UFT Immigration Forum May 15th

UFT Educational VP Evelyn DeJesus welcomes us, welcomes panel. Says you can see Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island from here, reminders to immigrant history. Says in NYC our kids speak 150 different languages but tonight we speak in one. We are family now.

Introduces UFT President Michael Mulgrew.

Mulgrew welcomes us, thanks Evelyn. Says this is simple for us. We heard what happened in Queens last week, trying to get actual story. Says we’ve spoken about it a lot here. Very proud of diversity. Hard to find a teacher who doesn’t have dreamers in classroom. Fact that we are dealing with this is surreal to us.

We always hear attacks on teachers, but every teacher knows we’re responsible for kids in our classroom. We will not stand aside. We protect and educate. Proud that we are doing this, in national debate this is big issue.

We have no idea what will be in the news. So much uncertainly. For a child to deal with this is absurd, immoral, wrong. Introduces Juan Gonzalez, moderator.

Praises Gonzalez for his writing. Says he found truth in his columns, as opposed to alternative, fake news, or lies.

Gonzalez—Tells UFT he is now member of AFT. Retired from DN, still hosts Democracy Now, but is not Professor of Journalism at Rutgers and union member.

Pleased to discuss this topic. Recognizes his HS social studies teacher, George Altomare, from Franklin K. Lane. Didn’t know he was union activist, but remembers his lessons.

Immigration critical issue with admin that wants a wall and to deport people. Human rights watch says 10K parents of immigrants being detained by ICE each year in CA only. Reported about man in Austin who as teenager marched with parents, now councilman in Texas, arrested last week sitting in while they were outlawing sanctuary cities in Texas. Arrested in protest of law that would have him arrested for enabling sanctuary cities.

Sanctuary cities and feds on collision course. One side must persevere. Crime rates in sanctuary cities lower than in others.

Nisha Agarwal—Mayor’s Office for Immigrant Affairs—Bridge between city govt. and diverse communities. Mission to promote programs that improve well-being of immigrants. Feel more strongly now, since election.

Immigrant inclusion should be DNA of city life. Example is Municipal ID program, ID NYC, available to all, free. Important to get into schools, open bank accounts, over 1 million signers. Do pop up enrollments with schools. Emergency contacts on back for parents.

Access to justice—free, safe immigration legal services w schools. Action NYC based in schools. Students, faculty parents get services. Know Your Rights Forums established. Have done 100. Makes school safe place.

Advocacy—Can just be having right policy at right time. Protocol for non-local law enforcement. SSA must call principal and lawyers. Without warrant they are removed. Happened Thursday. School followed protocol, turned them away. School are place where children are protected, safest place for kids to be. Credit to educators.

Steve Choi—NYC Immigration Coalition—Umbrella agency for state orgs. President ran most anti-immigrant candidate in US history. Wants pointless stupid border wall, Muslim ban, declared war on immigrant communities. Disheartening he’d do that, but heartening that so many allies said this is not USA, not NY.

One week after he took office, signed Muslim refugee ban. Later we heard people were detained at JFK. Started hearing more and more being detained. One was Hamid Darwish, Iraqi translator who put life on line for us. Plane in air when order was signed. Kept him for 18 hours until Congress reps got him out. Hundreds, thousands came to protest.

At some point, they wanted to capitalize on this. They asked people to come to Battery Park next day. 30K people showed for rally and march. Still, President doubles down and attacks, but there is incredible response.

How can we protect immigrant community? Schools are the most trusted places. Thought about how to keep them that way. Weren’t pleased with original guidance from mayor. Wanted to make sure teachers and principals didn’t have to deal with ICE. To mayor’s credit, they listened. Said ICE agents were not to be let into schools.

But we can see there is more work to be done. Want schools to be trusted places, teachers and principals to be allies. There is still a lot more we can do. Mayor and city council have been champions. Need state to do more, need it to be sanctuary state. We can do that but have not yet. Cuomo can do it. This is critical in next few years.

Carlos Menchaca—City Council, Brooklyn—Chair of council on immigration—Today is important, but hopes it sparks dialogue. The sailboat we’re on, in tumultuous waters, that are dynamic and changing—we need to have trust. City Council reaffirms us as sanctuary city, is vision card for future. We’re not there yet. Hopes Trump is impeached, but meanwhile we need open dialogue.

Beyond legislation, wants people to have access to health care, legal service, education for all including adults. Wants to invite people who have been marginalized. Asks about participatory budgeting, says schools have benefited from it. Now there are more smartboards, more tech. This is what we can do to move forward.

We have to participate at local neighborhood level, block by block. In Sunset Park people are opening homes because some are scared to go elsewhere. This is where Know Your Rights sessions are happening.

José Luis Perez—Deputy General Council, Latino Justice—45th year of fighting for civil rights for Latino community. Big issue is increased immigration enforcement. President may have ideas, but can’t do it alone. Feds can’t do it alone so they pressure localities. Have succeeded in creating fear.

We are in communities and immigrant families are afraid to walk children to school. Says they are staying in more. “Sensitive locations” where ICE may be, want to restrict their presence. They may go to schools and hospitals, courthouses, though they should not, as they are emboldened. Says government must take stand against that.

Immigration warrants are not criminal. We ask that they follow constitution. ICE takes rogue actions. We saw them go into homes, but immigration warrants permit only consensual entry. They point weapons and take that as consent. 14th amendment says equal protection for all, not only citizens. At this time I’m happy and proud to be a lawyer.

President stopped for most part in courts. We will sue when we have to. Looks forward to engaging.

Tania Romero—School Social Worker, Flushing International High School—We are one of several international schools in city and country. Thanks us for being here and for our work. Says we have power to shift society.

Her students come from over 45 countries, speak over 25 languages, very diverse. Recent policies had huge impact. AT least 50% undocumented, and growing. Young people come for safety, to pursue dreams, but now all at risk. Big fear level. Hard for parents to come to workshops—they are afraid.

Academic impact as students drop out. They leave and save money in case they are deported. Level of trauma increased, even after what they’ve seen in home countries. Now facing more discrimination and oppression. Task is huge and will get bigger.

How do we move from crisis management, fear, to place of action. One is education. We need to train ourselves, attend staff development, understand how to serve diverse students. We need to know their history.

How do we move into action? We use counseling and groups, offer socio-emotional support. We want to move from fear to empowerment.

Student Faiza—Senior from Pakistan. Part of school’s dream team and various clubs. Says school is friendly. Whenever she’s lonely she can go to any teacher. They are friendly and supporting. They do circles and advisories due to political climate. They also do projects. Students focus on rights and share messages, for example.

Caremer Andujar—President, UndocuRutgers—Started it to provide resources for undocumented students. Had to appear before ICE on Tuesday. Was afraid, and was during finals. Interview May 9th, one day after last final given to accommodate her.

Came here at 4, does not know home country, English her best language, struggles in Spanish. Considers America home and wants to help others in her situation. Believes being undocumented shouldn’t hinder people. Majoring in chemical engineering.

Gonzalez—She got enormous support from AFT and NJ US Senators.

Randi Weingarten, President, AFT—When Caremer’s hearing was over, at AFT Executive Council meeting, I got an email saying you were out and not detained. Whole room applauded. What’s happening in AFT is your fight is our fight.

Met Carlos at JFK on line, lawyers inside kept telling us those of use who were outside were heard inside. Says of all protests she’s attended, terminal 4 at JFK was most important. People asked what they could do, and they went. Uber lost business when taxi drivers were in solidarity and Uber exploited it.

Trump knows what he’s doing, May not look like it, and thank God for lawyers, independent judges, AGs who take on flawed laws, but he spent a long time finding way to scapegoat.

Wants people to stand up if they are first generation American. 2, 3, 4, 5—Almost everyone up. Says if you were Jews coming from Germany in 1939 you wouldn’t have gotten in because of rules. When we say never again, we’ve already had this experience.

Scapegoating and demagoguery are about division. What’s happening now has happened to everyone who’s stood up. As educators we need to know this history. It’s not criminal malfeasance, it’s scapegoating intended to divide for political reasons.

People here care or wouldn’t be here. We must make others care to. I can talk about what we do, and we are doing things like training, preparing families, telling rights, pushing cities and communities to be sanctuaries, but also trying to educate.

Sanctuary city means community policing more important. Not about harboring criminals Fox 5 demonizes rather than educates. We are country of immigrants. Those of us who have been here, and have climbed ladder of opportunity, have obligation to lay it out for others.

We need to be there for our students to deal. We have to debunk scapegoating and demonization. Many newcomers worry rights will be taken away at any moment. Last admin said we need to protect those kids. This nation of immigrants cannot turn its back on this generation of immigrants.

Gonzalez—To members of govt.—on NYC ID—whose idea to give discounts, and what about attempts to grab documentation and use it to target immigrants?

Agarwal—Has been collaboration among communities, but wants to make sure NY residents all get ID, and are all members of NYC. Also, to democratize access to culture, we offer discounts. We have more than a million cards, half million who used it for discounts.

