The Open Market Transfer System (OMTS) allows teachers to transfer from one school to another without the consent of the Principal from April to the first week of August. During that time if a teacher decides to move from one school to another, the Principal cannot stop the teacher from leaving. According to the highly suspect UFT claim, 4,000 teachers use the OMTS to move from one school to another. Most of the teachers that do obtain a position through the OMTS are the younger, less experienced, and of course, less expensive teachers. Especially if they have not achieved tenure yet. For the highly experienced and senior teachers the OMTS is simply a "farce". Since few schools will expose their tight budgets to hire a senior teacher, no matter how much it may benefit the school's students.
However, one of the more disturbing aspects of the OMTS is that this program allows the continuous movement of potentially "great teachers" from deep poverty schools to a more hospitable classroom environment of a diverse and middle class school. In other words, the OMTS contributes to the high turnover rates that "hard to staff" schools are experiencing and no measly $5,000 bonus is going to help retain these potentially future great teachers in a school with a reputation of student behavioral issues and administrative ignorance. This is especially true, where the school is run by a "Leadership Academy Principal" and who dictate rather than collaborate with his or her staff..
The OMTS, along with the destructive "fair student funding" results in serious teacher inequality in the New York City schools. While poverty and teacher retention are the major issues in the deep poverty schools, the DOE's policy of encouraging teacher transfers and straitjacketing schools to hire the "cheapest" and not the "best teachers" for their schools hurts the deep poverty schools the most. The DOE policy perpetrates the teacher inequality issue by placing many an experienced "quality teacher" to languish in the ATR pool while the deep poverty schools are forced, by their budget considerations, to hire "newbie teachers". Is it any wonder that these schools struggle? Even when a "newbie teacher" shows real promise, the OMTS will ensure that these future "great teachers" will be great at another school and not at the deep poverty school that so desperately need the best teachers for their struggling students..
Just a word of caution. If you are offered a position in another school before the school year ends, please don't inform the Principal or he and she can make it difficult for you until the last day of school.
18 comments:
The first school I taught in was a really "challenging" HS in Brooklyn (which has since closed). The first year was ok, I made the best of it. The second year I was assigned lunchroom duty and even though we had a dozen security officers I was constantly finding myself in the middle of fights which were on the verge of becoming riots. Trying to break up fights in the lunchroom, in the halls and even in my classroom and nearly getting trampled in the process began to wear on me and I knew that if I wanted to make a career out of teaching I needed to find a more "sane" school. One teacher had her wallet stolen by a student. Inside her wallet was her registration and a spare key to her car. The kid went out and stole her car! She wound up getting a safety transfer.
Anyway, at the end of my 2nd year I went down to 65 Court Street and told them I wanted to find a position at a different school. They told me "You can't leave, it's a hard to staff school." To which I replied, "Well, you can't force me to go back and work there if I don't want to, I'll just quit." The guy told me if I resigned I wouldn't be able to get back "in" to the NYCBOE. I decided to take my chances.
I took a semester off to get fully certified and when I was ready to come back I found a position in a new school within a week or so.
My point is, nobody should be forced to stay in a school if they're not happy. It's not good for the teacher, the students or the school.
The Fair Funding Formula should be changed so that any teacher can find a school where they will be a good "fit".
Some people are more motiviated by money than others so I'm all for giving teachers in hard-to-staff schools additional compensation. $5,000 wouldn't be enough for me to go back to a school like my first school again but it might encourage other teachers to do so.
Mary
I've found, in the Bronx, the better the neighborhood the worse the school and the students. It may be the poorer areas get more funds and force the better kids into. In high schools like Dodge, Clinton,Truman they are inundating the schools with the dregs of society. At Dodge they were sending them straight from Rikers, irregardless of the boro the "kid" was from. This caused the stats to plummet. This was and is being done in every large school targeted. Go by Clinton, on beautiful Moshulou Parkway, there's a SWAT team there every morning. The hard core criminals are kept on their own floor. None of this has anything to do with education or what's best for students. Its very easy for the DOE to turn any school into a hell or heaven. They can and do manipulate the population,resources,media and UFT.
One more point, the only student populations the DOE haven't been able to manipulate are the ones at specialized schools (i.e. Bronx Science). Look for this to change soon, with full cooperation of the UFT.
The UFT has just agreed to allow unqualified students into specialized high schools.
What is wrong with this union.
Mulgrew get your ass un the class and teach, Then maybe you will know what real teachers face.
We must vote Mulgrew out of office. He is destroying this union. Let him teach at Truman High school. Worst hell hole. Even the cops are scared to come there.
