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conflict resolution

May 16, 2012

Judge urges city, unions into arbitration in turnaround dispute

by Rachel Cromidas, at 7:22 pm

The first court appearance in the union lawsuit to halt hiring decisions at 24 turnaround schools ended with the judge telling the city and unions to resolve their dispute out of court.

Manhattan Supreme Court Judge Joan Lobis urged the city and teachers and principals unions to resolve their contractual disputes through arbitration, rather than litigation. If the two sides would agree to let an independent arbitrator hear their case, then she would not need to rule on the unions’ request for an injunction to halt hiring at the schools.

Union and city lawyers both said they wanted to resolve the dispute quickly because schools would be harmed if hiring decisions are not made well before the end of the school year.

“If you’re both saying you need the arbitrator as soon as possible, an injunction would not be necessary,” Lobis said. “If what you’re saying is really sincere, then you’ll get it to the arbitrator as quickly as possible.”

After conferring this afternoon, city and union lawyers accepted Lobis’s suggestion. The two sides are meeting tonight to select an arbitrator and meeting dates, with the goal of resolving the legal questions about teacher and principal staffing at the turnaround schools by early June.

If they agree on an arbitrator, the city plans to continue laying the groundwork for rehiring at the schools. But it would hold back from finalizing any personnel decisions until an arbitrator is agreed upon or the matter returns to court.

Still open for dispute is the question of whether there will be one arbitrator to review both the United Federation of Teachers’s case and the Council of School Supervisors and Administrators case (the unions’ preference), or if two arbitrators will review each case individually (the city’s preference).

The city and teachers union have not had good luck letting a third party referee unrelated disputes in the recent past. After negotiations over teacher evaluations broke down in December, the union asked for a third party to step in. The city has resisted entering mediation even as the state’s labor relations board has twice ordered a mediator to step in.

A teacher from Long Island City High School who listened in on the hearing said the turnaround schools will be harmed regardless of the lawsuit’s outcome. “It’s like they’re pushing Humpty Dumpty off a wall,” the teacher said. “You will have a lot of trouble putting [the schools] back together again.”

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  • A Brooklyn Turnaround Victim

    So what does this mean for Turnaround teachers and staff? This doesn’t stop the process….it’s prolonging it…..and what exactly are we arbitrating? 

  • R.I.P. Richmond Hill

    What a disaster!  The good teachers are already being hired by other city schools, some are going to the suburbs, and many are retiring or resigning.  Students won’t listen to anyone (“You won’t be here next year, but I will” is the common response- it’s like telling the manager of a baseball team he’s being fired at the end of the year- why the heck would the players listen to him?), many employees are spending most of their time perfecting their resumes, cover letters, and portfolios and taking off days for interviews.  In an endless series of bad decisions, this is probably the worst Bloomberg has made yet… unless you’re talking about his political career, since he is using this to get around tenure and to pad graduation stats since they won’t count in these 24 turnaround schools until he’s out of office.  Why does the press continue to ignore this?  

  • Vote NO!

     This  whole  “Turnaround”  process  has  created  the  most  uncertain,  and ” toxic”  environment  anyone  can  imagine  in  these  schools. 

  • A Brooklyn Turnaround Victim

     Toxic is an excellent word for the tone of Turnaround schools….

  • Turnaround Teacher

    Exactly the same atmosphere at Lehman, I couldn’t have said it better myself.

  • Turnaround Teacher

    GS, could you clarify what this paragraph means? (”
    If they agree on an arbitrator, the city plans to continue laying the groundwork for rehiring at the schools. But it would hold back from finalizing any personnel decisions until after the arbitrator reaches a decision.”)

    It seems they already laid the groundwork (the postings are up so people can apply.)  So does this mean they will begin interviewing, and just hold off on making a final decision?  Or will they wait till after arbitration to start the interview process.

