Comments on: UFT and city begin contract talks amid questions over pay, ATRs

By: Peter

Peter — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 14:34:42 +0000

Margaret:

There is NO state budget (April 1), there is NO City budget, (June 15), all rumors. No staffing deicisons will be made until all the budgets are in place.

If layoffs do take place they take place by license in inverse order of seniority among ALL teachers, layoff rules are embedded in law.

By: margaret

margaret — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 14:18:59 +0000

I just heard today (3/12/10) that all non tenured teachers will be laid off to make room for returning ATRs. Has anyone else heard that? What about those people who were tenured and switched licences so that they wouldn’t go into the ATR pool? They won’t have tenure for another year, but they had it before. Where does that leave them?

By: Former Teacher

Former Teacher — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 08:06:22 +0000

I am one of the many teachers that has been victimized by Klein’s call for more U’s, with no clear, concrete definition, on his part, of how, why, under what conditions, and when these U’s are to be given. The result, for me, as well as several of my other colleagues, was the termination of my license, followed by an unfair kangaroo court hearing, at which principals’ decisions are simply rubber-stamped.

Currently, I’m back in school, since, despite my solid abilities as a teacher, and my efforts to prepare students for more than just standardized tests, i.e. college, life and careers, I cannot find a job, in or out of NYC.

Anyway, what drew me to post is how divisive the language on this board is. I was untenured, when these snakes used me as a scapegoat, but I still support my fellow tenured teachers, everywhere they are, as long as they’re not traitors to the cause of justice for our profession.

My point: all teachers are targets, tenured and nontenured. People from TFA do seem to come in with an attitude of superiority, but I find they usually see that they’re subject to the same treatment and learn who their friends are. And, by the way, me and three of my friends, who suffered the same fate of losing our careers, are proof that principals are definitely going after nontenured teachers.

Teachers unite!

By: Tim

Tim — Sun, 04 Oct 2009 13:01:14 +0000

George K, you make some excellent points. Defenders of the Bloomberg-Klein regime and many charter school proponents like to talk a lot about “parent choice.” If the administration honestly wishes to understand what parents want for their children, I’d hope they’ll read the overcrowding at Frances Lewis, Forest Hills, Midwood, Lehman, etc. to be a strong indication of a desire for large, safe, traditional high schools with a rich, comprehensive array of course offerings, not to mention sports teams, clubs, student organizations, etc.

By: George K.

George K. — Sun, 04 Oct 2009 06:45:34 +0000

I can’t see why new or aspiring teachers are writing about their anxieties on this page.

I’m at a school where new entrants are pushing aside seasoned teachers (ATRs, by the way). The mantra has changed from “experienced wanted” to experience-nee-not-apply.

This is definitely a result of favored vs. unfavored fields of study. Core subjects –math, science, English, social studies– are preserved. Art, music, foreign language, and often physical education. No wonder our students are overweight. And with limited foreign language experience, no wonder our students cannot compete w/ suburban college applicants.
The scuttling aside of non-core subjects is most pronounced in minority areas, where schools have been broken up into smaller “academies.”

I’m a teacher that thinks that teacher activists need to make more noise about how these changes negatively affect the city’s schoolchildren. It’s just scandalous. It would make me want to move out of the city if I had middle school or high school aged children.

By: pat

pat — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 01:15:30 +0000

There was a story on Channel 7 tonight about the ATRs. The President of the Principal’s union was interviewed and said most haven’t been hired because of their licenses. I have not seen reported a breakdown by license of the ATR pool. Is there one?

By: Smith

Smith — Mon, 14 Sep 2009 21:24:09 +0000

Unfairness aside, we teachers would be crazy to sell out the ATR’s. Excessing is one way that principals get rid of outspoken teachers. I’ve seen it happen a number of times – even whole departments (such as music) can be eliminated. I even know of a case where it happened to a chapter leader who stood up to a bully principal. I know enough teachers who look the other way when corruption occurs in their schools. We don’t need to give them another reason to be afraid.

By: DOE-UFT Contract Talks Begin: With Musings to Questions from Teachers and Parents with the Spector of Randi Weingarten Hovering. « Ed In The Apple

Mon, 14 Sep 2009 00:24:41 +0000

[...] the NYC teacher’s union and the City of New York formally kicked off contract negotiations, as reported by Anna Phillips on Gotham Schools. There were no press conferences, no verbal assaults, no strutting, both sides [...]

By: mel

mel — Sun, 13 Sep 2009 04:09:40 +0000

i say there should be a wage freeze. we don’t have the friggin money and they are already well compensated ..let’s see if bloomberg has some b*lls..i doubt it

By: Jeff S

Jeff S — Sat, 12 Sep 2009 21:00:50 +0000

anonymous….how were those excessed in the suburbs. I would suspect it was done by seniority which is the way it is done in NYC when it comes to outright dismissal….it is the obligation of the DOE to find jobs for those excessed before new teachers are hired as the law is quite specific…..when involuntary layoffs are to occur after all excessed teachers have been placed it must be done by seniority city wide; I would suspect that on the whole, that is the way suburbs do it when all is said and done……and again, one would think those in the rubber room’s seniority is taken into consideration…….

