Wednesday, October 31, 2018

Halloween Special - Horror Stories From The ATR Pool.




















Back in 2014 I wrote a post on the horror stories told to me from ATRs.  I have decided to repost the article.  Please enjoy.

Today is Halloween and  its time to reprint my Halloween special from last year on the various horror figures in the form of administrators, fellow educators, and of course those lovely students who make life miserable for the ATRs as they rotate from school to school. Added to the list is one more from this school year, Here is the reprint of my post from last year, with additions.  Hope you enjoy reading it.

Horror Stories From The ATR Pool.



















With Halloween here, its time to recount some of the horror stories told to me by the ATRs in the last couple of years.

Freddy Kruger:
This nightmare started when an ATR, trying to go the extra yard in entertaining the class he was covering, by asking them to solve a math question, using a baseball analogy.  In describing the problem he used statistics commonly used in baseball.  However, one female student didn't understand the concept and he patiently explained the math problem to her.  When she still didn't get it, the teacher explained that since she really didn't understand baseball he could see her confusion in solving the Math problem.  The girl felt insulted and reported the ATR to the Principal who charged the ATR with gender discrimination and verbal abuse. The ATR ended up with a Letter To The File (LIF) and a "u rating" for the year.

Jason:
An ATR covering a leave replacement was teaching a Science lesson when three girls decided to play "UNO" instead.  The teacher asked the girls to put the cards away three times.  However, the girls refused the teacher's request.  The Teacher went over to three girls and took the UNO cards away.  One girl refused to give up her pile and the teacher grabbed them from her hand.  In doing so he touched her hand in taking the UNO cards away.  The three girls went to the Principal and the teacher ended up being charged with corporal punishment and OSI was contacted.  The result was a LIF for the teacher and no disciplinary consequences for the three students who failed to do their work or follow the rules.

Michael Myers:
A student was feeling ill and the ATR, who was provisionally assigned to the school, told the student to go to the school clinic to be checked out.  The teacher was trying to do what's right by having qualified medical personal observe her and to ensure the child's illness was not contagious to her classmates.  The student refused to go and an argument ensued until the student reluctantly went to the school clinic.  Two weeks later the Principal held a disciplinary hearing and charged the teacher with verbal abuse (yelling)  and embarrassing the student in front of her classmates.  The  teacher ended up with a LIF and a "U rating" for the year.

Chucky:
An untenured ATR provisionally assigned to the school saw a poor performing student's Regents paper being marked separately from others and in another room and quickly realized that the teacher was violating State rules.  She asked the teacher why he had the student's Regents paper and was told to mind her own business.  She reported it first to the Assistant Principal and then the Principal of the alleged Regents violation.  However, it appears the Assistant Principal and Principal wanted this student out of the school and were in on it.  The untenured ATR's satisfactory observations in the Fall semester became "Unsatisfactory observations" after she reported the Regents violation, in the Spring semester.  She was discontinued at the end of the school year.

Alien:
A certified regular education Math ATR was dumped into a self-contained Special Education class all day without any technology or lesson plans left for the classes and was told by the Assistant Principal to keep them entertained when he complained about the lack of appropriate work for the students.  He tried his best but the students were out of control and when the Assistant Principal walked in saw that the teacher was having trouble keeping them focused.  The Assistant Principal gave the ATR a "U observation" for poor classroom management.

Villain: (new)

 Then there was the field supervisor assassin who "U" rated a poor Science teacher covering a Spanish class and stated that the coverage lesson, left by the teacher, was not rigorous enough and the ATR should have prepared her own lesson instead rather than you the coverage lesson left for the class.  Moreover, the ATR's lack of understanding Spanish or the fact that this was the first time she was exposed to these students was not an excuse and resulted in the ATR getting a "U" observation and was the basis of her "U" rating.  You can read the entire villainous story here.





Frankenstein: (new)
 This year, there is an ATR who was covering for a leave replacement in a severe shortage area where there are no other ATRs available who are certified in that Regents subject area,  The ATR was threatened to be shot by a student.  The result?  The Frankenstein Principal removed the ATR from the school while the 125 students did not have a certified teacher available to replace the ATR for their Regents course.    What happened to the student who threatened to kill the ATR?   Despite the many witnesses to the threat, the school didn't even punish the student for the monstrous action of threatening to kill the ATR.

Count Dracula: (New)
This ATR was sent to a school with one of the worst principals in the system.  She found that many of her Special Education  students (maternity leave replacement) had major behavioral issues and when she tried to discipline them, the Principal filed corporal punishment charges against the ATR.  Yet, she was kept in the classroom to continue to teach for the rest of the year.  At the end of the school year the ATR received her 3020-a charges.



These are just a few of the many horror stories from the ATR pool.  If you have some stories to share, please send them to the comment section and I will publish them.

25 comments:

  1. Anonymous8:31 AM

    I met so many ATR's.I am shock no one is happy.
    All of them is stress out even me.Time for a change!
    It will change only when students start learning.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Anonymous10:02 AM

    No rotation this year unless needed.
    ATR will remain in the same school
    for the rest of the year.There will
    be a union meeting with only reps today
    to discuss this.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Anonymous2:25 PM

      We have a useless Union.