  • Queens Turnaround Victim

       This time of the school year is usually a time to reflect on the hard work and success you have achieved with your students. You are winding up the final curriculum content with your students and getting ready for a little review and prep for the June Regents, always aiming high! You are looking for ways to motivate your students who have gone through a tumultuous year and get them through the “summeritis bug” that hits every teenager around this time.
        Yet, my dear friends, not only are our kids frustrated with how the year has gone, they are even not focusing on their academics, instead they wonder if they will see any familiar faces next year. 
        A student named ”J” wonders, will you be back Mr.?  If you’re not back, Mr., they gonna be some problems up in here. No kids gonna listen to some new people who trying to go hard!”
        Now, tell me my dear friends, if our students know chaos will reign in our turnaround schools, teachers and adminsistrators know confusion will prevail, how come the mayor and the Chancellor keep trying to pretend they are reforming schools?
        The public might be silent, but they are not stupid. Unfortunately, the rest of the world is laughing at our reforms.

  • Turnaround Is Sabotage

    Education “deform” brought to a school near you by Bloomberg and his DOE lackeys. 

  • RIP Nycdoe

    Wow. NYC will suffer for years because of this disaster. If teachers are missing days for interviews the students are not reviewing for the regents. Scores will drop and kids will suffer. Now you know why tenure and the contract were made! So that teachers will not leave their professions for better salary, better socioeconomic neighborhoods, better job security. Schools are institutions that need stability and resources. The business model and nclb has transformed education to a franchise where competition and success is driven by test scores and statistics. What will this generation of students look like 10 years from now?

    Thank you Bloomberg. The education mayor/slayer.

  • BSH

    Before I respond to this let me say that I I agree with everything that is being said in these posts. Our educational reform attempts are a joke and its causing a lot of people a ton of stress. But your analogy of this crazy experience with baseball is true with the exception of one thing. The manager who is getting fired can’t pack it in because he will most likely look for another job in the future (whether as a manager, coach, front office, etc.) The players are in a similar position as well. 

    Coaches at the professional level cannot and should not cease to continue motivating their players and making them the best that they could be. Distractions are part of the game and there will always be news and gossip flying around. The manager needs to get his team to focus and finish the job that they started when the season started to maximize the talent that they have.

    I’ll be the first to say that I am not in one of these 24 schools. But I am tired of the attitudes of some teachers (both that are in this jam and those who are not). I can’t stress it enough that I do sympathize with you all but we can’t use students as our punching bags. I’ve been around too many educators who wear their emotions on their sleeves and some who even tell their kids details about what they are going through, with the hope of gaining sympathy from them. I think that this is sad. Don’t bring them down and give them an excuse to give up or get angry at others. Should they know the facts? Absolutely. Should we be influencing their feelings on these facts. Absolutely not. We need to keep them focused on the task at hand…getting their education, PERIOD. 

    We try and teach our kids that life is full of challenges and they need to be prepared to face those challenges and overcoming them. This is a challenge in the lives of many educators and sadly, many of them are complaining (which is your right to do so) while bringing students into their problems. They will undoubtedly be affected by all of this. It will be hard for them to transition to new teachers…but isn’t this what life is about? Making adjustments?

    I feel that there is a healthier and more productive way to gain the support of our students during these tough times. I am all for that. But they must also be taught that in the worse case scenario, they should be ready and willing to work with whomever takes over at their schools so they can continue to be successful. In the end each student wants to graduate for them…why not help them stay focused so they can be a success, no matte who is in front of them. 

    Just think about this for a moment…imagine you are a teaching (new or experienced) who walks into one of these schools and your confronted with students who don’t want you there and are planning on giving you hell because your replacing their favorite teacher. Would you want that situation for yourself? If not, why make do that to another teacher?

  • Turnaround Observer

    Does anyone actually think that changing half the teachers at any school would make a real difference?  At my PLA school we have Teaching Fellows, Teach for America folks, old teachers, young teachers just out of college, and teachers somewhere in the middle in terms of experience.  My school has had a high teacher turnover in the past few years and the teachers who have replaced those who have left have not done much better in terms of graduation or Regents Exam passing rate.  Who will the city get to replace half of the teachers?

