The DOE, in their attempt to thin out the herd of 1,400+ ATRs, has hired more ATR field supervisors to convince the ATRs that its time to resign, retire, or just leave the system out of frustration and despair. It appears many of the ATR field supervisors are retired administrators, working part-time to make a few extra shekels and with orders to terminate the ATRs.
The ATR supervisors all seem to have the same message. They meet with the ATR and pretend to offer them support. They tell the ATR that their job is to help them land a permanent position and by observing the ATR in the classroom they could offer suggestions on how to improve their pedagogy and make them more attractive to principals. The truth is far different than the message.
The ATR supervisors have little or no influence on principals and cannot help the ATR obtain a permanent position. Moreover, with "Fair student funding" still in effect, principals are looking for young and inexpensive teachers, preferably untenured, and since the average ATR are in their 50s, have an average of sixteen years experience, and make $87,000, few principals would even consider hiring the ATR.
With regard to supporting the ATR in improving their pedagogy? Its laughable. Most are playing the "gotcha system". They will show up numerous times, rip the teacher's lesson to pieces and if the lesson was great, they will claim the lesson plan did not match the lesson, despite the union winning a grievance that administrators cannot evaluate the teacher's lesson plan. I guess the DOE forgot to tell the ATR supervisors that. In one outrageous case an ATR supervisors gave an "unsatisfactory" observation to a Science teacher who was covering a Spanish class.
Many of the ATR supervisors demand "rigor", "differentiation", and "Common Core" in the lessons despite the obvious fact that the ATR has no training in them, or has any knowledge of the student abilities in the classroom with and has no ownership of the students grades to help with discipline. They expect you to have everyone in the classroom engaged and learning and if one student is not on task, the lesson is considered a failure by the ATR field supervisor.
Worse, once the ATR field supervisor's rating is final, it can only be appealed to the DOE's kangaroo court, where only 0.3% of these appeals have been reversed by DOE hearing officers. Therefore, its necessary to be proactive and challenge the ATR field supervisors on what they observed. Question them about every sentence they write, even for the imformals, since they can be used against the ATR in the 3020-a hearings, if it comes to that. Finally, don't let these ATR supervisors browbeat you into submission. If you disagree with the supervisor's observation report, file a grievance and make them realize that they will need to defend their observations, maybe they will look for more compliant ATRs they can bully and leave you alone.
If you're in danger of getting an "unsatisfactory rating" then you must fight "tooth and nail" on the ATR field supervisor's observation because by not objecting to the observation report, you make it easier for them to give you an "unsatisfactory rating" and two consecutive "unsatisfactory ratings" can result in 3020-a termination charges.
The ATR Alliance (ATRA) is having a meeting at 512 Clinton Avenue (the Freedom School) in Brooklyn on February 12th. from 5:30 to 7:30 pm. Elections will be held for new representatives. If you are an ATR please attend. All UFT members are welcomed ATRs or not.
17 comments:
How does one go about filing a grievance? If I call the union they tell me not to worry until I get my final rating at the end of June.
You can have any Chapter Leader file a grievance or contact James Eterno at the ICEUFT blog.
Request Demo Lessons in writing preferable emails
The opening line should be as my instructional leader I am requesting that you perform a demonstration lesson for me so I may model my lesson after yours. nine times out of ten they will deny your request, but when the time comes we can use it against them.
My field supervisor is coming on all sweetness and light, but I know her true purpose is to terminate me. She wants to know what prep periods I have Thursday. I have no idea, since I have a different program each day. She told me during our initial conference to follow the lesson format on the UFT website, but I haven't been able to find what she's talking about. Does anyone know what she's talking about here?
Being an ATR sucks....I am glad I am not one.
MORE is doing a workshop om March 14 to help formulate strategies for how to respond effectively to these observation reports. I also believe in naming and shaming these field supervisors by publishing the observation reports and responses with the teacher name redacted.
So far so good with Ferne Goldsmith. She has been fair and thats all I can i ask for.
Farina and the DOE are such hypocrites. While up in Albany Farina is against the state sending "outside" people into the school to observe teachers however Farina allows "outsiders" to observe atr teachers.....this is disgusting beyond belief....something needs to get done to change the culture of the DOE thugs
If you click on the top menu of UFT Solidarity Caucus' site http://www.solidaritycaucus.org, you will see a Grievance How To.
If you go to http://www.atralliance.org/fs then you can see the comments left about these Field Supervisors.
When you meet your ATR supervisor, take the line from "Apocolypse Now", when Col. Kurtz (Marlon Brando) meets Martin Sheen...
"Are you an assassin?"
We call them field assassins - only the lowest of the low would do that job - the scumiest of the scum signing up to rate atrs - they are all slime
Well said, anonymous 10:16!
Anonymous 11:10pm, I think your field supervisor is talking about the Unit Plan format. There is no lesson plan format because Lesson planning cannot be dictated.
They feed on ATRs that have been abused like principals with no principles like Dwarka. To name a few: Stark, Qail, Kostopoulos....
They want to toast you too.
They deny you pre-obs, they observe you out of license and Unity denies you any grievances. It has all been set up to eliminate ATRs, and Mulgrew agreed to all this nonsense. We need to replace Mulgrew, Barr and all these cronies that have caused so much damage.
It is just a disgrace on the abusive practices they are doing on ATRs.
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