Why the stakes are high in veteran teacher terminations: 'Retirement' without quality pensions

Harper's Magazine had a sobering August, 2014 article, "The End of Retirement," in which Jessica Bruder reported on retirees that had inadequate pensions. She encountered roving "elderly migrant workers" who work at Amazon warehouses or on farms.

Many of the points from the Harper's Article: Many of these workers were actually former members of the middle class, with management jobs in corporate America. These new migrants often travel in RVs, moving from job to job. The work is often too taxing for people their age, people in their 70s or 80s. Corporate America's shift from traditional pensions to 401(k)s has meant that workers have lost in the long run.

Some of the main points were earlier published in U.S. News & World Report, "A Disturbing Look at the New Retirement."

ATRs, and other teachers threatened with termination-- This is your future if the DOE field supervisors or other administrators. 

Notice how many ATRs with between 20 and 25 satisfactory rating years in the system and are suddenly getting U ratings? Termination before 25 years will keep these teachers away from getting full pensions necessary for a quality retirement. The opportunity to "hold down runaway pensions" is likely what is driving the effort to terminate teachers, whether by observation of ATRs in substituting situations or by Danielson-style teacher evaluation. Tenure remains, but states have an opportunity to evade their pension obligations. 

And where is the UFT on this threat? As field supervisors inappropriately give unsatisfactory ratings in subbing performances, ATRs are feeling abandoned. ATRs felt sold out by the Contract on Educators. Now they feel betrayed, as members report hearing UFT president Mulgrew buying WNYC's rhetoric and calling ATRs "unwanted teachers" on NPR, when the reality is that their salaries prevent them from being hired. 

When a crime is a crime it is when the crime is not righted

"[Making mayoral control permanent] would build predictability into the system, which is important for bringing about the deep, long-range reforms that are needed.” --NYC mayor Bill De Blasio

This system has made me an ATR or as we who were infected by the bloombust reforms call us The Walking Dead, know full well how "reforms" have worked. As to what another mayor will do when this one leaves is of no consolation to me or my brother and sister ATRs. We will have been long retired and unaffected by what the next mayor does or doesn't do to a system that is so far gone that it is a hair's breath from being declared terminal. I came into the system wanting to do nothing else but teach. Yet, the city that I was born, grew up and educated in has done everything that it can do to destroy that once love I had.
My legacy (HA!) is that of being abused and disrespected by the system that I was proud to work for, once, long ago.     --"Walker"

"I don't care about ATRs. I don't deal with ATRS and this is not my problem."

In the DOE we're supposed to be respectful to each other, working collegially. Unfortunately, some feel free to dish it out on ATRs, taking an attitude we'd expect more from Leadership Academy grads.

So after checking with my district rep and with Amy Arundell, I confirmed that the teacher's choice forms do, in fact, go to the payroll secretary at our current school and that this fact was relayed in the Principals' Weekly mailing. 
So I once again took the envelope down to the payroll secretary and told her as much. She said, "I don't know what you want me to do with that. You're not on my list. But if you insist, I'll take it and just put it in a drawer here and keep it. But I'm not going to do anything with it." 
So I said, "But if it just sits in a drawer, I'm going to have money deducted from my check, right? " She said, "Probably". So I said that she needs to find out where my stuff is supposed to go so that doesn't happen. 
And she said, "Listen. I don't want you to tell me anything. I don't want anything explained to me. I don't know about ATRs. I don't want to know about ATRs. I don't care about ATRs. I don't deal with ATRs and this is not my problem. I'm not calling or emailing ANYWHERE because this is YOUR problem, not mine. I don't have to deal with ATRs, so don't tell me anything, because I'm not interested. I'd rather not even know your name." 
So I emailed Amy and my district rep with a CC to the principal and included her quotes. And I ended by saying that I hope she doesn't speak to parents like that, and that I find this unprofessional and degrading.

James Eterno on the closing of Jamaica HS and ATRs

PEP James Eterno on ATRs - Nov 25 2014

Video of James Eterno at a Panel for Educational Policy meeting in November.