Was lawsuit asking for personal documents. Case moving through courts, but we won state Supreme Court decision. Still will go through appeals. We also changed policy to evaluate whether we hold on to copies. Now info is not even stored. ID card still in demand.

Menchaca—Wanted to build strong legislation, energy around ID came from grassroots. De Blasio and others had political will to do this. Came from community.

Gonzalez—looming collision between sanctuary city and feds—what are you doing to preempt?

Menchaca—outspoken commitment, on budget side, we are all doing several things. Making sure they have ed. and health care. Wants a good rainy day fund just in case. Thinks there is no constitutional ability for 45 to remove funding. Think it will be court battle, will be won.

Perez—Have already been court battles, bluster from 45 to throw fear into communities. Hollow promises and threats that they will remove funding. Will not happen, We must be outspoken, demand Cuomo do right thing and make NY sanctuary state. This is the Empire State.

Detainers are a request. Local law enforcement need not comply. Lawyers will be busy.

Weingarten—US Senators from NY and NJ, and Pelosi, say Senate could stare down obsessions and keep funding for sanctuary cities.

Gonzalez—Spoke to AFL-CIO Prez—expected to keep Trump out. In aftermath how do you feel?

Weingarten—Our membership voted 80% for Hillary. Notion that people are monolithic, but you have to earn trust. In election, what Trump did was run as populist but govern as corporatist. Those who don’t know him, how much did people put their own aspirations and hope into Obama? Think about when NYC voted against him by 95%.

Most people know Trump only from Apprentice. Got letter from member who regretted voting for Trump. Thought he would do something for economy, and asked for help. Thinks what we’ve been embarking on is talking about how elections have consequences.

GOP has effectively swift boated candidates. You need high level of trust. Comey’s actions hurt. When Trump can act like anti-free trade guy and labor is dismissed it’s about values and trust.

Gonzalez—Asks students—Conversations you’re having as you see dragnets, what are you talking about?

Andujar—When I initiate convo, people say, “Wow, you’re undocumented.” When I say I’ve been here since four it changes perception. We come for better life, create jobs, businesses, and go to school. People must see me as peer. They don’t know how many people they know who are undocumented.

Stereotypes are not true. I don’t fit, but I tell them I am. Much of what’s being said isn’t true. Many people set on notion we broke law, but don’t understand that sometimes law is unjust. They ask why I wait so long. But if there were way, I would have done it. Our system needs reform. People think it’s flawless and don’t understand gray areas.

There are no means for us to become documented. Our goals are the same. You don’t want undocumented people in your country and I don’t want to be undocumented.

Let’s fix this system. It needs reform.

Fazia—We speak about feelings and Regents. We are stressed. I always have this fear about how media shows Muslims. People wary when I don’t like school food. They think it’s because of my religion. Makes me angry when my religion or family is blamed for my mistakes, but I have to deal with it.

Gonzalez speaks of new book. Speaks of progressive movements and progressive people elected in cities.

Questions—

Don’t think anyone on panel didn’t mentioned fear—What can we do to avoid predatory legal services—where can people go.

Menchaca—City agencies cracking down, and we also have to get word out. Some communities hard to reach, including Asian and Latino. Gap we need to fix.

Choi—Action NYC, free legal, call 311. Office of New Americans on state level. 1 800 566 7636.
Critical resources.

Romero—council says we can’t ask but school counselors may know and can help. We have partnerships with non-profits. They come during parent-teacher conferences. They are perfect space. Translation important.

Q—We underestimate Trump in NYC, when 48% of us didn’t vote. How do we combat it?

Perez—We need to galvanize. Most who voted for him aren’t in his tax bracket. We must get out the vote, before they try to further erode our voice.

Choi—90% of city voted for Hillary, but every other county, almost, voted Trump. Many people don’t live with immigrants. They are susceptible to stereotypes. We are not getting our message out, have to do better job. This is hard task.

Q—Undocumented mother, to combat community problems, begins with parents. She’s been working in her community. It’s difficult, especially with fear they have now. I would like to keep working as volunteer, but it’s difficult without support or resources. How can we fix that? Forum isn’t enough.

Menchaca—We need to focus on what each community needs, we will connect you with your council member. Changes in each neighborhood.

Q—I understand if ICE shows with no documentation it’s one thing. What is proper?

Agarwal—Judicial warrant. DOE’s lawyers have to accept warrant. Says it’s high bar. Says principal would call lawyer while they wait outside of school. Sometimes they have administrative warrants. Confusing for people who don’t know.

Marjorie Stamberg—UFT committee in her school to defend immigrant students. We have to mobilize, not just GOP, 5 million deported under Obama. Doesn’t think judicial warrant is adequate, we must keep them out of schools. NYPD with broken windows defines crimes and criminalizes poverty. Has to be ICE out period.

Menchaca—agrees, everyone must have legal access. How we navigate will require ingenuity.

Gonzalez—Thanks us for being here, thanks panelists.

Evelyn de Jesus—AFT has outstanding training on immigration. On September 14th we will do that workshop. We had clinic in Bronx with lawyers to help people. Doing different things. Check UFT website. We are here to help. Thanks Gonzalez, panel.

Says dreamer told her, “I might not have the right papers but I have the right values.” Urges us to get involved.

Menchaca—June 26 ten AM hearing on dreamers. Asks us to come to city council chamber.

Weingarten—says there are really courageous people around country. Says city is ensuring it puts DOJ through all hoops in terms of probable cause. Difference between civil disobedience we will train people to do, and ensuring cities do all they can do to repel ICE. What city is doing is pretty terrific and we should give them some honor for it.

The Never Ending Class Size Saga

Our school is the largest in Queens, and one of the largest in the city. At one point, we were able to come to an agreement with the city to reduce enrollment. That's probably the best thing we could've done, but alas, the numbers soon exploded again. It's open warfare walking the halls at peak times. I avoid certain hallways and calculate shortcuts to make it to my classes on time.

Here's the thing, though--no matter how overcrowded we get, everyone in our district is entitled to attend. That's not a bad thing. It's great to have a neighborhood school, and every neighborhood should have one. We're one of very few surviving comprehensive high schools, the most requested in the city if I recall correctly, but we're a victim of our own success. There was a lose-lose mentality under Bloomberg--your school was either closed for low test scores, which indicate little more than zip code, or overcrowded as Bloomberg actually instructed students who chose so-called failing schools to attend schools like ours.

Forgive me for repeating myself, but this fall we had dozens of oversized classes, and the arbitrator ruled that this issue could be resolved by teachers missing one day of their C6 assignments. I found this outrageous and indefensible, and raised a little ruckus over it. This got enough attention that someone at DOE pulled about 40 selected seats from our school. That will help marginally, I suppose.

On March 28th, an arbitrator ruled that my school, Francis Lewis, along with Hillcrest, Flushing and Forest Hills, was to come into compliance or create classes so as to enable it. I was very happy about this, and shared it with my staff. This was the "plan of action" called for by the UFT Contract, and it was a pretty good one.  Alas, I then learned that the DOE had yet another step it could make if the "plan of action" was, you know, meaningful in any way.

So there was a "compliance call," a term mentioned absolutely nowhere in the UFT Contract. I don't know what happened at the other schools, but after numerous conversations with my district rep, I suggested that if it proved impossible to fix class sizes, I wanted qualified teachers to help out in oversized classes. That is, I didn't want them sending someone like me to help out in chemistry labs, about which I know nothing, at best.

So now, in our high school, there are a bunch of substitute teachers qualified in the subject areas helping out, Sadly, this will last for only four weeks of the entire school year, and will end when Regents testing begins. It's true we have those two days after all grades are in and recorded, as demanded by former Chancellor Dennis Walcott, but I'm not sure what difference they make.

So here's the scorecard at my school--for nine months administration was able to oversize classes in violation of the UFT Contract. Aside from sitting through a couple of hearings, there was no consequence whatsoever. Imagine what would happen if you or I acted in flagrant violation of the Contract for nine months in full view of everyone and then continued to do so with moderate compromise.

I'm gonna grant that the UFT class size committee helped a little, in that my district rep. took my input on what would be an acceptable settlement if we couldn't reduce class sizes, and that my idea was in fact enacted. I don't know if it makes me a pessimist, but I can't help focusing on the fact we lost 90% of the year as opposed to sort of winning the other 10%. I fail to see how this is much of a win for UFT teachers or NYC students who sat in and continue to sit in oversized classes. NYC already has the highest class sizes in NY State, and exceeding them is an outrage.

That said, UFT tells me that this ruling will color future rulings. Will my administration make sure class size regs are followed next year, unlike the previous eight years I've been chapter leader? Will the arbitrators be guided by this precedent, and/ or common sense in the future? Will Bill de Blasio continue the outrageous policy of dumping kids into public schools whether or not they have space to accommodate said kids? Will they keep surrendering space to Moskowitz Academies even as these insane policies are in place?

Keep watching this space and I'll let you know.

