More and more information is being sent to the UFT about principals who refuse to fill or hide their vacancies because they one, do not want to hire ATRs and two, they want to save money by hiring day-to-day substitute teachers or give teachers coverages to cover the classes. Other principals are simply using the weekly ATRs to cover the classes. In any case, this is not good for the students since they have unqualified subs running the class or tired teachers nd ATRs who are forced to cover the class on a temporary basis. This "children last" policy is best applied to the outrageous behavior by a Principal can be found in the NY1 news article about Long Island City High School which has five vacancies that have not been filled and has caused an uproar among students, parents, and teachers. A NY1 follow-up story appears Here and the New York Times story Here.
Yet despite the rising clamor by Chapter Leaders, ATRs, and appointed teachers for the union to do something about this serious situation that is hurting the students in these uncovered classes, the union leadership is strangely quiet about attacking the vacancy issue. In fact, the union leadership reminds me of the three monkeys "Hear no evil"' speak no evil" and "see no evil". Here we have anywhere between 1,100 to as much as 2,000 ATRs in the system that are being wasted in a totally useless weekly assignment from school to school while vacancies are not being properly filled by principals.
Both the DOE & UFT have apparently put their collective heads in the ground hoping to ignore this problem and wishing it will just disappear. However, even the news media are starting to sniff around on why students don't have qualified teachers and it is up to the union leadership to stop being a monkey or an ostrich and do what is right for the students and make sure every vacancy is being covered by a certified teacher in their subject area. No other solution is acceptable since it is "children first". Always!
18 comments:
FYI: the past three schools I was assigned to have long term maternity leaves being covered by regular subs. Why not use ATRs? The UFT doesn't respond!!
There you go again. You are again starting to attack the UFT. When you thought you might be laid off, you supported the union. Now that your job is safe, you attack Unity. Don't forget that your an ATR for a reason and Unity saved your neck.
signed,
your former rubber room colleague.
Check this one out.
http://ednotesonline.blogspot.com/2011/10/one-school-hundred-contract-violations.html
To Anonymous,
I don't know why Chaz is an ATR, but I do know how the vast majority of ATR teachers fell into the abyss: they were excessed, either due to budget cuts, or a DOE school-closing. In neither case is the excessing based on teacher quality; it is simply a matter of seniority within a license area.
Anon 6:42
When the union does its job and protect member rights be it the LIFO issue or the refusal to bow to the Bloomberg Administration in contract talks, I support them. However, when the union fails to protect member rights such as treating the ATRs as second class citizens, or not putting pressure on principals to cover their vacancies with ATRs then I will be up front in criticizing them.
Remember, the union agreed to the creation of the ATR crises. Had they not agreed to it back in 2005 we would not have an ATR problem.
Chaz the By Laws of the Board of Education(still the name used legally) mandate that vacancies must be filled by appropriate licensed personnel. The complaint should be filed under Article 20 of the collective bargaining agreement(Matters Not Covered) which in fact appends all By Laws, arbitration decisions, chancellors regulations.
My school has two vacancies. One a retirement (teacher was a jerk to leave now) and the other a maternity leave (which will probably be a couple of months).Our principal and CL staunchly maintain that they ae prohibited from hiring an ATR. Well, there's certainly been enought of them through the building this year. Our bloated administration even has an ATR AP, but he's not shuffling off anywhere...
Anon 9:29
I agree with you on Article 20 of the contract. The problem is that the union fails to enforce it which is an ongoing issue with the union. They seem to pick and choose their fights and allow the DOE to violate agreements that the union fails to enforce.
Anon 10:06
They are both wrong. The contract requires that all vacancies must be covered by a teacher in the certification area and the ATR contract states that and that includes long term leave replacements.
I suspect that they are waiting for an October 31 deadline, after which the DoE is supposed to withdraw funds associated with uncovered positions. But I don't know how that is supposed to work, nor how we can confirm that this is being done, nor how the DoE can associate funds with positions, since they no longer allocate units.
Those are a lot of serious questions, and I do not know that they have good answers, at least not yet.
I note with displeasure that the first anonymous commenter needlessly injected caucus into this.
Jonathan
An ATR AP? That makes zero sense. This whole system is a complete joke. I can honestly say that if they want us to be subs, fine, I'll do as little as possible in out of license areas in schools I am not licensed to be in and move week to week. I can't wait for an AP to stop me and say,"Why were you not at the faculty conf or open school night?" I am excited to laugh in their faces when asked that.
Only a small fraction of our co-workers read this blog and other real ed reformers blogs.If we want to change things and especially if we want to pass a resolution we must first reach a large number of the UFT membership.This should be our first priority.Lets discuss how to reach those who never heard about us.Maybe they will want to get involved.
to 6:11 PM: i tell any teacher interested in our plight to look at the blogs that address our problems. call it marketing.
I met a fellow ATR who said he was sent out of the district last week..I thought this was not allowed??
Joy has been placed in the rubber room for few years and advocating the rubber room teachers.
email contact her at joy.hochstadt.pc@gmail.com
Quoated below is her email to me :
I want to do a class action for the ATR's as I did for those who passed through the RR. I would like a few more lead plaintiffs, one or two more who got there after being convicted at 3020-a's, a few who were excessed into ATRdom from an ongoing school, and a few who were excessed upon school reorganization. I would like to have a meeting of all those who would like to be lead plaintiffs (and become the only plaintiffs if the class is not certified). If you have ever been an ATR and feel it was unfair,contact me, if you know an ATR who feels this way, have them contact me. If you are a public official, reporter, or union official and would be able to assist me please publicize or prosecute or hold hearing on this, PLEASE CONTACT ME.
THANK YOU
JOY HOCHSTADT
Also have any tenured educators been laid off let me know if they have.
Please pass this along to ATRs and any laid off!
Joy
What happened with the lawsuit for the rubber room teachers??
We lost big time
I noticed how quiet chaz is about Joy Hochstadt's lawsuit. I guess he is not interested and neither am I.
I have been meeting many ATRs who are telling me they have REPORTED to the union about day to day subs covering positions...why isn't anything being done???????????????
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