Delegates that support ACRs/ATRs and educators will support these resolutions at Wednesday's UFT Delegate Assembly

Resolution for Full Union Representation for ATRs
Please raise for NEXT MONTH’S AGENDA
Whereas, the Delegate Assembly is the highest policy making body in the United Federation of
Teachers, and
Whereas, federal labor law requires that policy making bodies within a union be democratically
elected with each member entitled to a vote, and
Whereas, Absent Teacher Reserves (ATRs) are not entitled to vote in Chapter Elections unless they
happen to be working in a school that has a Chapter Election during a particular week that the ATR is
working in a school, and
Whereas, unions can set up reasonable rules as to who can run for office, but it is not reasonable that
ATRs including Leave Replacement Teachers and Provisional Teachers cannot run or serve as
Delegates or Chapter Leaders simply because they belong to no Chapter, and
Whereas, the ATR position has now been embedded in the UFT contract in Section 16 of the 2014
Memorandum of Agreement, therefore be it
Resolved, that the UFT will immediately create a Functional Chapter to represent the interests of
ATRs, Leave Replacement Teachers and Provisional Teachers.
Movement of Rank and File Educators is the Social
Justice Caucus of the UFT- New York City’s Teachers union.
We are a positive alternative to the current union leadership.
Want to talk MORE?
Join us for a post-DA gathering at 6 pm, just a few blocks away at
the White Horse Tavern, 25 Bridge St.

RESOLUTION FOR THE UFT TO ENDORSE HOWIE HAWKINS FOR GOVERNOR
& BRIAN JONES FOR LIEUTENANT GOVERNOR - Please raise for THIS MONTH’S AGENDA
Whereas, both New York State gubernatorial candidates Andrew Cuomo and Rob Astorino vocally
support the privatization of education through the expansion of charter schools, and the Green Party
ticket of Howie Hawkins and Brian Jones oppose charter schools, and
Whereas, Andrew Cuomo has pushed through an expansion of testing statewide and the punitive linking of test scores to teacher evaluations, while the Hawkins/Jones ticket opposes an emphasis on
testing, and
Whereas, Andrew Cuomo implemented a destructive tax cap that has forced massive layoffs of teachers in upstate districts, and
Whereas, the New York State AFL-CIO and the New York State United Teachers have declined to endorse
Cuomo because of his anti-education policies, and
Whereas the Buffalo Teachers Federation, Port Jefferson Station Teachers Association, East Williston Teachers Association, Lakeland Federation of Teachers, Diane Ravitch, the Coalition for Public Education,
the Independent Commission on Public Education and three local NYC Democratic clubs have all
endorsed the Hawkins/Jones ticket, and
Whereas, the Hawkins/Jones platform of a Green New Deal calls for equitable funding for all of our
schools, reduced class sizes across the state, support for programs that promote desegregation in
our schools, an end to zero-tolerance discipline policies driving the school-to-prison pipeline,
and allowing schools to develop methods of assessment organic to the learning process, and
Whereas, Astorino and Cuomo are both millionaires while Hawkins and Jones are both union activists,
Hawkins in Teamsters, Jones in the UFT and PSC, therefore be it,
Resolved, the United Federation of Teachers endorses Howie Hawkins for Governor of New York State and Brian Jones for Lieutenant Governor. Be it further
Resolved, the UFT, through COPE, inform its members of this endorsement, the contrasts between the candidates on key education issues, and mobilize its members to support the Hawkins/Jones campaign.

“Here We Go Again!”

An ATR returns to page 1.

 

“Here We Go Again!” – In which the former ATR is no longer a former ATR, but an ATR, not former, but for a second time and, OH, HECK, I’m back in the soup.

You know those kids’ picture books where you give a mouse a cookie, or you give a pig a pancake, and you go on this long convoluted journey only to end up back on page one when you get to the last page? Yeah, I kinda feel like one of those characters. You see, friends. I am back in the ATR stew.

Funny how this came about. I had a roller coaster of a year last year – I was in a school that was completely out of control and was assaulted and sent to the hospital. Over the summer, I had no idea what was waiting for me come September, as I had heard nothing about being moved to another school and had yet to hear the result of my transfer request.

As the summer wound down, I was focused on squeezing every bit of goodness and family time out of what remained of the season. Almost daily visits to the pool, summer outdoor concerts, cocktails on my backyard patio with friends, and barbecues kept the trepidation at bay and I made a firm commitment to not worry about things that hadn’t happened yet.

So imagine my surprise when my husband tells me that he checked the house answering machine and said that there was a call from a principal asking me for an interview. I was completely puzzled, as Open Market had closed and I had not found any vacancies on it that I found suitable, and therefore had not applied for any interviews. Anywhere. But, not one to mess with fate, I returned the call.