Taking the Arg Out of Garg

As you may have read on the ICE-UFT blog, or EdNotes Online, CPE 1 chapter leader Marilyn Martinez has actually won in 3020a. That's very unusual. I am personally acquainted with only one other such case. Generally the arbitrator tries to find some piddling little thing wrong and give a token fine, at the very least.

Of course, it appears the charges, the ones we've never even heard, were so frivolous that the arbitrator could not even fine her a few thousand bucks. And make no mistake, a principal who reassigns teachers simply because she finds them inconvenient is not acting in the best interests of students, let alone UFT members. This, sadly, does not put an end to the situation. The CPE 1 delegate is sitting around somewhere facing charges as well.

I'm curious as to why this doesn't constitute union-busting. I mean, if you want to be treated like that, why not get a gig at Walmart or Target as opposed to one of the most progressive schools in the city? It's kind of understandable that CSA defends Garg, since it is in fact their job to support their members. It's less clear why Fariña won't weigh in against this outrage, until you consider that she actually hand-picked Garg to run the school.

Me, I'm not sure exactly why Fariña is deemed such a remarkable educator. I'm not sure how turning around a school is much of a miracle when you reject six out of seven applicants. This is the same sort of miracle charters push, when they not only enroll strictly children with parents proactive enough to apply, but also dump the ones who end up inconveniently getting unfavorable test scores. My school takes everyone and I'm proud of that.

Of course Fariña is a remnant of the Bloomberg administration, and as such I have to question Bill de Blasio's vision for public schools. Sadly, he did not clean house of Bloomberg folk at Tweed, and I simply do not see Fariña's vision as sufficiently improved from that of Klein, Walcott, or even What's-Her-Name.  Appointing the short-sighted and vindictive Monica Garg as principal is a case in point.

I have a lot of respect for Marilyn Martinez. She's going back into the veritable belly of the beast, and facing a principal who has no issue reassigning people for no reason. She shows the sort of courage we all need, so sorely lacking these days. Can you imagine how powerful the union would be if we all showed that?

How can we empower members so we all stand proud, just like chapter leader Marilyn Martinez?

Oh Where, Oh Where Have the ESL Teachers Gone?

I'm often amazed by articles like this one, which states that there is a shortage of ESL teachers. This is an ongoing issue. I know because when I started as an English teacher it was almost impossible for me to find a position. When I became certified in ESL I got appointed immediately. I would never have moved except for the fact that my boss wanted to force me to teach Spanish or lose my second job.

Now of course it's a good idea to train and hire more ESL teachers. We have a whole lot of students who don't speak English and they need all the support we can give them. I'm proud to play a small part in that by doing my job every day. Alas, the piece does not, as far as I can tell, really think things through. It mentions a teacher with an MA in English who teaches them global history. Hey, I'm all for teaching kids global history. And the article gets one thing exactly right.

Two years ago, state regulations began requiring that students learning English be taught, at least part-time, by someone specially certified.

But it misses a much larger point. The fact is that these students are learning global history at the expense of direct instruction in English. English language learners, or ELLs, have had their direct English instruction cut by a factor of 33-100%. This is because the geniuses in Albany have determined that language instruction is somehow beyond the pale. Why waste time teaching children English when we can just dump them right into global? That way we can give them a state exam, and if it doesn't work out we can just close the school and give it to Eva Moskowitz. It's a WIN-WIN!

I love teaching ESL and I'd recommend it to anyone. But ironically, one of the reasons I'm free to teach it is that I happen to be certified in English. Because of this, I can teach without a co-teacher. It's different for quite a few of my colleagues, who have to sit with beginners just like those described in the article and help the English teacher while they study To Kill a Mockingbird, or Hamlet, or whatever.

This, of course, is because of Part 154, which degrades the teaching of English as a Second Language. New York State feels language teaching is somehow bereft of content. This is a very odd attitude in a country where few people bother to really learn a second language. To take those of us who actually teach it effectively and render us assistant social studies, science or English teachers is to render us second class teachers.

Teaching is pretty tough nowadays, and the odds are stacked against us in many ways. For decades the papers have vilified us pretty much no matter what. We now have a federal government more hostile to public schools and teachers than I've ever seen, and that's saying a lot because Obama was no bargain either.

So while I love what I do, I have to think twice before advising a young person to follow in my footsteps. There are few things more rewarding than watching the rapid progress of newcomers, but everything I know, everything I've experienced, and everything I've read suggests that dumping them in a global history class upon arrival will impede rather than encourage progress in English.

If NY State really wants to help ELLs, they will not only reverse the insane mandates of Part 154, but also expand direct English instruction. If it were up to me, I'd give every newcomer a year of intensive English immersion and save the state-tested academic stuff for the following year. Language acquisition is not about studying global history. It's about affect, it's about feeling. Imagine how you would feel it you went to China and someone handed you a global history book written in Chinese. That's exactly what the kids this article speaks of will have to do.

Language is a fundamental tool. It's not just something you use to pass a state test. Anyone who feels otherwise is uninformed. And frankly, it's a disgrace that people in Albany, people who are charged to help our students, are so uninformed. If I were that uninformed, I'd be incompetent.

I'm just a teacher. I can't find words right now to describe Regents who are that uninformed.

UFT Delegate Assembly May 10, 2017

President’s Report

National—Says Comey had just requested additional funds for Russia investigation. Speaks of DeVos, says she is only in very secure settings, cannot answer question she hasn’t heard in advance. DeVos said if we started from scratch we would treat all methods, even untested, as viable options. Says we should not continue to support a system that has completely failed.

Says he loves NY compared to what’s happening in other states. Says next shutdown of federal government will be next Sept., must be loud and proud at all times. Says other states are having success with it despite long odds. Facing people who hate us funding everything, AZ, NM have all sorts of privatization. Texas fighting vouchers but dues deduction may be illegal. Kansas is disaster, though their supreme court declared their funding illegal and insufficient. Rolled back tax cuts to pay but governor vetoed.

However they say public school proud is working somehow. Things not good, massive budget deficits around country, big issue in Illinois where they have trouble funding pensions. We have to fight Constitutional Convention.

Plays video of bald piano guy singing about public school teacher v. US Ed. Secretary requirements.

Says now national report doesn’t seem so bad.

Paul Ryan visited Moskowitz Academy yesterday. Says Eva still trying to act like Democrat who cares about city kids.

State

Great Regents meeting. Preliminary regs came out. Says we had to explain to ed. Dept. It was 80% test scores. We have board that understands this stuff and now we are looking at multiple measure system, where we look at growth. Still more work to do, but ESSA regs more reflective of our values. Someone named Ian with NY Education Trust very upset. When Ian yells, we’re happy.

ESSA regs good because whatever happens nationally those regs will ID schools who are struggling. We always have best growth in NYC. Remember I said this to you.

We have preliminary new regs for CTE. Should make it much easier to get programs certified.

We still have to work on preliminary new standards. Three areas they have not tackled. special ed, ELLs, early childhood. Says teachers have had a lot of input in standards. We still have work to do.

Governor Cuomo had very good week. Signed education bill in NYC public school, in LIC. He thanked city teachers and union. Says union has always stood for public ed., that he couldn’t be a teacher because job was too hard, but we know other reasons. Big deal he wanted to do it in NYC public school. Two days later signed bill that NY State union dues are tax deductible.

City

Getting parking permits back. Not because de Blasio wants your vote, but rather result of arbitration. We still have work at city council because we need to create more spots. Some admin has not been collaborative. Now if you get there first, take their spot. Principal can’t show up at 11 and get a spot.

Mayoral control heating up, told mayor and everyone we don’t believe in your form of mayoral control. Senate GOP wants to tie this to charter cap. We say do neither.

Conciliation—Had a joint training, have joint conciliators, have had soft rollout for process, Article 24. Want to do a few before end of school year. Sure that principals will thoroughly enjoy explaining rationale to outsiders.

Informed city we will picket superintendent offices. If supe has a number of cases in district they are not working in best interests. Supporting a principal who needs to show he or she is in charge is not the way to go. Clear that after chancellor says she wants collaboration and they don’t do it, we will make noise.

Spring conference Saturday. Rev. Barber will receive Dewey Award. Has defended teachers and public ed. Has done so all over country.

Last night was Women in Need fundraiser. Always hear horror stories but over 70% of homeless are women with children. Difficult working with city agencies, says we’ve been supplying tutoring, GED, and help. We helped with prom dresses for 600 kids from homeless shelters. Sending to each borough, will do here and for middle schools.

Next week’s paycheck will have 4.5% raise. October will be 12.5% lump sum. Says no one gave us a penny. We earned every penny, fought for it and it’s ours.

National Educators and Health Care Workers week. All news about it gone because of Comey.

Says we do a great job, it is not simple what goes on inside a school. No one truly understands what it takes except those who do it. Cannot thank us enough.

Staff Director’s Report—LeRoy Barr

April 28, HS awards, thanks Janella Hinds, May 6 5K run, Secretaries luncheon, Parent conference same day May 6.

