would reverse the Bloombitch/Klein reign of terror.  What did we wake up to that September morning last fall?  Were we to go to our permanent schools and start to clean, arrange and decorate our classrooms?  NO!  We as the Walking Dead were "forced" to report our ATR assignments.  Later that month, we were "forced" to go on "mandated interviews".  After our first rotation, we were again "forced" to go to a new school, were we were "forced" to be substitute teachers and "forced" to have to endure the indignities of both students and staff, the latter of which were, in some cases, 30 years our juniors.  

  Today I was supported by the entire 7th grade class of the school I was lucky enough to be "forced" rotated into.  The question arose while I was on my way home, should I let our union [another sic] know and could they put in a word for me?  My answer to that is "forced placements have been eliminated!"  But "forced" rotations, interviews and assignments are permitted by our holier-than-thou union.  

 

  The answer to this problem would simply be "vote the bastards out!"  But how can we when the newborns are "forced" to vote for the one party that will "force" them out of teaching and "force" the greatest kids in the universe to a mediocre education.  Keep your dues coming, suckers!

Anonymous

2015 "Hiring Support" - Positions - What positions? Part II

Follow-up from yesterday's post on the school positions smoke and mirrors.

 Are they kidding me! Help me find a "new position"? Do I look like I have stupid tatooed to my far head? Please. The only way that ATRs will EVER get back into an appointed position is in their dreams.

________________________________
From: ATRassignment@schools.nyc.gov [ATRassignment@schools.nyc.gov]
Sent: Thursday, May 14, 2015 11:00 AM
To:
Subject: 2015 Hiring Support Services for NYC DOE Teachers in Excess

Dear Colleague,

In order to support you in your search for a new position, the Supervision and Support Team, part of the Office of Teacher Recruitment and Quality, offers many services to teachers searching for a job within the New York City Department of Education. We encourage you to begin and prepare for your job search as early as possible in order to maximize opportunities to network with principals who are eagerly looking for quality experienced teachers. Below is a summary of Supervision and Support Team services for summer 2015.

Open Market Hiring System (OM) - Online DOE system that allows you to apply directly to posted vacancies as well as be searchable to principals looking for experienced teachers. Remember, don't be just a name and file number. Register<https://www.nycenet.edu/offices/dhr/transferplane/> with OM to update your contact information and current job search profile with an up to date resume and answers to the writing prompts. In addition to Open Market, you may also be invited to teacher recruitment fairs throughout the summer during the Open Market transfer season. If sent an invitation, we encourage you to register and attend as these opportunities are limited.

Job Search Support - Supervision and Support Team has created a new online portal, www.weteachnyc.org<http://www.weteachnyc.org/> with event dates, up to date announcements, and job search tools including resume/cover letter templates and teacher interview questions.Searching for a new position can be an uncertain and frustrating process, but we are available to help you. Please visit our School Staff in Excess Portal at www.weteachnyc.org<http://www.weteachnyc.org/> for more information. Just log in using your DOE credentials and click on the tile labeled 'School Staff in Excess' for access to our current job search support resources. You can view the attached one-pager for help navigating the log-in process or the following short video for extra guidance on how to use the space: https://vimeo.com/126416892.

Questions are concerns about We Teach? Contact us at THSC@schools.nyc.gov <mailto:THSC@schools.nyc.gov>.

DOE Email we send out information and announcements via email so it is in your interest that you check your email routinely throughout the summer. Checking your email routinely will ensure that you do not miss out on invitations to recruitment fairs and other job search support activities.

Best Regards,

Supervision and Support Team

Ref Number : GX1187211 ATR_OMT_Reminder ATR OMT Reminder

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.

ACRs/ATRs tell the truth of the situations after another New York Times slight

The New York Times again ran an article slighting ACRs/ATRs. However, the UFT leaders fail to publicly speak up for us and fail to dispel misleading generalizations of how staff became displaced. On the side many in our union who want our support buy the Campbell Brown sort of line that we are "bad teachers". Displaced staff speak up and give their accounts of why they are ATRs, and why they do not have permanent assignments or real appointed positions.

