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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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  • Youdontneedtoknow

     You forgot to add how much of our own money we spend on caring for our students and we are not billionaires! Hooray for all the teachers who are regaining their jobs – JUSTICE HAS BEEN SERVED!!!!!!!!!!

  • guest

    Wasn’t this a binding arbitration? 

  • Youdontneedtoknow

    Has anyone thought about this? What happens to the network leaders who left networks to take over turnaround schools (while their folks got promoted up to their spots)? Are they out of jobs now? (Hope so!) and in the case of LIC the network leader was supporting the principal she replaced! I guess the principal will be switching networks huh? HILARIOUS!

  • old teach

    The appeal will take a while and should not effect the next school year. Even if the city was to prevail at appeal the schools will be intact for 2012-2013. This is great news for the staff, students and communities of these schools. Also, 2013 is the last year of the third term for Bloomberg. I quote the mayor following the Wall Street controversy over obscene bonus monies, “a contract is a contract”.

  • Ghengis

    Does this mean the parasitic agencies in the turnaround schools are out?

  • Mike

     Hey Davon!  We did it!  You fought harder than anyone!  Nice job!  I am so glad that your diploma will say Flushing HS! Enjoy your summer! -Mr. A.

  • limpia

    This is very good news.Lets not forget, however, that the programs emanating from Arne Duncan, undeserving and unqualified power figure,led to so much of this and continue to be wrongheaded.

  • Ka D’Argo

    I’ve heard enough stories about APs being pressured to give out unsatisfactory observation evaluations to know that certain APs were complicit in the pedagogical persecutions which have been going on over the past few years.

    I also know that the incoming principal at my school did not have the time to see every teacher, and that she would have depended on certain APs for counsel. In the past I have told colleagues that APs are not your friends and that they’ll usually do what they have to do to keep their jobs and keep themselves in line for a principal’s position.

    Files include materials originating from APs. Some APs also have better relationships with their principals than their AP colleagues. Some of these “better relationships” are founded on the Bloombergian principle that those in authority always know better. The principal may be the hammer, but in many cases, the AP is a more than willing “nail.”

    We’ve lived through an observation/evaluation witch hunt the past few years, and I’m sorry to say it is not over.

  • Landparent

    Follow the money trail. Who is making millions and billions from educational software and computer programming?

  • wow

     What does this mean for ousted principals and/or principals who were on their way to being ousted?

  • Disg675

    Yay, no such thing as a bad teacher!
    Just an underpaid one!

  • claudius

     Yes, very good points. I’ve wondered also what it would be like if the UFT won and the 80% non-rehired teachers were to return to face a principal who has now lost any credibility among his staff. All the teacher I know will be prepared to pitch right in so students especially don’t suffer as they always have shown the highest dedication. But I’m not sure I can forget the dishonesty and deceit that the principal used to make sure many fine teachers received unsatisfactory observations just before June. So the relations with the administration promises to be….awkward?  .  .

  • Abc

    Bloomberg Learn how to spell

  • Jjman36

    This is the best news that I’ve heard in a long time!!!!! The mayor can never lose enough court cases to suit me!  This entire episode is sadly indicative of Bloomberg’s knee-jerk, poorly planned, and exceptionally vindictive reign as supreme monarch of the DOE.  Instead of choosing to work with teachers to help make the change necessary to deal with a changing and certainly challenging educational landscape he has instead chosen to vilify teachers every inch of the way.  In the meantime Bloomberg much like George W. Bush seems almost uniquely incapable of any self-reflection or the ability to accept any responsibly for his actions.  Clearly the man who wanted to be known as the “Education

  • Sharese

    I’m a 4th year teacher and I am so ecstatic Bloombum got spanked. I may be new to this profession, but I’ve learned a lot from veteran teachers about the injustices that occurred under Bloombum’s reign of terror. No, I’m not teaching in one of those 24 schools. But if it can happen at John Dewey HS and all the other traditional public schools, it can occur anywhere. I’m a product of the large traditional public school (graduated from South Shore HS), but teaching at one of these small high schools(Bloombum’s creation) I can honestly say traditional is way BETTER. I’m so happy my colleagues are celebrating this win, but I will keep you all in my prayers because I know an hostile work environment has been created.