Coming up Sat. Spring Conference, in Bronx immigration clinic, Monday Immigration Forum here. Prom boutique May 25, over 3K dresses, suits. Wishes happy mother’s day.

Questions

When is Betsy DeVos visiting a school?

Mulgrew says he invited her, will talk to anyone. Says sooner or later we will get her into NYC public school. Met with student and teacher from school in Ohio she went to. Said very little. So they shipped her to Utah and gave her a prepared speech. Her family invested millions in online ed. and she says we need to invest in it.

We can bring her in, show her, take pictures with her near a child. What would she do with 40% living in homeless shelter. I consider myself a mild mannered easy going person. People say I’m direct.

Could you imagine if we take her to Riker’s? How’s your choice now, Betsy?

Delegate—On March 22 we passed res on grading in home schools. Where are we?

They were already set for this year. Takes five months for DOE to get anything right. We want this change. Waste of time and money. Members say they like it. Have to continue to work on it. Would be so much easier to follow state model. Believe there will be better treatment at sites as result of res.

CL—Updates on child care or SESIS money?

“Getting the runs” from city now on SESIS. We shouldn’t work on SESIS at home but it’s sometimes impossible. Workload impossible for members. Some now do other work at home and SESIS in school. We want everyone to get compensation. Tough question.

Talked to Office of Labor Relations, says they’re stalling on maternity leave. Says he will go public they want to make money on people having kids. Mayor spoke two years ago and not single union has benefit. Says he knows mayor wants it.

CL—Minutes say number of certified delegates—why don’t we get percentage of delegates attending?

We can change it. Next month we will have number.

CL—City has surplus—can we get lump sum payments early?

Issue is our lump sum is so large, other unions were much smaller, city made them pay to get it on time. Some unions gave up Welfare Fund payments. Sorry, can’t be early.

Motions

Delegate—Proposes that we defend anti-racist, anti sexist, anti xenophobic and other activism. Wants it to be part of Public School Proud campaign. Speaks of history of communism and teacher unions, how capitalism needs racism and segregation like we need air. Says saying we’re proud without saying we’re not proud of segregation is problematic.

Sterling Roberson—Speaks against. Highlighted particular school, we engage school community. Our CBE doesn’t say attorney reps at OSI. Issue is free speech and political speech, fine line, but this res does not speak to that issue. We have issues with chancellor’s regs, not new. We have history of anti racism, xenophobia, policing in schools. Urges vote against.

Point of info—What is special disciplinary case?

Only principal charged, not UFT member. My answer would be speculation. Say she’s active communist recruiting children. She denies. No such categorization for us.

Point of info—Are you aware that in public court hearing, OCI people…

No I am not.

Motion does not carry.

Mulgrew—Issue of how OSI is being used is something UFT will pay close attention to. Like what DC does.OSI under direct control of chancellor. Have to gather facts before accusation.

Resolutions—

Janella Hinds—Janus resolution—Standard has been people repped by union pay. Last year was Friedrichs. Wanted to carve away agency fee pay. Abood 40 years ago said folks covered had to pay fair share. We want to insure our members understand we don’t take membership lightly, but unions need to be able to do jobs. Asks for support.

Peter Lamphere—rises to amend—asks we do campaign to get people to stay union, and ask them to pledge to stay before Janus. Says we should not wait, that we start in September. Asks we amend

LeRoy Barr—Rises to amend amendment. Says instead of stay union, we stay public school proud. Says we should strike combatting abusive principals. Says continue the campaign instead of initiate, strike the pledge.

Says Public School Proud is our campaign and everything should be channeled through it. Says it involves Constitutional Convention also. Says we already mobilize members to combat abusive administrators. Says this is about Janus. Says we muddy waters by throwing everything in. Says we will go to supe and raise heck. Says CC is first.

Mulgrew asks whether Janus is Public School Proud or Union Loud and Proud.

Hinds—Important for us to go back for sake of other unions.

Barr—Says it’s Union Loud and Proud, not Public School Proud.

Stuart Kaplan—says some stuff about Public School Proud.

Delegate—Opposes amendment to amendment. Says it’s good if we don’t complicate issues, important how we are going to organize. Not complicated, but simple. Union loud and proud is cross-union. We want to mobilize members more. This is what it’s about. Problem because there aren’t enough UFT officials to go to every school, but it says UFT members. Everyone in union should be organizer.

Bernie Schwimmer—calls all questions.
Barr’s amendment passes, and that will be amendment.

Vote on resolution as amended. Passes.

CL—point of order—

Mulgrew says second amendment is voted on and passed.

Resolution as amended passes.

Move to extend for endorsement resolution. Passes.

Paul Egan—We have many endorsements. Agenda item number two all incumbents, all endorsed.

Mulgrew—interviewed in borough offices, recommended.

Egan—moves for as written.

Endorsements pass.

James Vasquez—Townsend Harris CL wants to speak.

Reads statement about Jahoda. Describes abusive behavior. Thanks Queens UFT for support. Thanks VPs. Says there is no foolproof formula, but important all stakeholders participate. Pays tribute to fellow teachers. Says we need to stay together. Thanks leadership. Invites Mulgrew to visit.

Mulgrew gives credit for keeping staff together, says he will visit.

We are adjourned.

Executive Board Takeaway

Last night was unusual in many ways. Not so unusual, in what's becoming a trend, we had speakers from various schools. The first was the High School of Applied Communication, which appears to have yet another Principal from Hell. Now the thing about Principals from Hell is they are not always universally despised. Sometimes they garner favor via the issue of perks. I suppose, to some extent, this is human nature. But when staff is under vicious attack for no good reason it's particularly egregious.

For example, a new teacher from CPE 1 stood up and defended Principal Monica Garg, who likely hired him. I've known principals I've liked when my chapter leader did not. When I was at John Adams my first principal was named Lou Acerra. He made himself accessible to me, unlike most principals when I was not chapter leader. I would go in, speak to him, and he would either help me or throw me out of his office. I kind of liked knowing where I stood. Now he was very much disliked by my chapter leader. I don't know why that was.

I do know, however, that my then-principal had not reassigned my chapter leader and delegate and made them face 3020a charges. I also know our principal had not banned parents from visiting the school. Whether or not he had done this, I would never have considered going to a union hall to denounce the activities of my chapter leader or activist parents. For my money, there is far too much apathy and far too few people standing up for their own people, and make no mistake I mean union right now. That's why Donald Trump is President of the United States.

It was remarkable to see this teacher complain that veteran teachers did not participate in PD, as though that were remotely the issue at CPE 1. Given the fact that Garg seems to reassign every teacher who speaks up, I can hardly blame them. It was even more remarkable to hear him say he and whatever teachers he may have been speaking for were willing to meet with the veteran teachers, but not off-campus. I'm not sure how teachers specifically banned from the campus were supposed to meet in the school. 

We saw a success story in Townsend Harris. This is a story in which the UFT joined parent and student activists and precluded a very special school from getting a principal much like Garg. This may have been easier because Jahoda had not yet been appointed. But this is a model to be replicated. Disappointingly, I saw a bunch of Unity Exec. Board members applaud the teacher who defended the anti-union Garg. I have to wonder whether they're instructed to applaud everyone except us.

And that's the thing--we are not enemies of the United Federation of Teachers. We believe in union as strongly as anyone in the room, and likely more so. We believe in standing up. If we didn't, we wouldn't show up twice a month to a forum in which we are vastly outnumbered. Someone needs to give voice to rank and file, and someone needs to say things whether or not leadership wishes to hear them. I don't know how many teachers will withhold dues when the chance comes, but I'd say 20% is low. In order to keep that number as low as possible, leadership needs to demonstrate it will act. Refusing to support resolutions for class sizes and against abusive principals is simply not the way to go. Whether they know it or not, it's good that we're there, even for them.

A case in point is the class size situation at my school. If I were not on the Executive Board I would not have been able to advocate for my members. In fact, if I were Unity I would not have been able to advocate for them either, as I'd have been required to support the rather miserable resolution to which we were subject to last Fall. Because I didn't sign the loyalty oath, I can get up and say how poorly the class size regulations have been working out. While it's great that we've won arbitrations that make them a little better, the fact is they are 50 years old. That's a long time to wait for improvement with no renegotiation. And as I told the body, even if we win, even if they have the compliance call tomorrow, we will have fewer than five weeks of relief for the entire year.

That's a pretty hollow victory, if you ask me. They say the DOE will be aware of us next year. Maybe next year we won't have oversized classes. My members can't hang their hats on a maybe. The indisputable fact is that the class size regs have not worked for my school or the three other large high schools covered by the arbitrator's ruling. How many other schools has it not worked for? Your guess is good as mine but given the regs and how they work I'd conjecture it's a whole lot more than zero.

And then there's the resolution we were sent by email. The resolution basically says that we will oppose Janus, and just like almost every other that's come up, I supported it. But there was no emergency, as in a last-minute endorsement. It's blatantly unfair that Unity can bring up resolutions via email. What if, for example, one of us wanted to get up and table it, or speak against it, or amend the guts out of it, as Unity has done to every resolution we've brought without exception?