High school is AWESOME. All retards, putrid administrators, disgusting environments, Plato blended learning (my personal favorite), nepotism beyond belief, no $$ in the budget (except for food), zero consequences for the students, kids placed in classes in first week of June so they can graduate (no problem, I will do you the favor, wink wink), fake meetings, moron AUSSIE teams walking around, superintendents who wouldn't be hired as a substitute 15 years ago, network leaders who failed at their schools as principals, freshly opened schools with below 25% pass rates on regents exams, office staffs that speak spanish in front of you, school aides that wear shorts below their ass (and backwards caps), special ed combo classes with no team teacher, iep's that have signatures from teachers who don't even know them, fake phone iep conferences that never take place, libraries with no librarians, school safety agents that date the students, an evaluation system that is meaningless (data scored by useless measures), MOSL measures for students you don't know, ATR's who make 100,000+ for babysitting (many of whom are being tortured), per session for friends, chapter leaders who are 23 years old, student aides doing secretarial work, community coordinators basically running schools (don't really know how this title is still around), schools with no payroll secretaries, teachers who teach 7 classes and get paid for 5, deans who teach no classes, I can go on for days but I'm getting tired typing. Don't get me wrong, I LOVE IT!!!! I'm passing the whole fukkin roster. I don't give a shit!!!!! The more chaotic, the better. I will gladly take my check and punch another notch on the belt as this shit year ends. I see ALL OF THE ABOVE and I laugh my ass off. This is a FAKE SYSTEM of degenerates with FAKE rubrics, FAKE observations, FAKE scores, FAKE everything. I am so happy it's scary. Only in a sick system like this can you actually sit back and observe the strangest things that make no sense at all. Well, 2 more weeks and like Jeffrey Canada said many, many years ago, "Teachers get paid all summer while they're off whether their whole class passes or fails". That's right you piece of shit!!!!! FUCK EVERYONE!!!!!
What a shame that the diamonds of the school system will now be ruined by racial issues. Maybe if more blacks and Hispanics cared about education they would make the specialized schools on their own merit. This has nothing to do with money for tutoring because in the poor neighborhoods the students are given FREE tutoring for the specialized high school tests! And they are admitted with lower scores. Just another way to ruin the schools!
The concern over experienced "quality teachers" languishing in the ATR pool while deep poverty schools are forced to hire cheaper newbies will be a non-issue when the new contract forces ATRs into open vacancies, which will largely be at the worst schools where nobody wants to work.
Anyone know about the travesty at the kennedy campus. At least twice a week the fire alarm is pulled by a student forcing the entire building of 5000 plus to evacuate building. This has been going on all year and the brilliant principals there all from bloombergs idiot leadership academy and a charter school principal have yet to come up with this simple solution. Instead, its inmates running the asylum - the kids love it - they laugh and have water fights outside the building during the bogus fire drill while the "asst principals" walk around with radios and red throw over gear!!! Its hysterical and it is a clear indication of the kind of leadership going on at the DOE!!! Cant make it up people
Now that sounds like more fun than the pathetic Roosevelt campus in Bronx. We don't have fun like that. I'd love some water action and laughing at AP's. Kennedy sounds really terrible, in a fun way. I'd love to work at that shithole. Pull the alarm everyday. That would be perfect
To 1:26,
I was at the Kennedy campus twice this year. Huge school,8 floors with non-working escalators, very much like a prison. Brand new library in which no kids or staff are allowed to use! Kids running a muck, especially at the New Visions charter school on the 1st floor. (The whole New Visions racketeering outfit should be investigated.) No teachers cafeteria, but a student cafeteria on each floor. Some schools have no staff room. No windows on any floor, old putrid colored paint and flickering fluorescent lights. The DOE should rent the place out for prison or horror movie production. The fire alarms are probably the only school trips these kids go on.
I love it 11:08. I was told today by my principal that although I am technically proficient, I am not building community! I am getting my ass tossed out. Thank God I am not in LA. My school is in a really rough neighborhood replete with shootings from time to time. I let the principal have it. If my evaluation does not pass muster, I am filing a grievance. How much more shit am I supposed to take? The principal said everyone he asked said, "She comes in, does her job and she knows her stuff."
anon 11 08
YOu really have hit it on the head guy. I mean you are so accurate in your description of what goes on inside nyc schools...have a great summer guy I'll be reciting your post all summer long...lol..thank you.
Yes the kennedy post is accurate where the kids are pulling the fire alarms at least twice a week and laughing their asses off outside while moronic asst principals walk around with radios and red flagged vests!! One school, I believe law and finance - a disorganized maze of walking dead APs uses staff to monitor the fire alarms. Thats right you will find teachers, counselors (all making roughly $50 per hour sitting in a chair in the hall watching the fire alarms!! That's what I call using the budget wisely......
Yes I also work at the kennedy campus and yes indeed there is a "fire drill" every other day here as students pull the alarm. The funny thing though was during the fire drill outside stay where kids were having fun and throwing water balloons at each other while the proficient APs walk around with loud radios and red alert vests I was able to just take a stroll up the corner from the school where a neighbor from the neighborhood asked me what happened. I stated to the neighbor that students pull the fire alarm and the school must evacuate. The neighbors response is that we should put all "charter schools" in the building that will fix the problem......I told the neighbor that it was the charter school located on the 2nd floor today that pulled the alarm. The neighbor just looked puzzled and started to speak spanish and walked away yelling bla bla bla charter scoola...lol...omg help...
860 dollars is a slap in the face - you slug - they can take their 860 dollars and shove it -it is not worth a life time of giving up our rights!
Try being a veteran teacher stuck in a hellhole school in queens because no one will take you with OMT. In jail with no way out.,,..
This blog just supports the publics perception that ATR's, can't teach, should not be with children..ever and are crazy. Chaz you are not helping ATR's
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