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breaking (updated)

June 29, 2012

Arbitrator rules for unions: Turnaround firing, rehiring reversed

by Philissa Cramer and Rachel Cromidas, at 3:29 pm

Principals union president Ernest Logan and UFT president Michael Mulgrew announce their lawsuit over turnaround in May.

An arbitrator has ruled that the city’s plans to reform 24 struggling schools by shaking up their staffs violated its collective bargaining agreements with the teachers and principals unions.

The arbitrator’s decision adds a new and abrupt twist to months of uncertainty at the schools. It also guarantees that the city cannot claim more than $40 million in federal funds that the overhaul process, known as “turnaround,” was aimed at securing.

The turnaround rules require the schools to replace half of their teachers, and the city was trying to use a clause in its contract with the teachers union, known as 18-D, to make that happen. In recent weeks, “18-D committees” told hundreds and possibly thousands of teachers and staff members at the schools they could not return next year.

Under the arbitrator’s ruling, all of those staff members are now free to take their jobs back.

The decision is a shocking blow to the Bloomberg administration, which turned to turnaround in January in a bid to win the federal funds without negotiating a new evaluation system with the United Federation of Teachers.

Unhappy that teacher evaluation talks had fallen through weeks before, Bloomberg made the plans a surprise centerpiece of his “State of the City” speech and said the city would purge the schools of “ineffective teachers” with or without tougher evaluations.

To make that happen, the city had to engineer what amounted to overnight school closures. But the UFT and the Council of School Supervisors and Administrators argued that even though the city followed its school closure process, the changes were “sham closures” designed for political ends.

The two sides made their cases this month during a fast-tracked, high-stakes arbitration process during which Bloomberg himself testified – a rare occurrence in city-union disputes, UFT President Michael Mulgrew said. Today, an arbitrator, Scott Buchheit, agreed with the unions.

“This decision is focused on the narrow issue of whether or not the mayor’s ‘new’ schools are really new,” said a union statement issued moments after the decision came down. “The larger issue, however, is that the centerpiece of the DOE’s school improvement strategy — closing struggling schools — does not work.”

Bloomberg and Chancellor Dennis Walcott quickly announced plans to fight the ruling.

“Today’s decision is an injustice to our children that — if allowed to stand — will hurt thousands of students and compromise their futures,” they said in a statement. “We will appeal the decision because we will not give up on the students at these 24 schools.”

The city cannot appeal to the arbitrator but instead must go to the New York State Supreme Court. But the court sets a high standard for overturning the results of arbitration proceedings.

“This was always about an arm-wrestle between the Department of Education and City Hall on one side and the UFT on the other,” said Eric Nadelstern, a former top department official who retired last year and said he thinks the schools should be closed. “The only thing worse than the original plan was the decision at this juncture for reversing the original plan. This throws everything into chaos.”

That arm-wrestling match has been going on since last year. In July 2011, the city and the United Federation of Teachers announced an agreement to adopt new teacher evaluations in some schools that had landed on a state list of low-achieving schools. This made them eligible for the federal School Improvement Grants, which the city used to begin less aggressive overhauls processes known as ”transformation” and “restart.” Schools that had begun the transformation process in 2010 appeared to be improving.

But when it came time to finalize that agreement in December, the city and UFT announced they were at an impasse, and the state cut off the funds in January. That was when Bloomberg announced the turnaround gambit. Even after the issue that had held up the teacher evaluation agreement was ostensibly resolved under pressure from Gov. Andrew Cuomo, the city pressed forward with turnaround.

Since January, the Department of Education has expended tremendous time and resources on the process — holding public hearings, writing extensive plans about what would change, replacing and training principals, and interviewing thousands of staffers who weere applying to keep their jobs. The department even announced new names for the schools.

The arbitrator’s ruling rolls all of that back.

“My initial thoughts are, take down any of the signs they printed — we are once again Long Island City High School,” said Ken Achiron, a veteran teacher and the union chapter leader there.

Teachers from the schools said they were thrilled by the decision but thought that some teachers would be hesitant to reclaim their positions.