Clearly there are two sets of rules in the UFT Executive Board--one for Unity and another for everyone else. While we may be far from the majority, we certainly represent the high schools. I'd argue we also represent a whole lot of the disaffected 75% of members who didn't bother to vote in the UFT election. I vote every chance I get, but in a system like this I certainly understand the cynicism that causes members to toss ballots in the trash.

What I don't understand is why leadership at least ostensibly concerned with Janus has utterly failed to show these people why they're wrong.

UFT Executive Board May 8, 2017

Secretary Howard Schoor welcomes us. We have three schools who wish to present. Will expand time to allow members to speak.

 HS of Applied Communication.

Frank Greco, ELA, introduces other teachers, Title one school, IA Principal Michael Weinstein, three student sit-ins, one walk out, PTA meetings canceled monthly, teacher received LIF for publicizing SLT meeting, two teachers have Art. 23 harassment complaints, two special ed. complaints, retaliation, Teacher student programs changed three times, one class has had 7 teachers, IEP classes 50% special ed., constant harassment of students without parental consent, peoples followed and watched—

Programmer had to redo entire program in retaliation, 40 observations for speaker.

Asks for visit from Mulgrew, asks leadership to speak for membership, asks for public pressure, review of all internal memos and observations, facilitation of PTA meeting at neutral locale, article in NY Teacher.

Christine Daly, social worker, Weinstein third principal. Change is not easy. Kept hoping it would get better, but hasn’t. Witnessed harassment of colleagues, following them around, waiting outside classrooms, following students, telling teachers to do so. Stated it was all political to make people happy. Can’t go to union rep because she reports directly to him. We need support. Our school was place to help students. Now adults abuse power and go after teachers with long record of helping students. Principal thinks teachers put students up to protesting. He covers windows and interrogates students.

Tells me students need help, things going on in homes but kids know what’s going on. We teach them to talk about their rights and he targets theses students. I let it go at first. School was my safe place. Not anymore. Thank God for my colleagues. Took a lot because I’m terrified Mr. Weinstein will now target me. Please help.

Schoor—Someone will come. CPE 1 here

Casey Keefe—special ed. teacher and parent at CPE 1. Teacher for 16 years first year here. Representing self, newly hired teachers who do not support save CPE 1. Says we are misrepresented, they want Garg replaced. They feel under attack. These teachers have said because she hired her we are complicit. Because of their assumptions they have created hostile work environment in which we are asked to choose sides. We were not conferred with when they wrote email. They have honored our request not to send it.

Claim core value is teachers working collaboratively. Same group who drafted letter sat in silence during PD. We want to move forward as team. They say they will talk when Garg is not present. We have been trying to set up meeting. They insist we meet outside school so union leader can be included. We don’t want to meet outside because of parent hostility to Garg. We support Garg. Professional supportive and resilient considering campaign to remove her. We hope you will support us as you support our colleagues. We do not agree with agenda or tactics of Save CPE 1. We don’t want people to hate principal because friends tell them to. We are doing our jobs and following Garg leadership. Veteran teachers do not want us there. CPE 1 belongs to all families not select few.
Franco Scardino, CL Townsend Harris—Here to share good news—together our chapter, with much support, was successful in replacing IA principal. Wants to put in context—she wasn’t appointed, and had to do C30, which we leveraged as best we could. Didn’t know full story about Bronx Science, but it was quite alarming. Like to think that people can change, saw opportunity.

Franco Scardino, CL Townsend Harris—Here to share good news—together our chapter, with much support, was successful in replacing IA principal. Wants to put in context—she wasn’t appointed, and had to do C30, which we leveraged as best we could. Didn’t know full story about Bronx Science, but it was quite alarming. Like to think that people can change, saw opportunity.
 

By October we knew she had no use for me, or union.  Had never been in situation. Thanks DR  James Vasquez for guidance and reassurance. Principal also wanted to bring anyone she wished onto consultative committee in December. Rona Freiser and Vasquez advised them to walk out if she brought people. We asked APs to leave, she wouldn’t let it happen, and we left. That was December 1st. On the 8th, when C-30 happened, we also had PPO. We also had Janella Hinds there and unannounced student protest. Students had taken over 4th floor. 300 kids, all programmed for lunch—no one cut class. 

Brian Sweeney—Townsend Harris--Advisor for school newspaper—From December 8th—my students have not been censored for 30 years. Was expressly hired as advisor, not censor. I watched livestream. 30K people watched. I was terrified. Would’ve been easy for me to tell them to calm down. Instead we just respected their First Amendment rights. Thanks everyone. 

Schoor thanks Rona Freiser. Said he told DOE this is one of jewels of school system. They said they never did Google search on Jahoda. Was travesty to put her in there. Thanks them for steadfastness. Will be in UFT paper.

Minutes—passed

Exec Board by email—

Jonathan Halabi—New Action—I understand urgent matters that are time sensitive. Why didn’t this come to board?

Schoor—Sometimes we want to make sure it’s on record. No rationale or reason.

President’s Report—Mulgrew not here.

Staff Director’s Report—LeRoy Barr—Thanks people who came to May Day rally, held flag. Last Saturday 5K run, Secretaries luncheon right here. May 11, speech and hearing month celebration. May 13 two events, Spring conference. Bronx UFT immigration clinic. Legal representation—if you know someone who needs it, send them, on Monday immigration forum here. Juan Gonzalez moderating. Friday May 19 be brave against bullying conference here. May 23 Albert Shanker scholarship awards. Giving 1 million from dues. Next Exec. Board May 22.

Mike Schirtzer—MORE—Folks from HS Applied Com—current principal my former APO. We had several incidents with him in consultations. Never had to file grievance because principal clamped down. Same supe Townsend Harris has. We know Mona and James are doing great work but what can we all do from Goldstein HS to assist? Seems like pattern of odd hiring under Elaine Lindsay.

Schoor—Make list of his behavior. We will be involved. Not guaranteeing resolution

KJ Ahluwalia—New Action—Seems to be trend of teachers coming in with problems. Why can’t UFT be proactive in vetting principals before they wreak havoc?

Schoor—met with borough reps. President blames superintendents. We will look at them. Problem is admin doesn’t want to go to school and be bosses.

LeRoy Barr—Boroughs have been proactive, particularly with Harris. Queens office has been engaged. Had many reps at various schools. We’ve been proactive, question is what else we can do. Congratulates and thanks UFT staff that has engaged. We will continue.

Jonathan Halabi—New Action—hearing that we’re not doing very well with our grievances. Step one and two. Thought they would go better with new admin.

Ellen Procida—Grievance Dept—Are doing better at some grievances. Resolving many more at arbitration. Have been pushing back. Many cases that are ridiculous we get arbitration date back


Arthur Goldstein—MORE—Thanks paperwork committee. Classes in my school and at least three others covered by our arbitrator’s ruling have been oversized since September. At first, we were told, via a “plan of action,” by a previous arbitrator our members could have one day off from C6 assignments. I thought that was nonsense and placed an op-ed about it in the Daily News. On March 28th, a new arbitrator ruled our schools were to come into compliance, or creating new classes to do so if necessary. I liked that plan of action and informed my members they were to get relief as per the arbitrator’s order.

I was then told there would be something called a “compliance call,” something mentioned nowhere in the UFT Contract. For at least three weeks I’ve been hearing it would happen this week. It’s another week now and we’re still waiting. If the call happens this week, and I have no reason to believe it will, my members will get five weeks of contractual compliance before Regents exams.

I understand we have a committee somewhere that does something, and I’ve been to meetings related to that committee where we’ve discussed how we’d like to resolve things. Thus far, they have made no difference whatsoever.

My members count on the contract to find relief and they have an absolute right to it. They’ve been denied it for eight months. How are they going to get it, and what are we going to do to preclude nonsense like this in the future.

Ellen Procida—Grievance Dept—Conference call day after tomorrow. Board has five work days to come back. Not called compliance call. Based on work we did, because arbitrator said action plans would not be good forever, arbitrator made this ruling. We will be on this call. We believe your school will come into compliance and be warned for next year. Your school has been part of discussions to preclude this next year.

Keira Kursey—James Vasquez attended all meetings, has been proactive. Has communicated that CL and other members say there is space for new classes. Can’t promise what will happen. We will push for compliance for your school and others.

Marcus McArthur—MORE--Mulgrew said UFT would file lawsuit for CPE 1. Please tell us about it.

Schoor—Marilyn Martinez—we filed suit on her behalf. DOE has sent her letter that she can go to any DOE meeting in school or elsewhere.

Martinez—in role of teacher or parent?

Schoor—Any meeting open to public. Will sign stipulation.

McArthur—MORE--What is DOE response to popular pressure and documented grievances?

Schoor—Mayor commented on Friday—asked from picket line—not necessarily on side of removing Garg. Mayor is in charge.