1) Based on DOE documents ACRs/ATRs have obtained, roughly 3/4 of displaced staff are in pool because of school closings or co-locations

2) Displaced as ACR/ATR due to fraudulent charges

a) any student charge will be validated if the principal or the investigator wishes, with principals freely soliciting fabricated stories made up on the spot

b) teachers surviving the accusation stage pay a mob-style shakedown fine and then return to the classroom

3) Vast majority of teachers (80%) at the last figure in long term assignments had satisfactory ratings (May 2011 Gotham Schools); others are getting their first U ratings observations while in rotation, with coverage (substitute) classes they just met, have no relationship with, do not have the power of entering a grade for them, do not have the parent or guardian phone numbers for them.

Positions are eliminated as UFT reading volunteer program undercuts literacy coach positions, as teachers are given college adviser duties for advisories, undercutting guidance counselors, as many guidance and social work positions over-all are given to outside private contractors.

4) Principals have played favorites and have replaced ACRs/ATRs with their own staff preferences

5) Not hired because fair student funding has encouraged principals to hire cheaper teachers

a) job fairs are a fraud

b) at the fairs established teachers are forced to compete with Teaching Fellows, Teach for America recruits and other new people

c) experienced educators are passed over for positions for which they are qualified, while unqualified teachers take their place

Instead of fighting the displacement process the UFT has repeated the DOE line that we need to retool our resumes or beef up our wardrobes. We are supposed to be protected by tenure. Why is the union cooperating with this tenure-crushing ploy that we need to reapply for jobs? This is a back-handed breaking of tenure. ACRs/ATRs did not leave their jobs. They were displaced as new hires took the places they would have had when new schools replaced old schools.

The union seems to have forgotten that by ignoring the hiring of Teacher for America recruits and other novice teachers, the DOE violated on-again, off-again hiring freezes, freezes that they used to insist on. The DOE opened the door for their displacement of veterans with the excuse that they filled shortage areas, then the UFT allowed that to happen for all licences.

Here are some of the stories of how ACRs/ATRs entered the pool. We tell them, since the UFT gives us no page in the union newspaper.

I am a guidance counselor, excessed by new principal because she said she had no money in budget to pay my salary, and she illegally lowered my caseload to 11 students. Yet she hired another gc for a few days a week, instead of keeping me for those days. Where is the help the UFT promised us? Several principals have said to me that no money in budget is no excuse.

The school that I taught in for twelve years was closed,and I was put into the ATR pool. In thirty years of teaching I have 1) been teacher of the year, 2) had thirty years of satisfactory ratings, 3) been one of the teachers that was asked to create the music curriculum that the city used, 4) helped several students get scholarships, 5) had the highest number of students from any one junior-high school in the all-city junior high school orchestra, 6) trained students that have gone on to professional careers in music. I have been completely ignored ten times when I have applied for positions that were posted via the DOE website. On the two occasions when I was asked to come to a group interview, all of the other candidates (who for the most part were much younger that me) gave up and said "there is no way that we can compete with this guy". However, I was never even invited back for the second round of interviews. So far this school year, as I have been traveling through the schools (which I don't mind so much really) I have come across three of my former students who are now teachers, and they all said that I helped to inspire them to become teachers (guess I haven't done such a bad job after all).

Then there is this testimony, which echoes disturbing stories that are coming in privately every few days: that ATRs are getting U ratings for observations of lessons in substitute situations. The UFT knows that the DOE wins nearly every U rating appeal, yet it agreed to this evaluation program from the outset, going along with the ploy that this was just a pilot program in just a few districts. What a way to end a career.

I am 64, after 18 years of service my school closed and was replaced by two new schools with young principals who in turn hired young, inexperienced teachers. During 18 years, I never received a U rating. Recently, I was observed out of my subject and grade, and I received my first U because I could not control three students. I was told that even though I did not know their names and they did not know me, I am supposed to be able to control them and teach, although their own classroom teacher could not control them. I will retire soon in Florida.