  • guest

    Some network folks were strongly encouraged to take those positions if they wanted to keep working for DOE

  • Kab

    To the “guest” who wrote that the turnaround schools are dumping grounds for the very worst teachers–
    How do you know that? Where is your proof? You made an idiotic, offensive statement that must be refuted.  These schools are full of experienced veteran teachers who have served the students there with distinction for many years.  When Far Rockaway HS was “redesigned” in 2005, many of the teachers who were told to leave ended up in John Adams and Richmond Hill.  A few went with me to Jamaica. So Far Rock was redesigned with lots of new teachers.  Guess what?  After a couple of years, the city phased out the school anyway.  The  new staff couldn’t work miracles, huh?

  • Anonymous

    You should have capitalized English. Tip from a teacher.

  • NYCParent

    There is no actual “loss” of $60 million.  The SIG funding is set up like RTTT funding: they drive “reforms” that parents and teachers in NYC and NYS are ill-advised to “want.”  Those reforms include teacher evaluations based on student test results that are based on error-laden tests from Pearson.  They include the proliferation of “high-performing charter schools” — whether or not any given charter school will be “high-performing” or not!  After all, it takes five years before charters are re-authorized, doesn’t it?  So how can you open them up willy-nilly if you won’t know for five years whether or not they are “high-performing?”  Those are just two of the SIG “drivers.”  Far more money than $60 million would be lost by following these dreadful reforms that have nothing to do with educating children, and everything to do with abolishing the teachers unions.  Listen up reformers: parents and teachers are a single voice.  Why?  Because we entrust our children to schools filled with teachers.

  • Anonymous

    Enlighten me dear guest…what does citiesost mean?

  • guest

    Forget about smearing teachers, you just implied that the most challenging kids in the city schools are African American.  You are lucky you are not a teacher, you would be under investigation by OEO, and rightly so.  Plus you imply that the majority of kids in all of the turnaround schools are African American, which is simply not true.  They do have more students with diabilities and more students who are not native English speakers.  The challenges faced by students in these schools  has nothing to do with race at all, and an awful lot to do underfunding and lack of support due to the political animus the Mayor has for the UFT.

  • Youdontneedtoknow

     Wow…so I guess they are feeling what the folks at these schools were feeling …. worried…anxious…stressed….so the tables have been turned and I’m sure it can’t feel good! Bad for everyone but especially the kids!

  • David Dunn

    Much respect to Michael Mulgrew and the UFT Grievance Department.

  • Guestrulz

    Thank you guest. u are smar and no yer stuf

  • guest

    It is probably not a great idea to criticize people for poor writing skills when you fail to exhibit a basic grasp of grammar, punctuation or usage in your statement critiquing their cover letters. 

  • Jbarrettlabella

     they keep their jobs

  • Richardstern27

    No one seems to know this answer……if we were scheduled for an interview at our old school for our new job do we still go? Don’t wanna get screwed if this is over turned.

  • Always4kids

    This could not have happened to a nicer guy – congratulations Marc Steinberg! You’ve been checked!

  • Youdontneedtoknow

     I wonder if Marc will send out an email and take everyone to the bar like he likes to do! If so, Marc – first rounds on me buddy!

  • Guest

    thank you

  • Vote NO!

    The  UFT  and  CSA  will  probably  send  emails  to  their  members  about  how  things  will  proceed.

  • Guest

    lol this is a fake comment …nice union

  • Trishyarrs

    “We will not give up on the students in these 24 schools”
    Huhh??
    This is the funniest statement EVER!!! Does Bloombunk n Walshnot know how destructive it is to phase out or close a school? I work in a phase out school. The kids are a MESS! The school is in disarray, losing teachers left and right. The kids are destroyed AND for what? So the DOE can say we “got rid” of bad teachers at failing schools?
    Yo morons, when you phase out a school, all the teachers not retiring are not fired – they go to other schools. What the hell is the point?
    Chaos is the point. Congrats to the strongest union in America – Local 2 UFT!!
    Maybe next June, oh wait, there will be a new mayor that following November. Lame Duck Bloomdork!