“We’ve been through the whole horrific process already,” said one teacher from Lehman High School who was asked to return to the school and did not want to be identified. “I don’t think these same people are going to want to come back. I think there’s already been damage done. People were basically told we don’t want you, and now everyone’s confused. And does this mean we don’t have to be called Throgg’s Neck anymore?”

Some teachers say they have already made up their minds.

Nick Lung-Bugenski, a teacher from Long Island City High School who did not reapply for his job, said he would happily return to the school this fall. ”I didn’t need to beg for my job back, a job I’ve done well for years,” he said. “I will say that it is a bittersweet victory because this is coming after months of psychological attacks on the teachers in our building. Now we’re in a position to start picking up the pieces.”

“There were no winners in this,” said Georgia Lignou, a teacher at Bryant High School. “Yes I will go back and I am extremely happy about the decision, [but] because I have lost my faith in the system, it was completely unexpected. I hope we can repair the damage they have already done.”

That is the task that UFT and city officials will turn to on Monday when they meet to chart a course for the schools from here, Mulgrew said.

“Our top priority is that these schools have to be up and running for September,” he said. “We hope we have a partner in that in the Department of Education.”

Mulgrew said he had already called City Hall to suggest that the city move to return the schools to the transformation and restart process by negotiating a new teacher evaluation system with the UFT.

To qualify for this pot of federal grants, an agreement would only have to apply to the 24 schools that were part of the turnaround program. But other federal and state funds are at stake if the city continues not to adopt new teacher evaluations, and today’s ruling signals that creative options for evading the evaluation requirement are dwindling.

Last week, when State Education Commissioner John King approved the city’s plans to shake up the schools, he said the federal funds would be contingent on the city being able to use the 18-D procedure to remove and replace teachers. Without that option, the chance of schools meeting the federal rules are slim. Only if schools are small and have experienced significant turnover in the last two years, or if vast numbers of teachers choose not to return to their schools, could any school see a 50 percent change in its staff.

Earlier this week, the city education official in charge of the turnarounds, Marc Sternberg, told GothamSchools that he thought King’s decision to approve the school overhaul plans would signal to the arbitrator that the plans were true closures. “This seems dispositive of the arbitration,” he said at the time.

The arbitrator’s decision is below.

                                                                                     

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  • Guest

    Does that mean that all these schools don’t get to keep these stupid names???

  • Vote NO!

    The  SIG  money  has  done  more  damage  to  these  schools  than  any  so  called   “ineffective  teachers  or  administrators”  Congress  should  end  the  program   ASAP.

  • jteach

    I wonder what hissy fit Bloomberg will throw now!  Maybe he will finally try to stop being dictatorial and work with people to fix schools!

  • East Sider

    Nice to see the rule of law prevail, the power, dollars and two newspapers in his pocket tge mayor couldn’t intimidate an arbitrator who simply applied the facts to the contract language

  • Bellstar8

    Ha ha! A year of worry for nothing! LIC stays LIC. This is the funniest day of my life! I am so happy! Love to you,all 24 of you, schools! What a great start to the summer! Amen!

  • Jack4532

    This is going to be crazy! Many people are planning to strike back at the Principal at my school for not re-hiring them. How is this all benefitting the students?

  • cj

    We still haven’t heard from his honor or his lackey.  Are they going to say once again the union puts its own sefish interests ahead of the students as he does every time he opens his trap?  Are they going to say they’re going to court (was the arbitration binding?)?  Is he going to scream about the lost money and threaten to lay off teachers?  What comes out of his mouth should be very interesting.

  • Brook Lynn

    Wow, the union finally won something and an arbitrator who is fair ruled against the billionaire mayor.  Expect the spoiled and corrupt mayor to have his hissy fit by making threats about firing people, or closing more schools. The drama queen mayor has been sent a major blow. Let justice reign and hope this is the beginning of rolling back school closures! 

  • Ari Steinfeld

    Richmond Hill High School forever. One hundred years of education and caring for children will stay in place. The Hill is here, caring and educationg students. The Mayor and Mr. Walcott must begin to take seriously the issue of educationg and caring for children. The days of closing and blaming and avoiding responsibility are over.