Barr—Have been to school, heard me say there are many sides but DOE has responsibility to resolve it. Mulgrew is ratcheting up. Said we have problem there are targeted teachers, with parents, and comments becoming more intense. If they don’t respond, intensity will increase. Will be more than comments. Trying to get them to resolve all issues for benefit of kids. In this case, real losers are kids. They have responsibility to resolve all.

Schoor—In contact with parents, satisfied with our statement. First job is to protect members.

McArthur—MORE--Do we look at attack on CPE 1 in connection with other issues, LaGuardia, my school had issues, we had supe that didn’t understand model, attacked curricular and instructional model of democratic governance. Are we having a dialogue about how they can better understand progressive schools before they destroy model.

Schoor—supes are focus. When principals do bad things, supes are bosses. They aren’t taking care of problems. More paperwork issues from Queens HS, and they have to look at pattern.

Reports from districts—Rich Mantel—5K run, great event, good weather, 200 people. James Vasquez kids first and second kids category, raised few thousand dollars

Janella Hinds—April 28 schools honored, including Townsend Harris, great evening with Christine Quinn as keynote. April 29 prom boutique, will be another May 25. May 2, safe talk with health and safety dept., suicide prevention.

Ellen Dreisen, DR 20—May 1 day of democracy. Immigrant families kept kids home. Population had dropped to 70%, teachers held day of democracy instead this year, community invited in, city councilperson came. Presentation about keeping children safe. Lawyers and paralegals did intake for people with immigration questions. 40 people waited. Will follow up.

Mona Gonzalez—Secretary luncheon—two special awards given. Thanks everyone, especially Howie who came in Mulgrew’s absence. Did fabulous job.

Mike Schirtzer—MORE—NYC schools most segregated—Group has worked to help, held events, my school having exchange with Bronx School. 20 students will visit one another to see differences between schools and focus on integration. Will be forum with students.

Anthony Harmon—Hosted 5th annual parent leadership academy, will come next three Saturdays and learn to advocate. UFT LGBT committee revitalized, two new co-chairs Rashad Brown and Rosemarie Thompson. Next meeting May 19. Brooklyn UFT had meeting to dispel myths about groups. June 2,3, First Book mobile will distribute 40K books. Will follow up in Manhattan. 333 e 4th st, June 9, 10. Thanks people for Mayday rally.

Legislative report—Paul Egan not here—Liz Perez will report.

Budget season with city council. Asking for teacher choice, positive learning collaborative, dial a teacher, 60K calls a year in nine languages. Funding for anti-bullying. Hosting city council legislative breakfast May 18 to discuss. Visiting them in offices.

Endorsements—mostly incumbents—carries.

UFT financial report—Says we are in great shape. Thanks Charlie Baker and accountants. Says we are financially fine. We have unqualified opinion, best you can get. Pg 3 is assets. Receivables over 24 million, with two month dues delay. Real estate,,,book value what we bought building for..not actual value, now much higher.

Liabilities—primarily accounts payable, dues payable that we owe AFT and NYSUT..we pay when we receive…two month delay. M and T bank, refi, interest rates lower. Took capital out to deal with programs in buildings. New roof. Next door, we want to rent property. 247 dollars square foot. Have to build out space. Brought in Molloy College for 4th floor.

Pension liability—We do for profit and not for profit union—have to call out need for every staff person pension issues—Our UFT Pension plan 108% funded.

Member dues major source of income, grants also. We transfer money to NYSUT and AFT, payroll expenses—small net loss last year of 175K. We had travel expenses for AFT and NYSUT conventions.

Speaks of supplemental schedules—payroll up 10%, retro, raises and grant staff. Will get back in grants. Health and welfare up 600K. Legal fees down when we don’t deal with contract. Communications and contributions up.

Administrative expenses—bid out anticipation Friedrichs/ Janus. Almost the same.

Jonathan Halabi—New Action—What about COPE?

COPE is odd, not in this report, COPE money sent to NYSUT. They gather all the money, send to AFT. They give money back to NYSUT and NYSUT gives back to us. NYSUT covers state races. We only see money that comes back, we call it income, and then we have legislative expenses.

Mike Schirtzer—MORE—What’s worst case scenario with Janus?

Worst is no one pays dues. There are working committees, we are looking at what we can cut. Rational concept is 20% reduction. Looked at meetings, conferences, nothing being spared. Fewer workshops. Will do training here instead of hotel. Will cut 16 million if we have to. Must prepare for anything. That’s why I made sure building is rented. That’s 3 million income.

We are adjourned.

Where Have All the Discontinued Teachers Gone?

Chalkbeat has a piece about tenure this week. Evidently Bill de Blasio grants it a little more freely than his esteemed predecessor. However, it's certainly far from automatic. I know that principals are sometimes pressured not to grant tenure to everyone, and I know that they sometimes defer it so that higher-ups feel they're doing their jobs.

I'll also grant that tenure used to be automatic.  I agree that it ought not to be, but actually half of teachers leave before they hit five years anyway. The fact is this job is a lot more complicated than most people think it is, if you actually care about it, and not everyone can do it. I'm gobstruck when I read idiotic columns in the Times by Nick Kristof claiming that the complicated rules are keeping Merryl Streep and Colin Powell from becoming schoolteachers. Hey, Nick, if they wanted to be schoolteachers, they'd be schoolteachers.

Who wants to be a schoolteacher? Well I do, for one. As a matter of fact I did not receive tenure so easily. That's because I started as an English teacher but could never really find a job teaching English. Someone dumped me in front of an ESL class and I loved it. I was some kind of regular substitute on some weirdo license and I turned down my first regular assignment as an English teacher at Springfield Gardens. I got a job playing guitar in the world's worst Irish wedding band and worked my way through an MA at Queens College plus twelve language credits. Getting tenure probably took me six years.

But it would just happen. No one shook your hand or gave you a certificate. I have no idea when I became tenured. Now, of course, there is an insane evaluation system and I'm being judged on a test only nine of my students are scheduled to take. If they bomb, as they will if they actually take the test, I could be selling pencils on the corner in a few years. But I've had a good run.

Others are not so lucky. It's one thing to delay tenure if a reasonable principal has reasonable doubts. It's quite another to discontinue people and render their teaching licenses useless just for the heck of it. A principal can always be upfront with someone and say, look, if you resign you can look for a job somewhere else. Of course in the Bloomberg era with Leadership Academy cutthroats, and many are still out there, the notion of compassion was something you'd need to look up in a dictionary or bible somewhere. So teachers have been discontinued. I'm sure there were good reasons for some, but I'm personally acquainted with people who were discontinued for enforcing school rules when admin found it inconvenient, or no good reason at all.

This notwithstanding, where do the discontinued teachers go? Well, and you won't be reading this in reformy Chalkbeat, but every single one I know, without exception, is working in a charter school. You know, those places where they send you so you're protected from those horrible public schools with their benefits and lazy teachers who just sit around and complain all day every day. Not only that, but I know teachers who've been suspended after 3020a charges and guess where they made up the missing pay? You guessed it. Charter schools.

OK, now it's entirely possible these are great teachers who were screwed by the system, but it's amusing to me that the charter supporters think we're a bunch of criminals, complain that too few of us are fired, and then when we finally are, they frigging hire us. I'm glad that the charters hire teachers the city is blacklisting.

But blacklisting is a pretty serious thing. It should be reserved for teachers who, say, abuse children. I wouldn't be surprised if there were teachers discontinued for phrasing the aim as a statement rather than a question, or vice-versa. I can assure you people have been discontinued for less.

UFT Sponsors a Student Survey

A friend of mine got this email from the DOE:

Dear Teacher:

The Department of Education and the United Federation of Teachers are excited to announce that teachers will have the opportunity to administer a Student Perception Survey in the 2016-17 school year for formative purposes.

Like last year, students will take the Panorama Education Student Perception Survey, a research-based, confidential student survey used across the country to provide teachers with students' feedback about their classroom experiences.

As a reminder, the Student Perception Survey is not being administered as a component of Advance, but will continue to be administered with the results used for formative purposes only (i.e., to guide practice).

I was a little surprised to see that the United Federation of Teachers was excited about this. I distinctly recall last year's survey being highly biased against teachers. I think if we're gonna take part in playing "gotcha" that our targets ought not to be ourselves. Of course, I also have the crazy idea that we ought not to be rated by junk science, and I read Diane Ravitch more carefully than NY Teacher, so I guess that's why I don't play any part in the discussions that lead to these decisions.

If it's for "formative purposes only" I suppose that's positive, but it isn't necessarily meaningful. Let's say, for example, your direct supervisor is a frothing-at-the-mouth lunatic. Sure, that's highly unlikely with the first-class training the Leadership Academy has provided, but just humor me. Let's say one teacher gets trashed in some survey that more or less invites people to trash the teacher anyway.

Let's go a step further. The Leadership Academy graduate decides the teacher, therefore, must suck. Since Leadership Academy grads know everything, it must be the truth. Therefore, said teacher is observed by said Boy Wonder. And the observation report reads something like

How do you suck?
Let me count the ways...