  • burned

    The grievance dept and the catering are the two best parts of the UFT

  • Docluke56

    Is Barry Fried allowed to return as the principal of John Dewey HS?

  • Davon

    There isnt anything else on my diploma I want to say, when I graduate from a system that failed me, but Flushing High School. When that does happen, I’m sure that everyone in the city can mark this day in their books that the city isnt one to be believed, and that we should actually do the research on people we elect.

  • http://pulse.yahoo.com/_2PO2J64BJJVRJJBURHGFBALXAE Gamer

    Bloomberg is a LIAR.

  • Bdiddy

    tell bloomberg the next time he is sick, all he has to do to get better is CHANGE HIS NAME

  • Yugn

    Bring him back….let him finish making John Dewey great. He started that job. The new principal does not seem to understand what it takes to run John Dewey.

  • SickOfTweed

    We will not be satisfied until we “turnaround” the NYCDOE. We need to make sure that the next mayor will rid Tweed of all of Bloomberg’s lackeys, especially Marc Sternberg.

  • African Amerian Teacher

    Guest, you don’t know what you are talking about.  Teachers choose what school they want to work in.  They are not “dumped” anywhere.  Teachers interviiew and accept or reject positions just like any other employee.  No one is “dumped” anywhere.   The population of students in the Bronx is mostly Hispanic for your information.  There is a large population of srudents from other nationalities as well.  Your lack of knowledge and acceptance of the abundant  misinformation about the teaching profession as promulgated by the mayor and anti-union politicians and financiers is the reason so much injustice has been leveled against people who have decided to spend their lives trying to educate the children of ignorant parents like yourself.  You would benefit going back to school and being a better example to your children.  That would greatly help teachers help your kids and improve their learning outcomes.

  • DeweyorDon’twe

     You must be joking, right?

  • Still a Newtown student

    I’d like to take this opportunity to say this:
    Thank god it’s Friday, and thank god it’s over.

    The name CACA at Newtown Campus will continue to be what it always was: the figment of someone’s twisted imagination.

    (And yes, it has a funny abbreviation – that’s why it became one of the biggest jokes in the school)

  • Ms Black

    As my kids would say, Bloomberg got “violated” as he violated the union contract. I am at one of the 24 schools and basically if you were over the age of 30, you got the boot. If you were under 30 then you were in. I have worked all over the world and this was the most blatant case of age discrimination that I have ever witnessed. Sorry, mayor but you have been posterized for the 4th of July. Why don’t you now Man-up and drop this destructive, non-value adding bogus educational strategy for your Republican muppets?
    You are smart enough to realize that the problems with the schools are a structural, socio-economic issues and not one based on individual teachers. If not, then simply replacing you as the responsible party for the failed schools should fix all the schools in no time at all.

  • Turnaround Observer

    Turnaround was turned back.

    Instead of congratulating the unions the mayor will appeal to the same court that recommended the arbitration process. On what grounds will the court set aside the arbitrator’s ruling? How about the loser’s don’t like the decision?

  • THEDONKALEL

    At last a victory for contracts and union

  • nwotweN

    So what happens to Mr.Ficalora and the other principals who were supposed to be replaced? Because in newtown the new principal probably spent months sitting in her office in the basement, setting up the new academies for next year, she probably tight that it was all pointless.

    Glad to see newtown wont have that horrible name too lmfaoo.

  • Waterloo

    Union should investigate the age discrimination angle. This was a ruse to get rid of cost by getting rid of older teachers in favor of new teachers. The union should look at the median age across the 24 schools and see who was kept and who was dismissed. Please focus on the teachers as paraprofessionals and other service providers were kept to make it look like older, experienced staff were maintained. This was a directive from the administration and they need to be held accountable for their age discrimination policy. A nice preemptive class action suit would not hurt as little, tiny, failed Napoleon will simply gear up to try this next year. Let it die Bloomberg you simply are not the man you think you are. In fact, you are more of an impotent, little weasel.

  • Sharese

    What do you mean this is a fake comment? If you were referring to something else, pardon me.

  • Emmbee39

    You must be an excellent student, so wise. I agree with you, Mr. Moneybags,Meglomaniac Bloomberg is nothing but a bully.

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