  • Fightbackfridays

    This is a tremendous win for all of the public school communities in New York City. Not only did Bloomberg’s lackeys at the DOE spend an enormous amount of time and energy trying to move this ridiculous plan forward, they traumatized and demoralized thousands of students, parents, school aides, paras, secretaries, guidance counselors, supervisors, parent coordinators, and teachers in the process. Working in the so called “failing schools” has been very difficult. Trying to be an effective teacher while dodging educational “deform” missiles launched at our schools from Tweed has distracting to say the least.
    This all began because Bloomberg did not want teachers to have due process rights when challenging unsatisfactory ratings given by vindictive principals. We will not let the likes of Bloomberg, Walcott, Marc Sternberg and all of the other education saboteurs at the NYCDOE undermine our schools again. After enduring six months of hell, we are no longer afraid. FIX OUR SCHOOLS!!! DON”T CLOSE OUR SCHOOLS!!!

  • Sarah

    Yeaaaaaah! I’m the happiest student ever!

  • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100002397245457 Mary Conway-Spiegel

    Truly unbelievable.  All of this…mess…is the more “professional” way to go.  Get any amount of altitude and look at this situation and the choice is to either laugh or cry.

  • Manhattan70

    F this S.  I’m done. 

  • anon

    what about all the teachers who were told they were not wanted. How can this be a good work environment?

  • http://nyceducator.com/ NYC Educator

    Lisa Fleisher from WSJ tweets the Emperor will appeal. Evidently, he sees the purpose of agreeing to arbitration as hoping for the best, then rejecting any result that doesn’t suit you.

  • cj

    His honor and his lackey have issued their statement as reported in Schoolbook in the Times and it says exactly what I predicted it would say.  Once again the union has put the interest of adults ahead of the kids (like only Bloomberg, Walcott and Sternberg care about the kids ha ha) and their plans was consistant with SED’s decision (not it wasn’t, that decision said it was void if the arbitrator ruled for the unions) and they would appeal.  Such nice people the teachers are dealing with.

  • Ka D’Argo

    WOW!

    I was so looking forward to being the Global Scholars Academies of Long Island City (aka: GLOBSALIC).  What a pity.
    The decision will create an uncomfortable dynamic between principals and returning teachers who were told their services were no longer needed after they had gone through the interview process.  

    I also expect that certain APs gave teachers unsatisfactory ratings and provided lists of teacher names to principals for rejection during the purging process. How will the AP/Teacher dynamic now change in certain schools?

    You also have to wonder how Bloomberg will deal with this, and whether he will try to make our lives even more miserable. He does not take defeat well, and this now becomes a legacy issue for him.

    Should be an interesting year.

  • Returningteacher

    TAKE THAT BLOOMY

  • Pogue

    Good, let’s hope this sticks and becomes a recurrent resistance to this destructive educational dictator.

  • Invictus

    Somewhere to work is better than nowhere to work.  The biggest ace in the DoE’s sleeve is the Danielson framework that they are attempting to establish.  After it is on the way, especially in the current form, say goodbye to tenure and work protections until then, tenured staff are safe and it sure beats going around from school to school weekly. 

  • question

    What does this mean for Assistant Principals who were fired?

  • Follow the Money

    “We will appeal the decision because we will not give up on the students at these 24 schools.”

    What’s the name for people who use children as human shields?

  • jteach

    How was their plan consistent with the SED’s decision when the decision rested with Bloomberg winning the arbitration?  I’m not sure how they are going to appeal this but I hope the hiring that had occurred is now reversed until an appeal is heard.  I still hope that the teachers at these schools that can get out do as I’m sure he will move to close them next year.

  • Ka D’Argo

    Remember- this is the guy who got term limits, a measure supported by the common citizen, overturned when it conflicted with his agenda.

    He is the modern incarnation of the “Enlightened Monarch.”

    He will continue to do everything he can to leave his footprint on the NYC education system, the UFT, and teachers. 

