One of the little noticed aspects of the DOE/UFT contract is the decision to dump teachers who decide to return to teaching before they exhaust their terminal leave, into the ATR pool rather than their appointed position. Previously, teachers who decided to return to teaching before they exhaust their terminal leave would be allowed to resume their appointed teaching position. Principals were very unhappy with this situation because it meant excessing a recently hired "newbie" and bringing back a veteran teacher who had institutional memory and knew their rights. Therefore, the DOE changed the rules, with the approval of the disconnected union leadership, and allowed principals the right not to reappoint teachers who decided to come back to teaching before they exhaust their terminal leave. Instead, they were assigned to the ATR pool.
This is just another example of our rights being nibbled away, piece by piece, as our union closes their collective eyes and proclaims how everything is just wonderful. Welcome to Mikey Mulgrew's fantasy world where there is a new tone at the DOE as he continues his "love affair" with Chancellor Carmen Farina, while any ATR can be appointed, if they are good teachers, and there are no principals in need of improvement.
To understand terminal leave and termination pay please read my post Here.
9 comments:
Here's a terminal leave story for you:
I am due to retire on my birthday in early October. With holidays, there are 18 school days leading up to my retirement day, and I have more than enough days in my CAR to cover that time. For me, terminal leave is the way to go.
My principal tried to strong arm me into retiring as of yesterday. "You're still on my budget" "I don't have the paperwork" "you filled out the paperwork wrong" and a laundry list of other bullshit to try to force me into calling it quits yesterday.
I could easily work 5 more years, but I have the time and will have the age in October- so why stick around and make my life miserable? In my nearly 30 years of teaching, I've never worked for such total assholes. God help public education.
So well out anonymous. Assholes, with the support of the mayor and the chancellor. God help this country.
anon 707
This is another sad comment that fills the comments sections these days. How can it be that so many teachers are disgusted with the way education is handled these days?? The politicians have managed to screw up everything including our public schools. Unfortunately we live in a corrupt society that is ruled by the O mighty dollar and the dollar has replaced sense and sensibility in that decisions are based strictly on money and nothing other. The beneficiaries of this corrupt money God society is the newbies coming out of college. Yes, they are getting jobs but they will have nothing other such as pensions and other safety nets to sustain a life. However, these young no nothings that walk the halls of our NYC public schools now are paid cheap and with no strings attached as most of these newbies will NEVER see a pension. Its just sad to read every day how so many experienced educators are just disgusted and the system is losing great educators. Who really loses here? The kids of course but remember its students first in the new world order. Have a great summer people, I truly would love to see our schools transform back into the wonder and greatness it once was.
Two things I don't understand: 1) Why would anyone who is using terminal leave want to return to teaching? Taking terminal leave is something you do when you are 100% sure you want out of teaching. It is the same as retiring except you can do it a few months early. 2) In all of my years of teaching, I have never seen anyone take terminal leave. Everyone I know wants to cash out the sick days. Can someone explain why they would want to take terminal leave in the first place? (Ok, if you work in a dangerous school or work for nut job principal I get it)
Anon 9:40
There are two reasons to take terminal leave,
First, it allows you to stay on payroll for up to a semester and contribute to your TDA and increase your pension. Moreover, you get 2.5 days payment for terminal pay. Not a lot of money but its still money.
Second, its to try out retirement and if you don't like it you can come back. I know two people who did that a few years ago.
Chaz have a great summer. As an ATR I am not sure if I could have maintained my sanity each and every day but its great to know that I can bring up your web page while I sit in the teachers lounge with the rest of the newbies scrambling for nonsense because they are spastic and ill informed, not trained or mentored and the students are just eating them up especially with their cell phones....My peace and justification is being able to read your blogs and comments from your readers confirming my sense of sanity in a NYCDOE world of insanity. Peace
I agree! Thanks Chaz for all you do. As an atr with over 20 yrs in the doe I appreciate what you do for us. As an atr I feel alone everyday but reading the blogs from you and James helps me feel connected to days gone by. As an atr for the last 3 yrs ( 18yrs in my old school) I am ignored by almost everyone which isn't all bad but the lack of professional respect by these newbies is disheartening. Reading your blogs helps me waste time between covering classes. With all my experience I just take attendance and hope a fight doesn't break out. What a profession we have chosen! I could go on and ore but who real cares anymore. Step 22 here in come. Enjoy your summer and continue the good fight.
Anon 9:23
I have worked for great administrators, and with great teachers throughout my 30 year career. What I have witnessed over the past four years (since we got our very own Boy Wonder- see NYCEducator's blog for spot on posts about the infants that pass for administrators these days) is nothing short of criminal. Among some of his shining moments: telling me I should be reviewing my students' IEPs instead of reading to them (as per their IEP mandates) during tests; claiming he put me on a TIP when he didn't; and attempting to do informal observations when I received no feedback on the previous day's (yes, you read that correctly) informal observation because he suddenly decided that my non-existent TIP required me to have six informal observations. This nonsense, on top of my principal's lame attempts to get me to retire as of June 28th so I can be off of her budget, are just some of the reasons that I am calling it quits. Thank god I still have good health and most of my sanity left to enjoy life- and that's exactly what I intend to do.
I wish all of the remaining experienced educators a peaceful end to their careers.
I didn't take terminal leave - I had 144 sick days and got paid for half of them over 3 checks a year apart. After taxes I realized terminal leave might have been a better option. There is a reason to retire though on July 1 vs October. You can double dip - get your regular summer pay plus your pension checks for July and August. What you do gain in October is a slight bump in pension credit for the months July, Aug and Sept.
If you have a lot of days you can't run terminal leave past Feb 1 -- meaning the DOE doesn't allow crossing that line - meaning I couldn't start terminal leave say in Nov and retire in March -- it has to end or begin on Feb 1. In my case it would have meant starting term leave in October. If I did that I could have staid home and gotten paid until the semester ended. I would have earned the one month summer pay check fast forwarded plus another half year of pension credit but would have lost the double dipping for the summer before. I know people are pissed off generally but I also know long time teachers who did not want to start a class and then leave so soon so they planned their retirements around certain dates. I was working for the district and Bloomberg had just started his upheavals - money didn't mean as much as getting away from the upcoming toxic environment. Irony was after a year I was hired F status by 2 regions to work 3 days a week.
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