The principal was very nice, and we spoke for a few minutes before I asked how he came to call me, as I didn’t recall applying to his school. He said, “I got your name from the excess list.”

WHAT??? “Excuse me?” I said, “Excess list? Like ATR?”

After a few moments, I found out that I had been allegedly been placed in excess at the end of the school year. Sure enough, I logged on to the Excess Staff Selection System, and there I was. In excess.

To this day, I have received no formal, written notice that I am in excess. I have heard nothing from my former principal, and all my belongings are still, as far as I know, in my old school. Requests to reclaim my belongings have been ignored – and my union has been little help in assisting me in getting my property back.

The question lingers – what if we had ignored the house answering machine, as we tend to do as we favor our cell phones and the land line is used mainly by the kids? What if this principal had never called me and I never found out I was in excess? Am I really in excess? I got an assignment on the system, but I have no hard paperwork explaining how I came to be here. Would my no-show on the first day been my first instance of “problematic behavior”?

Why does this bother me?

　

Some goals to pose in the ATR meetings at the UFT borough offices

Some goals to pose to Amy Arundell and the UFT in the ATR meetings at the borough offices on September 9 (Manhattan and Queens), September 11 (Staten Island) and September 12 (Bronx). The Brooklyn meeting was held on September 8.

1. Points We Want to Make

• Was the return to the previous way of funding teachers’ salaries, so as to remove the “roadblock” of higher salary costs from principals’ consideration when hiring, a part of the contract negotiation? Why not?
• Last school year, some ATR members were observed by their field supervisors, out of license. Why did the UFT allow this?

• Recommend that next school year, the DOE arranges for all current ATR members, to collectively meet, to have a day of professional development. At the same event, allow the UFT to hold its annual UFT meeting for ATRs that is currently held borough-wide, after working hours.
• Demand protection from physical harm from students and consequences for their actions, if it does occur.

2) Questions to ask at the UFT’s ATR Meetings

• Considering that a significant number of students are reading below grade level, what is the UFT doing to urge the DOE to put librarians back in schools and reading teachers back in the classrooms?
• Why were many members of the ATR, who applied on the “Open Market System,” not given interviews?
• How many members of the ATR were appointed to positions prior to the beginning of the school year?
• Explain who pays ATR members’ salaries if hired provisionally versus being appointed. How long does the DOE pay/contribute to their salaries once in these positions?
• What plans are underway, by the DOE, to create opportunities/new programs for ATR members with Art, Music and CTE Trade licenses?
• What happens to ATR teachers who were U-rated last school year?
• Why didn’t the UFT respond to the repeated lies and/or attacks on members of the ATR pool by the media (“Crain's,” the “NY Daily News,” the “NY Post,” “WNYC,” the “NY Times” and the “Wall Street Journal”) and Chancellor Farina?
• Why is the UFT “turning a blind eye” in many cases to ATR members’ complaints of harassment by school administrators or ATR field supervisors?
• If ATR members are terminated after 3020a hearings, for unprofessional behavior, do the members lose their entire pension minus the years they contributed?
• Despite repeated requests for a definition of “unprofessional behavior” on the part of ATR members, which could result in an expedited 3020a hearing and ultimately, termination, why is the UFT’s answer vague or nil? Stating that the arbitrators will be able to recognize such behavior is not considered an adequate response, according to the ATR pool. How may the ATR avoid such problematic practices if they don’t know what they are? Why are ATR members singled out for disparate treatment, while the remaining membership is not?
• According to chancellor there will be no forced placement. Then explain how ATR members, who do not accept a position in their license area and in their borough, are to be considered as resigning?

3) Goals

• The UFT should allow ACRs and ATRs to have borough-level elected representatives with Delegate Assembly voting rights, as our number at approximately 1,000 is comparable to the number of UFT members in many districts.
• The UFT should facilitate the creation of new positions for borough representatives dedicated to the ATR pool.
• Due to that fact that the following incidents happen quite frequently, instead of putting the onus on ATR members to complain to Chapter Leaders or UFT representatives, the UFT should inform school administrators to:
  • stop assigning ATR teachers to do clerical tasks.
  • stop assigning multiple periods of cafeteria, hall and bathroom duty.
  • inform School Safety that ATR members do not have to scan.
  • insist that schools provide bathroom, classroom and elevator keys.
• The UFT should insist that the DOE puts in writing, in explicit detail, a list of the unprofessional behaviors that principals can use to return ATR members back in rotation, and that could result in an expedited hearing and ultimately, their termination.