Naturally that's an ineffective. And once an infallible Leadership Academy grad declares you suck, there's no coming back. They are trained to sniff out suckiness. You can run but you can't hide. Once they've established this suckiness on their low-inference notes (This teacher sucks. Lesson is sucky. Only 20 15 4 students participated.), that's it. They can just copy them for the next observation.

And don't think you're gonna get out of it just because everything in the report is false. That's not a basis for an APPR complaint. It doesn't matter if you have video evidence, and I have tested this theory. However, you will be able to show said video evidence when you're at 3020a fighting double I ratings, lucky you. Alas, I hear that people with double I ratings, who we've negotiated to be guilty until proven innocent, have not been faring well. Surprise, surprise.

So, officially, we're doing this just for laughs. But I'll be you dimes to dollars that teachers having "formative" discussions with unreasonable supervisors won't be laughing. I'm shocked that UFT wanted a seat at this particular table. It reminds me of when we teamed up with Bill Gates and his "Measures of Effective Teaching."

How did that work out? Ask any teacher living through this evaluation system. And no, don't ask the leadership that worked on it, because absolutely none of them have ever experienced it.

Where Credit Is Due--UFT Paperwork Committee

From time to time, I may be mildly critical of UFT leadership. I mean, there may be one or two things here and there with which I do not concur. But this notwithstanding, I have to admit when they do something right, they do something right. At some point or other, Mulgrew told the DA that the biggest problem teachers had was paperwork. I didn't agree with that. I'd say the biggest problem is the evaluation system, which is totally off the wall. But he pointed to successes with the paperwork complaints, and I now have some firsthand experience I'll share.

Earlier this year, some DOE genius put out a memo about participation. It differentiated between ways of measurement. For example, one teacher judged it based on her memory, and that was a no-no. After all, how can you rely on the memory of some teacher? You don't actually expect anyone to have fundamental respect for the judgment of a teacher, do you? Instead, it gave the example that Johnie brings his pencil and notebook each and every day. Now that is participation, because you can quantify it, and to some DOE genius, that indicates student effort.

In our school, there were meetings and discussions. How do you measure participation? Some teachers said they placed check marks whenever someone spoke. Others spoke of two-point rubrics. The default, they said, was everyone gets two points each day. It's easy because you only take a point off if they don't do something or other. I could not envision recording each and every student each and every day on this scale or any other. On the one hand, I absolutely could rate every action of every student. I know this because I often go to meetings and take copious notes. Alternatively, I could teach. But I could not do both.

I was extremely surprised when teachers who never, ever complain about anything whatsoever came up to me and said that this mandate was impossible. I mean these were straight arrow types who would rather eat a live toad than file a grievance. So I asked a friend at UFT whether this merited a paperwork complaint and got a very spirited hell yes in response. This complaint made its way to Contract Enforcement head Debbie Poulos, who mentioned it in passing to some DOE bigshot. Said bigshot demanded to know which school it was, and what do you know, the bigshot agreed it was ridiculous to demand documentation for participation. This makes me suspect the DOE may have hired an ex-teacher or two somewhere or other, but who knows?

Another thing that has bothered me ever since I became chapter leader was the fact that teachers who took six classes were required to also do a C6 assignment. OK, well it didn't bother me that much, because sixth classes have been available to ESL teachers for years and I've never pursued one. But there was one special education teacher in particular who had these classes and never seemed to be able to keep up. UFT told me Article 7O says that you take these classes in lieu of a prep. I looked it up, and there it was. So I figured, well, you take the sixth class, and that's what happens.

But last October I had a conversation with James Eterno, and he instructed me to actually look up Special Circular 6R and read it. And who would've thunk it, it said right there in black letter that anyone who took that sixth class didn't have to do a building assignment. So I ran around and found a senior teacher with six classes to file a grievance. For reasons that escape me, it took four months for Queens UFT to take this to step two. For more reasons that escape me, by that time the member didn't want to go through with it anymore. I couldn't file the grievance myself because I didn't have six classes. Also, I didn't have another four months in the school year.

Now in our school, we break up the C6 assignment. We do the C6 for three days, we do one day of Other Professional Work, and we give one day toward the infamous teacher teams. The teacher teams entail paperwork, so at UFT"s request, I went and filed another paperwork complaint saying they ought not to do it since Circular 6 says they get a prep back. This one was done by the book, and went local before it went central.

Wednesday night my DR informed me that UFT won this complaint. I asked him if I could get a big bass drum and walk up and down the street beating it while screaming at the top of my lungs. He said yes I could, but I needed to wait until I got a call from Debbie Poulos first. Well, that call came shortly afterward. Alas I could not locate a bass drum. But I took my dog Julio into the back yard, where he had a barking contest with the dog next door. Next best thing, I guess.

Barking contest was pretty close. I can't say exactly who won.

Why Teacher Teams?

There are teacher teams in a whole lot of UFT schools these days. We have them in my school, as part of an SBO we wrote, once a week. In some poorly represented schools teachers do them every single day. They aren't mentioned in the Contract, and there's no requirement for them. Also, pretty much everyone participating hates them. A UFT official told me that very thing recently. So why are they so popular?

That's fairly simple. The DOE, in its infinite wisdom, rates principals. Naturally people who sit around in offices all day know absolutely everything about what makes a good principal. Teachers haven't got a clue. They look for things like support, or help with issues, or nonsense like that. The educrats know better.

Therefore, they've designed something called a PPO and something else called a Quality Review. So don't be surprised when principals ask you to sing and dance and put up bulletin boards with rubrics. In fact, the actual QR is supposed to be a reflection of the principal. Of course it's also public, so it might not be in your best interest to run around throwing stink bombs and pulling the fire alarm that day.

But one thing the Quality Review looks at, and one thing that's mentioned all over the PPO is teacher teams. Does your school have them? How often? How rigorous are they? What protocol do they follow? Exactly how miserable are the teachers compelled to sit through them? And how do you get your teachers to pretend they love them anyway? (If you have the patience and want to see what it actually says, you can read the PPO, or Principal Performance Observation Tool, but you get the idea.) Just like we have to go through the motions and do Danielson, principals are under enormous pressure to have teacher teams.

It's funny because I talk to teachers all day long regardless. Whenever I have issues regarding my classes I discuss them with other teachers. I will and do steal ideas from everybody and anybody. In fact, ever since I was kicked out of the trailer and had a room with actual working technology, I've had to grapple with it. As I write this I'm seated next to a student who's a computer genius, a student who knows the answer to every tech question there ever is, was, or will be. But he's not always around.  I talk to teachers too, and they give me tips on PowerPoint, for example. My habit of illustrating this blog every day has proven enormously helpful.

Instead of talking with students and teachers,  or writing about what I actually do, I could sit in a group and analyze lessons with some sort of rigid protocol, of course. Because what's more desirable in education than rigid protocol? We're gonna do this, we're gonna do it this way, and we can't possibly do it any other way.  What student doesn't love an attitude like that? Don't you go into your classroom each and every day with a mindset toward being absolutely inflexible no matter what? No? Well I don't either.

But it's kind of a top-down thing. In a way, it's not unlike what we do. I mean, since we're rated by absolute nonsense, why shouldn't our principals be rated by it too? And if I'm being rated by some state test, it's probably a good idea to show my students how to pass it. In fact I am being rated by a state test and I'm not teaching it to my students, since only a very small percentage are taking it. I guess I could teach my students how to pass a test rather than how to use and love English. I've done it before. However, when I did it, the only skill my students learned was how to pass that test. Not exactly the most important thing they could do.

So are your teacher teams turning around your so-called failing school? Are all the students living in poverty suddenly well-to-do? Are all the learning disabilities now just abilities? Have all the ELLs instantly learned English? And if your school is doing OK, is it now doing more OK? Did teachers never share ideas before teacher teams? Did they never share best practices before? Has it changed your life? Do teachers never learn anything unless you sit them in a room together and make them write up some nonsense just to prove they actually sat there?

Of course you used to share ideas. You used to ask your colleagues if this or that would work, and you used to do it whenever the issue came up. But now, you all have to go to the same place at the same time, and you have to follow the protocol. You don't have time to share ideas, because you need to stay on task. Instead of all that sharing ideas, you have to fill out the form so that the bureaucrats can look at it and say, now that was a great principal. He made those darn teachers fill out that piece of paper. Another 45 minutes down the tubes.

It really doesn't matter. Your principal's rating revolves largely around whether you have these meetings, and that's more important than the quality of your teaching or any of those frivolous off-task questions you may have.

Next year, to really rev up the quality, maybe Carmen Fariña will send people to install microphones and cameras, and make sure you don't waste valuable teacher team time saying hello and goodbye to one another. 

Mayday, Mayday

In order to Make America Great Again, our good pal Donald Trump wants to cut hundreds of millions of dollars used to hire teachers and keep class sizes down. You can write Congress today to ask them to fight that, and please do. Still, that's just one fight of many. Because the President is so virulently anti-union and anit-public education, he made it a point to nominate a Supreme Court justice who would vote to, among other things, leave us with less money and less power. So now we're facing an almost certain "Right to Work" nation.

