Tweed's "children last" program continues as the DOE authorized the firing of 530 school aides while quietly adding to the central bureaucracy by hiring more lawyers and other non-educators. Many of the lawyers are being hired for the sole purpose to prosecute teachers and waste $250,000+ in the mostly vain attempt to terminate teachers through the 3020-a process. Since only 10% of the teachers are actually terminated, the DOE wastes over two million dollars for every ten teachers they file 3020-a charges on in their misguided attempt to go after senior teachers and fails at the task when it comes to termination.The school aides are the lifeblood of the school system and are poorly paid, averaging $20,000 yearly. Many of the aides suffer with the low salary because of the generous health and welfare benefits that are associated with the position. The school aides, in many cases help run the school and do the most unattractive duties. In my school the school aids do the following:
- Lunchroom supervision
- bathroom monitor
- student escort
- hallway duties
- contacting parents when children don't show up to school
- discipline room
- checking student IDs
- Clerical work for the Administration
- Distributing books and other school supplies
6 comments:
"Many of the lawyers are being hired for the sole purpose to prosecute teachers and waste $250,000+ in the mostly vain attempt to terminate teachers through the 3020-a process."
Chaz, I always enjoy reading your posts. Is there a public record of this assertion? As DOE employees, their positions and offices should be publicly available.
I'd be interested to see which offices the new hire attorneys are working for.
Chaz, your assertion that these aides are the lifeblood of many schools is so true. They are helpful and needed beyond belief. It is a shame the most vulnerable are attacked, once again, by this heartless and vindictive DOE system.
School aids are the most abused people inthe building. They are underpaid and under respected and many are much birghter than the admins they work for.
Once again the Tweeders summarily cut the essential human resources, such as school aides, in order to pump-up the power at the DoE. These schools aides are integral members within the school community. Who will now have the responsibility of lunch, cafeteria, and hallway duties? Will teachers be assigned to those tasks since it's in the teachers' contract? Teachers depend on the school aides to have those duties so that teachers can focus on teaching, lesson planning, and all responsibilities that entail pedagogy. Now what? Having teachers assigned to those tasks will only make them more pissed off and become more disgruntled about the DoE and that ridiculous provision that's in the contract.
Yomister:
Always glad to hear from you. I always looked forward to your blog to make me laugh.
As for the actual head count? Tweed, as you know, lacks transparency and my information comes from people who work with Tweed officials. They have told me that the TPU and the ATU groups that supply lawyers to terminate teachers under 3020-a are hiring. While some of my informationis a year old, nothing has changed significantly in Tweed's hiring practices.
Teachers' cafeterias are now closing if they do less than $250 per day in transactions. In some neighborhoods, there just isn't any other place to get food. Feeding teachers and maintaining the school aides, who are the life blood of the school, just aren't priorities. This should be part of Thompson's attacks on Bloomberg, but Thompson is missing in action also.
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