    The guy is now going to court to overturn the Living Wage Act, even after his veto was overturned by the City Council. He knows no shame as an abuser of mayoral power.

  • Bkbomb1449

    How can you appeal an arbitration??

  • Kens60th

    APs didn’t have to share anything….all the proposed new leaders had to do was a few walkthroughs to visit classrooms and read everyone’s files for the last few years…That’s all the help they needed.

  • ASTRAKA

    The pendulum is swinging  back and hitting Bloomberg in the nose.
    How appropriate!

  • http://americans-elect-grayson.blogspot.com/ Richard Grayson

    On Wednesday I was babysitting for a sick child of a dedicated teacher at one of these schools who was told she was not being rehired.  She came home from the last day so bereft, telling about her students who were so upset that she was not going to be at the school next year and that they could not take her classes as the students had planned to do.  She had to rush off for yet another interview with an 18-D committee at which she was asked the same five questions all these committees ask everyone.  I have known this teacher literally all her life — I am the age of her parents — and she’s so committed to her work and loves her job that I felt this mandate from Bloomberg was so unfair and arbitrary.  This is the kind of thing you expect from a billionaire CEO (who hired the grossly incompetent magazine editor as school chancellor, seemingly on a whim): a good warning for anyone planning to vote for certain candidates this November.

    Congratulations to all the teachers, students and schools for beating Bloomberg, who will thankfully be soon replaced.  He pulled out the legal stops to get himself a previously forbidden third term, but he can no longer save his own job by this point.  It’s good that others have had their jobs saved by a union contract (also important to recall when you vote) and an arbitrator looking at fair play and common sense.

  • Nycdoenuts

    A long, dragged out court case is one option. With evals hanging in the balance (the union won’t agree until this issue is resolved), the city would be waisting EVERYONE’s time with an appeal.

  • Rocinante

    I’m so happy for everyone at the Turnaround schools who have been put through hell. A special mention for John Dewey High School. To lose the school named after a great humanist would have been a travesty. Next we have to get rid of the Danielson fraud.

  • Anonymous

    Pompous ass! Petulant billionaire! Spoiled King! NOT our Dear Leader!

    And other things I should not type.

  • Pogue

    Bloomberg stated, “We will appeal the decision because we will not give up on the students at these 24 schools.”

    Earth to Bloomberg, you and your chancellors gave up on these students a long time ago with your watered down tests and your speed-trained teachers and principals, and your overcrowding of high schools, and your decimation of the arts and electives, and your finance-starving policies, and your inflated technology contracts.

    The dude’s a crook, and he gave up on the kids when he took the job as Mayor.

    Sheesh.

  • Ragski

    Dear Mr. Bloomberg I would first like to congratulate  you on your loss.  2nd Please stop bashing the teachers in the head. You would never ever and I mean never be able to handle what some of these kids dish out in class in NYC. I  am a teacher and was heart broken to see the moral of  good honest teachers so down and out this year. You have done so much damage to the system that it’s really really sad. Oh by the way this next year can you take a more positive direction and actually try to fix and help these schools that need fixing? My wife’s school Brooklyn Automotive went the whole year being bullied and kicked around by your henchmen and your New Visions program that was at her school took all the money for themselves. She went all year with no books, no science lab equipment no resources and a school safety program that was non existent. This is not how you help a failing school Mr. Bloomberg. Please GET with the program.

  • Ajgozzi

    They can come back too. Their union was also in on the arbitration.

  • Anonymous

    That is if you believe the dear leader ever cared about the children to begin with. Would he have wanted this for his daughters? It is so much fun to experiment on OPC, other people’s children, especially when they are poor and minority. He cares more about himself and his reputation as a deformer who abolished unions and degraded teachers than he will care about children in NYC public schools. How many days left with Bloomberg? Let’s start a countdown like the one they had for Bush. Post it in Times square.

  • Esmergrrl

    Thank you so much, it means a lot to me to hear you say that :-)
    Amy

  • Rocinante

    An apology from the mayor is in order for all the staff who have been made ill because of the stress and anxiety his corporate policies have caused. To all you interview panelists with your contemptuous attitudes and stopwatches. Try teaching!