Forced placement today; denied hiring opportunities yesterday. A look back to the truth on job fairs.

The blog has shared stories of some literally dangerous forced placements. An ATR that has been published on education issues described rotation and the truth behind the job fair experience.

Marc Epstein's article in the Huffington Post two years ago reminds us of how we were denied consideration in invitation-only hiring halls. Some DOE hiring fairs were specifically only for new teachers, while there was a "hiring freeze".

About six weeks ago I received a letter informing me that I was now a member of the Absent Teacher Reserve pool of the New York City Department of Education. That meant that because my school was being phased out and wouldn't be accepting new students my services were no longer wanted. Approximately half of the remaining faculty at Jamaica High School received the same notice.

We've now joined the pool of approximately 2,000 "ronin" teachers who were instructed to find jobs by entering an "open market" that lists available teaching positions on the internet, and attend "job fairs."

The term "ronin" (literally, "floating men") originally described samurai in medieval Japan who for one reason or another no longer had a lord to serve, and, hence, lost their employment. It's estimated that around 1600, the number swelled to over 400,000. (Japan: An Illustrated Encyclopedia. Kodansha, p. 1275 vol. 2, ISBN 4-06-931098-3)

For those unfamiliar with Japanese history, the ronin genre of movies became famous worldwide in the 1950s and 60s. Arguably the most famous of which were The Seven Samurai and Yojimbo, directed by Akira Kurosawa.

I dutifully followed the instructions on the Department Of Education website and applied for jobs in my field. So did my colleagues. We didn't receive a single call for an interview.

I received an email informing me that a "job fair" was taking place at the Brooklyn Museum last week. Four Jamaica High School ronin piled into my car with our bar-coded invitations and traveled to the museum.

Faceless bureaucrats with name tags and Blackberries greeted us at the door. We were told to take the elevator up to a magnificent rotunda with desks arranged in a circle. School representatives were seated at the tables with signs indicating their school and positions available.

Our group consisted of two English and two Social Studies teachers. Although many positions were listed on the Internet during the "open market," there wasn't a single job interview in our field at the museum.

We ran into other ronin who had been dropped from our school the year before. They told us that all of the job fairs that they had attended had been a waste of time.

If you don't live in New York, you can read tales of Ronin-Teachers at a website devoted to chronicling their travails.

Aside from acting as a samizdat for people in our predicament, it reveals the dirty little secret that New York City really has no public left in the political sense anymore. That's because in another era an earsplitting roar would have erupted over the deliberate misuse and abuse of qualified public servants.

I felt like I was an extra in Chushingura, a Japanese play about the forty-seven samurai who took revenge after the forced suicide of their lord Asano Nagamori. Asano had drawn his sword in the Shogun's castle after being humiliated by the chief of protocol. Forty-seven of his samurai who had become ronin after Asano's death, waited two years to exact vengeance. (Japan: An Illustrated Encyclopedia. Kodansha, p. 404 vol. 1, ISBN 4-06-931098-3)

They found employment by taking on all sorts of demeaning occupations until they were sure that the secret police were no longer watching them, they carried out their vendetta.

When I was doing my graduate work in Japan, I observed that the story would be performed annually.

Every Japanese person knows the story. It's been presented in Bunraku puppet theatre, Kabuki plays, movies, and television series, in countless revivals for the past three hundred years. Nevertheless, everyone remains riveted by the story and enjoys the play for the staging and the performance.

In the end the ronin get their revenge and assassinate the chief of protocol, but the Shogun, not knowing what to do with these loyal samurai, at last offers them the only honorable Japanese solution. They are allowed to commit seppuku (ritual suicide) en masse.

Increasingly, the twenty-first century business model for running the country's largest public school system resembles something out of a Japanese medieval play. Feudal arrangements have displaced rational bureaucratic function.