    Once, our country had a great education system for the majority of students and then things fell apart.  The “education experts” would provide much more value if they could determine what happened to cause our system to deteriorate and what could be done to fix it.  I would bet that it was not a big change in the quality of the teachers. 

  • jeff s

    What does it mean?  Your Union is throwing you under the bus.  Why do you think the city agreed to arbitration and the union is cooperating by allowing them to continue laying the groundwork for getting rid of half of you.

    Randi wants to be Secretary of Education and has given the word to Mulgrew make it seem like you’re fighting this but ultimately make sure the city wins and throw the teachers under the bus.  Isn’t this obvious to everybody?

  • Vote NO!

     It  will  make  a ” real  difference”  by  undermining  the  union,  and  laying the  groundwork  to  ensure  that  high  needs  students  always  have  cheap,  inexperienced,  transient  teachers.

  • Save our school

    Somebody needs to turnaround TWEET, they lack common sense.

  • Save our school

    What about those lists of teachers that principals made in february to rate U?
    Are these Us are still being ordered?
    Is The Union doing anything?

  • Invictus

    The Union is powerless to stop the abuse that was meted out to U rate teachers who therefore are unable to reply to their old positions….attempt to U rate a Chapter leader and then, the entire chapter at that school is compromised. 

  • Invictus

    The Tweeters have lacked common sense since the Supreme Leader’s Cultural Revolution had taken root more than 1 decade ago…the problem is that their lack of common sense is so ingrained in Tweed’s culture that they cannot extricate themselves out of it.  Truly pathetic, if you ask me. 

  • Student Advocate

    Literacy level upon entrance to high school, English language acquisition, DOE’s policies on Truancy and Discipline which have created an atmosphere of NO ACCOUNTABILITY in NYC’s public schools, Socioeconomic status, Diagnosed and undiagnosed disabilities, etc…  These are the core issues.  Our mayor has ignored them, the DOE has bought into his agenda whole heartedly.  Students are at the bottom of the list of considerations.  Teachers are not solely responsible for low achivement many of the core issues are out of their control.  I hope the arbitrators are not also part of the mayor’s purchase as were the 8 members of the PEP.

  • Student Advocate

    The numbers do not add up.  There are 24 schools (in poor and working class neighborhoods, made up of minority and immigrant students with high needs), 4 distinct boroughs, 24 distinct bodies of students, thousands of dedicated teachers with one common denominator….a failing education system that refuses to take any responsibility for the results.  We have a rating system that is not demographically sensitive.  We need more demographics based criteria on which to rate these high needs schools.  4 year graduation rate is an unrealistic expectation for students with low literacy levels upon entrance to high school, ELL students, Truant students, Chronically suspended students, Students with diagnosed and undiagnosed learning disabilities, just to name a few challenges.  Make it at least 5 for those students and provide extra support and funds for those schools with high concentrations of those students.  It’s the ethical and morally correct thing to do. 

  • R.I.P. Richmond Hill

    Nice job Judge.  What are you afraid to make a decision?  Way to pass it on to someone else.

  • The ATR can be YOU

    If NYCDOE can continue to close schools, then by the start of the 2013
    to 2014 school year, we will have more than 2,000 ATRs.  Remember, the
    main reason the number of ATRs has fallen in the past two years is
    because of the fact that many of them took early retirement.  The UNION
    must protect the ATRs in the next contract or TENURE in NYC will cease
    to exist.   Why not offer a compromise that protects our profession and
    ensures continued growth:  7 years for Tenure on all new hires and
    placement of all ATRs within the next three years.  The UNION has
    allowed the OPEN MARKET to continue unabated while the most qualified
    and educated have to either take early retirement or shuffle themselves
    from school to school every week of the school year. 

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