      Delete
  3. Anonymous10:51 AM

    Being an ATR is one long nightmare with no hope of ending until retirement or resignation. The UFT hasn’t done anything for us except let us languish with the you’re lucky to have a job slogan. Five years as an ATR has severely damaged me and I’m retiring today. I have no joy about it as I loved teaching.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Anonymous12:23 PM

      That is what the UFT wants. They make it easy to harass you because you are expensive.

      Delete
  4. Anonymous1:11 PM

    114,000 students in nyc schools are homeless as per chancellor Carranza. A whopping 114,000 kids live in either a shelter home or homeless and we have billionaires around the country and around NYC giving away millions of dollars to corrupt charter schools.

    When will people realize that POVERTY is the culprit for failing schools and not teachers! The slogan line for billionaires like mikey bloomberg and bill gates is that the teacher is the most important factor in a childs education.

    The mere fact that gates and bloomberg were able to earn billions of dollars is really mind boggling considering the fact that:
    1. Mike Bloomberg was here in NYC as Mayor and controlled our schools. Well ask any teacher if the schools have been destroyed by Bloomberg and his ill advised policies.
    2. Bloomberg continues to believe that the teacher is the main factor yet study after study and Chaz has posted them, prove that poverty is the number one factor in childs education.
    3. Bill Gates and microsoft have some of the worst software on the market. Windows software is crap yet Gates got rich on it.
    These goons were lucky in life but never one believe that people like bloomberg and gates are know it alls....as a matter of fact they are bozos and pictured here in chaz's article

    ReplyDelete
  5. Anonymous1:30 PM

    10:02,
    The only ATRs that will be rotated out are those that are in good schools.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Anonymous3:13 PM

      Yah because they are too expensive to be hired. They prefer inexperienced uncertified teachers. Thank you Mulgrew.

      Delete
  6. Anonymous2:19 PM

    This proposed new contract does not protect senior teachers from being targeted because they are expensive. Mulgrew has no shame, he keeps making it easy for older teachers to be targeted from supervisors like Stark.

    ReplyDelete
  7. Anonymous6:34 PM

    I can only laugh at all you pathetic crybabies! what you need to do is stand united. you wont because if you stand together you will be too worried you will get written up for inappropriate touching! ahahah keep complaining, its the best read on the computer!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Anonymous7:04 PM

      The union's failure to protect their senior teachers is disgraceful and for the UFT to allow Tweed to practice ageism in the teacher removal process is aiding and abetting the DOE practice of age discrimination.

      Delete
  8. Anonymous7:14 PM

    Has anyone with standing (such as a current ATR) ever filed an Education Law §310 appeal with the Commissioner of Education regarding the problems ATRs face?

    www.nysed.gov/content/how-file-appeal

    ReplyDelete
  9. Anonymous8:25 PM

    @1:30PM - Sometimes don't know if you are in a 'good' school! The agony of not knowing....... Happy Halloween everyone.

    ReplyDelete
  10. Anonymous8:35 PM

    @6:34PM - You're pathetic. Go crawl under your desk if you have one.

    ReplyDelete
  11. Anonymous7:04 AM

    @8:35 why? cause he is right and you know it,

    ReplyDelete
  12. Anonymous9:10 AM

    Mulgrew is a pussy.

    ReplyDelete
  13. Anonymous4:50 PM

    Anonymous 10:02 how do you know we are staying in the school we are assigned to now? Even the Principals don't seem to know.

    ReplyDelete
  14. Anonymous5:27 PM

    Does anyone know if all ATR's are staying at the same school for the entire year? My emails each week say that this assignment is from the first day of school until November 11th. Thanks

    ReplyDelete
  15. Anonymous6:45 PM

    True story. I am in the teachers room. Two teachers are complining about the amount of work.
    I said "well you can blame it on Michael Mulgrew". One of the teachers turns to me and says " whos Michael Mulgrew"
    Enough said.

    ReplyDelete
  16. The school I am in seems nice enough. The admin seems alright and not too crazy. I notice in the rooms, they all have the same agenda board up. Lesson plans are like 3 1/2 pages long, with handouts attached. All are uniform and follow the same style, which isn't necessarily a bad thing, they just contain all the same bullshit that doesn't really mean anything.

    I have a feeling we won't get rotated, but Chaz would know better than I.

    ReplyDelete
  17. Anonymous8:45 AM

    I’ll be honest. Last year and this year, I have received non answers on rotation.

    Sill said that rules are ‘same as last year’ which I don’t know what they means.

    I don’t want to email atr assignment bc I believe thy when you do that, they send supervisors to see you.

    What did sill say at atr meetings ?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Anonymous2:22 PM

      Nothing, just that the harassment of Field Supervisors will continue.

      Delete
  18. Anonymous4:50 PM

    King Clovis remarked on the uniformity of the lesson plan requirements in his school. Micromanagent indeed. Our school tries to dictate bulletin boards. She uses the phrase "display board" wants loads of shit and stickies . good luck. Only the millenials comply.
    8 more months till summer

    ReplyDelete
  19. Anonymous8:43 PM

    You can sue for age discrimination. I did and won a nice settlement from the DOE. Thanks to my lawyer Brian Glass. My school was in Western Queens

    ReplyDelete
  20. Pamela Patton Fynes is also an excellent lawyer

    ReplyDelete