Rather than the high-tech model that was supposed to usher in the new age of education innovation, we have an authoritarian regime bent on holding the teaching profession responsible for ten years of meaningless doctored test results. In addition to the human cost of a decade of poorly educated kids, the budget has doubled to $22 billion a year!

A kind of kabuki-charade plays out with a script that talks about "business models," "open markets," and "job fairs," while no honest method of staffing schools with qualified teachers who have become ronin is put in place.

Our union leaders celebrate when Mayor Bloomberg's phony threat to lay off thousands of teachers isn't realized. But when the Department of Education lifted the hiring freeze this summer so that schools can hire cheaper inexperienced teachers at precisely the same time that the ronin -- teacher pool -- is being stocked with older experienced bodies, nobody says a word. That includes the union and New York's vaunted press.

With the start of the new school year the editorialists will once again rail about unemployable teachers who are living on the taxpayer's largesse, while the mayor revives his campaign to terminate us.

At the end of the day the teacher-ronin are expendable. After all, when you go to the movies and buy popcorn, does it matter who puts the popcorn in the box, or if there is a new person behind the counter every three weeks?

The MBA types who now run our schools will tell you that if you can manage a muffler shop you can manage a McDonald's, a bowling alley, or a movie theatre, so why not a school? In this corporate universe teacher experience is as irrelevant as is the size of the classes.

But in our society ritual suicide is not an honorable solution. So I don't expect a mass suicide of ronin-teachers even if the mayor offers it as an option.

All of the teacher-ronin have received email notification to report to various schools the day after Labor Day. We can be utilized in any capacity, and have no idea if we will be teaching in our subject area.

The Department of Education reminds me of the "man on the street" who was asked by a reporter whether he thought it was worse to be ignorant or indifferent? He replied, "I don't know and I don't care."

The pity is Kurosawa is no longer around to make a movie about the New York City ronin-teachers that would give Davis Guggenheim's Waiting for Superman a run for its money.

NYC DOE holds Danielson training, but rotating ATRs need not apply

ATRs, the NYC DOE is holding a Danielson professional development workshop. Problem is, twice in the document there are statements that bar most displaced teachers.

...teachers who have used the Framework as a reflection tool for more than a year, ...
and referring to the new evaluation system,

These trainings are available to regularly appointed teachers rated under Advance and their UFT Representatives.

Notice also, the Saturday-exclusive schedule will exclude observant Jews and Seventh Day Adventists. This is not the first such instance. Will this continue under the new mayoral administration?

"A Deeper Understanding of the Danielson 2013 Framework for Teaching": Professional development for teachers  

Who should attend? This day-long session is designed for teachers who have used the Framework as a reflection tool for more than a year, including those teachers involved in the teacher effectiveness pilots and those who have attended previous full-day NYCDOE trainings led by the Danielson Group. (Schools are encouraged to send two colleagues as a team to promote professional dialogue and peer support.) This session features video of high school classroom practice. 

When are the upcoming sessions? (Click on the borough to register.) Saturday, January 11 from 8:30 a.m. - 3:30 p.m. in Brooklyn, Manhattan, and Queens. Visit the Advance Professional Development Calendar for additional dates.

What will this training cover? In this session, you will:

• Explore how to use the Framework to support your development through reflection and conversations with your peers.

• Prepare and share your reflections on an observed lesson (differentiated by grade band) in order to deepen your own knowledge of the Framework and to support your peers in engaging in professional conversations.

• Study authentic artifacts of teaching practice and consider ways to demonstrate your own practice in Domains 1 and 4.

How to register: 

• Click on the hyperlinked borough names above,
• Visit our Advance Professional Development Calendar, or
• Visit the Advance Measures of Teacher Practice intranet page (DOE login required) and scroll down to "Professional Development Opportunities." 

Please contact TEPD@schools.nyc.gov with any questions.

These trainings are available to regularly appointed teachers rated under Advance and their UFT Representatives. Please remember that your principal's approval is required to attend school-day sessions. Eligible staff who attend Saturday and winter break sessions will be eligible for per session.