  • Nycdoenuts

    Of course the real injustice here was trying to get rid of over 3000 teachers (because (after 10 years) they couldn’t manage those schools) and setting a new template for closing schools and displacing teachers here in New York.

    The JUSTICE is what actually happened.

  • Hfega

    NO SODA IN THE SCHOOL CAFETERIA OF THE 24 SCHOOLS THAT SHOULD HAVE CLOSED. 

  • Tedmlewis

    My heart goes out to all the great educators whom Bloomberg uses as pawns, and to the poor kids subjected to continuous upheaval under his reign. I do not live in NYC any longer and have two small kids. Bloomberg’s education policies are a factor in deterring our return. But regardless, I am glad for teachers and kids to at least have this victory!

  • Guest

    this is criminal principals and union reps reviewed cover letters for english teachers who couldnt write letters that would pass even a union low standard

    nice people who should never have been teaching are now back to work failing our kids

  • Guest

    no one cares if black children have incompetant teachers

    these schools were dumping grounds for the citiesost challenging kids and some of its very worst teachers

    a disgrace!

  • Ghengis

    Victory rally at Tweed?

  • Follow the Money

    That’s a disgusting blanket statement, and an insult to teachers like me who are competent and do care.

  • Davon

    I remember musing about this with my teachers a while back and now that I think about it, its a big, laughing middle finger to the face of the mayor. He deserves this, and I’m glad that all my teachers get to stay at my school. Now, while I’m not sure if I’ll still be a Flushing student in September or a Rupert student, I am happy to know that there’ll at least be some cohesive community left  after the mayor decided to disregard human emotion. He does realize that teachers deal with people, not machines or the such. I cannot wait the 500 days until he’s gone, and done messing up my education.

  • http://perdidostreetschool.blogspot.com/ reality-based educator

     Hey, “guest” – before you smear the teachers at these 24 schools as “incompetant,” learn how to fricking spell.

  • http://nyceducator.com/ NYC Educator

    Kind of amazing to hear Mayor Bloomberg, who exiled me and my kids to a trailer almost a decade ago, to say it’s about the children, who he squeezes like sardines into every available nook and cranny. This is the man who took a billion dollars to reduce class sizes, and magically made them go up every year thereafter. This is the man who’s had a decade to work his magic, and still claims schools are so bad they need to close. In fact, if he were right, it would be a powerful indication that he had failed the children, the city, and the communities he’s shredded by closing their neighborhood schools.

    In 2007, Mayor Bloomberg declared he’d get rid of trailers by 2012. There were 400 trailers then, and there are 400 now. Mayor Bloomberg calls that progress. Shuffling kids all over the city, he expects us to praise the good shuffles and ignore the bad. Kids are the same, their classes are larger, and their neighborhoods are devastated. 

    And finally, when one of his pointless and hurtful initiatives is cut off at the knees, he cries it’s bad for children. You know what’s bad for children? Vilifying those of us who work with and care for them every day of our lives. If Mayor Bloomberg really cared about children, he’d confess how little he knows about education, nominate Diane Ravitch for Mayor, and give her a billion dollars so she could buy an election, just as he did, three times.

  • claudius

    Oh poor Guest you have been duped along with all the other readers of the NY Post I’m sorry to say. I assure you teachers at my turnaround school who were not rehired are not incompetent in the least. To prove it to you, I challenge the DOE to take all the teachers at Stuyvesant HS and transfer them to my HS, and our teachers will transfer to Stuyvesant for one year and check the student results next June. A simple test of teacher effectiveness. Of course, the DOE will not accept that challenge and most of the Stuyvesant teachers would probably immediately retire, take sabbaticals, or resign, but I’ll bet that the student outcomes if tried would not be much different.

  • Guest

    i said some of the worst some and anyone in those buildings knows this is true

  • Davon

    Guest, I dont know which school your referring to, but I know two schools that there is no case like that, dont let the minority speak for the majority.

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