By: insiderknowledge

insiderknowledge — Sat, 12 Sep 2009 19:55:37 +0000

Sharese if you don’t work for the DOE why do you deserve protection? In order for you to have a job someone has to lose theirs. Are you proposing older teachers be fired just so new ones can be hired? While your crying realize that if you do get hired and your school has an enrollment drop it is YOU who will be excessed.. I’m sure then you’ll be singing a different tune.

By: insiderknowledge

insiderknowledge — Sat, 12 Sep 2009 19:50:53 +0000

anonymous you are correct in your analysis of excessing in the suburbs except you conveniently left out the part that the teachers were excessed because there were no positions left for them in the district.. They weren’t excessed and forced to go the middle school principal who had a position open but was shot down because that principal wanted to hire a cheap newbie out of TFA. In the city there are over 1,000 staff openings. If this were the suburbs those excessed in 1 building would simply be place in another where there was a need. If after that there were still openings then and only then would the suburban district look outside. Kleinberg should do what they did in the depression and “use what he had already” instead of increasing the payroll by hiring more teachers.

By: anonymous

anonymous — Sat, 12 Sep 2009 19:19:58 +0000

In the suburbs this year, plenty of tenured teacher were excessed, some with 8-10 years experience in their districts. They are not being paid by their districts because they are no longer working for them. Tenure does not ensure lifelong job security, it just ensured that you cannot be fired without a hearing. If your position is elminated (i.e) you are excessed (which is different from being fired) and no longer work for and are paid by the school district, regardless of whether you have tenure or not. Your district is required to call you first if a position in your department opens back up, but you waive that right if you find another position. Most suburban teachers look for new jobs rather than wait to see if they are called back in a year or two.

By: .sharese

.sharese — Sat, 12 Sep 2009 16:01:19 +0000

cares for us. Although we worked as long-term subs last school year, unioun dues taken from our pay nobody cares!

By: .sharese

.sharese — Sat, 12 Sep 2009 15:58:42 +0000

Peter you are exactly right. I’m extremely worried because I am a new teacher that can’t be hired due to the freeze and it seems there isn’t any protection for us new teachers. No one

By: peter

peter — Sat, 12 Sep 2009 13:50:30 +0000

Some weeks or months down the road Bloomberg, Klein and Mulgrew will be standing on a podium before the assembled media praising the “agreement,” … an agreement that has to be approved in a secret ballot vote by the membership. … and by the “public” … an agreement that will be scrutinized around the nation … it will impact all future teacher negotiations around the nations … high stakes, high reward …

By: Michael M.

Michael M. — Sat, 12 Sep 2009 12:37:09 +0000

In today’s economy, who wouldn’t take an 8% raise spread over two years in return for the scalps of some peers they don’t work elbow-to-elbow with?

Heck, I’ll take a 100% raise if you lay off half my peers. (Kidding!)

Where’s the “lifeguard” for these 1,695 MUCH-NEEDED teachers who’ve been shoved off the deck into the “pool”? On a pizza-tasting tour? Oh wait, he’s the one who did the shoving.

More divide and conquer.

Re closing schools — how many schools went from F to A in a year? Per Klein, who has made no secret of his desire to drive UP the student-teacher ratio: Blame, never credit, the teachers.

And let’s cut the principals some slack. The game is rigged, even with salary gap covered. Principals seem to have a preference for younger teachers or new hires over ATR teachers. Klein could easily mandate each school absorb one ATR, two if the school has over 1,000 kids.

The pool has turned into a waterboard.

By: Jeff S

Jeff S — Sat, 12 Sep 2009 07:13:51 +0000

I wonder if the question of laying off the ATR’s, especially if they are tenured, is something the UFK can negotiate away and certainly something the city should not be able to get. It is very simple, state law protects tenured teachers from dismissal without due process. The due process necessary is spelled out in explicit detail (the basis of the rubber rooms)…if a tenured teacher is to be laid off, the only way to do this, after the teacher has not been able to be placed (and this process was what Klein got in the last contract namely that the excessed teachers are not placed within the district first and then by central but rather have to be acceptable to Principals i.e. the Principal gets to pick his or her staff), is to lay off teachers within license area in inverse order of seniority. Some of this was done during the financial problems in the 1970′s. I remember a very popular French teacher working in the same school I worked in with a fair amount of seniority being told she was laid off as there were not enough high school French positions throughout the city and she was low on the city wide experience list.

In any event, I don’t see any way the UFT can give in on this and as I note, I don’t think legally they can. And whether or not you can just change state law in an ex posto facto manner will make a long and interessting litigation (incidentally, if you can’t fire teachers in the rubber rooms, how are you gong to be able to fire excessed teachers with perfectly satisfactory records?) In short, I can’t see any way this can be done both from a union perspective and from a legal perspective.