This essentially means everyone will be able to enjoy the benefits of union, like representation in and out of building, like collective bargaining (unless SCOTUS makes that illegal as well), and everything else we do, but only some of us will pay. That's what Trump calls freedom. Ironically, though I don't support most of what Donald Trump does, I'll still have to pay income tax.

On Monday, I went to a May Day demonstration in favor of immigrants. It was a little odd for me, because I think of May Day as a day to celebrate labor and our achievements. In some European countries it's a national holiday. The UFT sent something out in the chapter leader weekly. I had a really hard time finding UFT, but after a while I saw George Altomare, Mel Aaronson, and a handful of others standing on a corner. Later, there may have been 15 or 20 people from UFT Central. There were also 15 or 20 people from MORE and New Action. That's odd because in general we are outnumbered. It says something about our collective values.

Other unions took it more seriously. I saw DC37 all over the place, issuing green hats and posters. Other unions had a lot of posters and things to identify themselves. It was nice that UFT had a banner, but it would have been a whole lot nicer if they'd tried harder to mobilize people.

Bill de Blasio spoke strongly in favor of immigrants. At one time I thought he was going to be a one-termer, but now that he's running against Donald Trump it looks like he's a sure thing. He hasn't got a really serious opponent, and some, like Tony Avella and Bo Dietl, look like circus clowns. In Nassau County, where I live, it looks like Laura Curran will be the next county executive. Even though she's running against an opponent who appears hopelessly smeared by corruption charges, she's chosen to run against Trump as well.

Trump, of course, took a moment from his weekly taxpayer-funded golf vacations to declare May Day "Loyalty Day." I suppose he wants us to support his concerted effort to, and let's say it correctly this time, Make America White Again. It's remarkable that, on a day we're supposed to celebrate labor's victories, he'd have us celebrating loyalty to his bigoted and repulsive policies.

This is a fight that needs to go on. If the thugs from ICE show up at my classroom door, they'll have to drag me away before they get their paws on my kids. Because of UFT and others making the egregious error of endorsing awful candidate Hillary Clinton, perhaps the only Democrat who could manage to lose to a dog like Donald Trump, we're stuck with an anti-labor SCOTUS for years to come. We're stuck with further erosion of rights for voters and working people.

May Day is a time to take a stand for democracy. Every day is May Day now.

Is "Public School Proud" Enough?

I'm gonna go out on a limb and say probably not. It's a reheated version of "Union Loud and Proud," and what we got from the forward thinking that spawned that was President Donald Trump. A hallmark of the union strategy to support public education was the early endorsement of Hillary Clinton, and I don't need to remind readers of this blog how that turned out.

Pride in our schools is not a bad thing, of course. Lots of parents love their public schools. Exhibit number one is Central Park East 1. I've never seen such dedication from a community. They love their school, and they want their kids in that school. They are Public School Proud, and have been so a lot longer than this campaign has been around. Yet it took a year for UFT to get serious, and that only happened when leadership came face to face with it at the Executive Board. (Leadership has not yet thanked us for helping that to happen.)

In fact, leadership has refused to even allow a vote on a resolution to get rid of the abusive principal or put the UFT teachers back in place. Howard Schoor stood in front of the Delegate Assembly, said he supported everything in the resolution, but maintained we couldn't allow a vote on it because it would preclude negotiation. Yet I hear there's been precious little negotiation, and now there will be a lawsuit and a court order. (It's funny, but one of the very leaders blocking the resolution told me to my face, regarding a matter I brought up about a discontinued teacher I know, that a lawsuit precludes negotiating.)

One thing I've repeatedly told the Executive Board is that we should be the advocates for students, and that the various astroturf groups ostensibly for students, and children and "excellence" actually represent none of the above. What would it look like if the United Federation of Teachers went all out and public to support the sort of innovative education taking place at CPE 1? What would it look like if we told New York what happens at the school where Barack Obama sent his kids and then demanded it for our kids? What would it look like if we showed people that what the upper crust wants for their children is nothing like the test-prep-to-death model favored in the Moskowitz Academies?

Instead we've got a slogan, a bus, and a bunch of people standing around the bus and smiling. We can call the bus, maybe, stand around it and smile, and get our picture in New York Teacher. I'm sorry, but we can and should do better. The great minds who thought that up are the very same ones who have us facing voluntary dues. I don't know what I'll do about those who don't pay when that happens, and it now appears inevitable.

Working people are stronger when we stand together. I have huge issues with leadership, but I'll pay. People in leadership estimate that 30% won't. I'm not at all sure about that. What is going to motivate people, three out of four of whom can't even be bothered to vote in union elections? And how are leaders who can't get more than 25% of membership out to vote going to motivate the community at large, particularly when they give a highly motivated and activist CPE 1 community the same song and dance they give us?

These are real problems, and there are real solutions. To date, though, I'm not seeing any hint of a change in direction from leadership. It's time to reach out seriously. I've seen ads for Public School Proud on reformy Chalkbeat NY, but that's not precisely our target audience. There are few things I'd like better than to be proven wrong here. But the evidence is not really piling up against me just yet.

Is There Any Point to UFT Class Size Regs?

Is that a silly question? I don't know anymore. Maybe it's because I haven't had that many relatively serious issues. I mean. I go to the arbitration hearings with a few dozen oversized classes. I regularly see colleagues with two or three hundred. It's understandable that things are a mess the first few weeks, but usually with time we can iron things out.

The thing is, that doesn't always happen. I know this because I regularly have to return in February. Sometimes this is because we have College Now classes that are oversized. The DOE will argue that these classes are funded by outside sources so they aren't covered. Hey, thanks a lot, colleges, for funding classes that exceed 34. You're doing a great service for our high school students. Sometimes oversized classes are taught by supervisors. Because they aren't UFT, they aren't covered by the contract. It's ironic that the people who are supposed to model best practices don't give a golly gosh darn how many kids they shove into classrooms. I guess that's why they get paid the big bucks.

Now when you go in February, you have to wait a while for the ruling. This year, the ruling came out on March 28th, but I didn't see it until April 4th. This means that over 40% of the semester had gone by for my school and others with absolutely nothing done about the issue. I'm not precisely sure how well  that represents the "Children First, Always" mantra of the NYC Department of Education. One of the ironic things about that motto is that it's actually me advocating for better conditions, while the DOE fights to violate rules that already leave our kids with the highest class sizes in the state.

It's May now, and 60% of the semester is over. The DOE lawyer told my principal that he didn't need to follow the order for the class size reduction. Rather, he said, he should follow the ruling of the last administrator that said relieve teachers of one day's C6 assignment. You know, one less day of teacher tutoring. That's how we put "Children First, Always" in New York City.

I'm still waiting on the mysterious "compliance call" mentioned nowhere in the UFT Contract. Who would've thunk that once you win in arbitration, all it means is one more delaying tactic? Let's imagine a best-case scenario here. Let's say that this call takes place some time today. Let's say the arbitrator sticks to his guns and says cut the crap and follow the rule you agreed upon. Let's take the even more unlikely step of imagining that my school and the others affected by this order, Flushing, Forest Hills, and Hillcrest, all comply with this order later today.

What that will mean is that, for the classes that are fixed, that 40% of the semester will comply with clear regs. Actually, though, that's not necessarily true. A few weeks in June are dominated by Regents exams, and the last two days are a ridiculous appendage added by Walcott even though grades are already in and finalized. So it will be less than 40%. In fact, in cases where classes are annualized, the classes have spent 80% of the year oversized, so they will be less than 20% in compliance.

DOE argues that in semi-annualized schools we ought not to be able to grieve twice a year, reorganization notwithstanding. The way they put "Children First, Always," is to hope for the best in a Fall ruling and then say, "Screw you for the rest of the year. Sit in your crowded classrooms and leave us the hell alone."

I was able to work out a long-term solution for my school, with the help of UFT's Ellie Engler. In three or four years we should have an annex, and we ought to be able to accommodate the kids who now sit in our crumbling trailers and windowless closets. A simpler solution would have been to accommodate the number of students our building actually supports, but that wasn't in the cards. More importantly, my school is just one. What about the others? Who knows?

It's great that we have these regs written into the contract. It's not quite as great that we haven't managed to modify them in 50 years. With all the exceptions and red tape built into them, they clearly don't work as intended. It's amazing the "Children First, Always" city regularly pays lawyers to find ways to violate the rather lax class size limits it negotiated half a century ago.

Even more amazing is that we need to hold hearings in order to manage such simple regs. If class sizes are 34, why the hell don't we just keep classes at 34? Why does even UFT leadership fight efforts to do that?

Our class size regulations allow us to have the highest class sizes in NY State. Our weakly worded Contract leaks like a sieve and allows the city to violate them with impunity almost at will. And that's not even considering the CFE lawsuit, which said we'd make things better rather than worse.

If the city wants to put "Children First" ever, it has to do better. And UFT leadership can do better as well. I renew my call that they work with us and other class size advocates. I renew my call that we become the advocates for children we signed up to be when we took this job in the first place.