A Unity Caucus critic comments:
"It amazes me that time and time again people like you in ICE/TJC fail to acknowledge the amazing efforts and the incredible stress that our officers face."
Six figure salaries and double pensions not enough boobie?
Here are some ways for UFT leaders to reduce stress as recommended by the classroom teachers of New York City.
#10 Become an ATR.
No paperwork, enjoy the experience of different classes, different schools every day. Get to know all parts of the city from the north Bronx to Staten Island while enjoying the luxury of a pay check.
#9 Do Lunch duty and potty patrol.
One of the great stress relievers of all time, which unfortunately was not available for the 10 years between the 1995 and 2005 contracts. The sounds of kids talking, eating - join in the fun of food fights.
#8 Spend 37.5 minutes a the end of the day teaching small groups of 10.
A great relief after spending the first 7 hours with classes of 30 or more.
#7 Go to school 2 days before the Labor Day weekend.
See all your friends early. Relax during faculty conferences and hours of staff development.
#6 Go to school 2 days before the 2 days you're supposed to go back.
Set up your room, wash your desks, put up bulletin boards.
#5 Be observed by a supervisor out to get you.
One of the great stress relievers. And no anxiety of having to grieve a negative letter in your file thanks to the 2005 contract.
#4 Get excessed.
Staying in the same school gets tiresome and is a known cause of stress. Meet new friends.
#3 Give up seniority with all these additional stress relievers:
Try the Open Market System.
Put in for 10 jobs. When you get no response, you save the stress of traveling to job interviews. Then you can.....
Go to a hiring hall.
Enjoy nice relaxing interviews, especially if you are an experienced, higher salaried teacher waiting on one slow moving line. Watching the separate line for Teaching Fellows and new teachers moving at 3X the speed of yours will sooth you.
Make up a portfolio of yours and the kids' work to bring to interviews.
Relive the fun of those childhood days of scrapbooks.
#2 Read a book on differentiation of instruction.
And the number one way to reduce the stress of working full-time for the UFT?
Go back to teaching full time.
Get the advantages of 1-9 and end worries on how to spend all that extra money you make at the UFT while ending worries about what to do with that extra pension.
13 comments:
How right you are...I would gladly trade my stress and salary for their stress and especially their salary....
Personally, I believe that the UFT president should make no more than twice the top teacher salary...
Now how much does Randi Weingarten earn?? I am assuming over 250K per year, but I cannot find any information online.
How much do her minions make? What is the UFT payroll?
HOW DO WE FIND OUT????
LM-2 from the US labor dept. Check the ICE web site (not the blog) where you can download an older version or email me and I'll send you a later version. And Randi probably makes over 300 grand by now. She lives let's say a slightly different life style than the people she represents. Oh,sorry. My mistake. She lives exactly the same lifestyle as the people she really represents - well-heeled corporate and political types. All the Green Dots of this world.
Dear Ed Notes Online,
You are so very kind: giving the UFT leadership a list of things that will relieve their stress.
It seems that the person you were speaking to got it wrong though. I think what he was talking about was the stress caused by issues that ICE & TJC raise because it reminds a least few of them that they have guility consciences. The ones who really have stress are those who work for the Department Unity Spin, Smears and Lies. It is becoming harder and harder to convince the educational members of the UFT that the UFT leadership is doing anyting for educational professionals.
But,I bet the Home Health workers figure it out a whole lot quicker than the teachers though. I give them three years tops. No amount of spin will fool them. Watch how fast their voting turns into "not bothering to vote anymore."
The labor movement, and teacher unionism especially is being savagely assaulted from all corners of corporate, media, and government power. Not in a hundred years has there been sych a concerted campaign to destroy unions and the middle class that the unions made possible. It is critical beyond words that we all stop tearing at our brothers' and sisters' flesh and instead, regardless of differences ( some of them serious and not necessarily groundless) battle like hell for our common dignbity and survival.
To commenter number 4:
It is easy to say that the labor union should stand united...but how do we do this when our "union", the UFT, is on the side of management and is eviscerating our rights (especially seniority rights). They put a smiley face on the open market transfer system and in proclaim that being an ATR after having been a senior teacher for 20 or 30 or even more years is a victory.....
Randi Weingarten and her ilk have little interest in our union and in our membership. She has another agenda.....it is so apparent--she keeps adding more and more workers who are not teachers to the UFT (United Federation of Teachers). WHY? WHY? WHY? For money and for power.
Yes, the labor movement is being disemboweled, but sadly it is with the tacit approval and cooperation of our leadership.....
Moreover, as more senior teachers leave and retire, the union will become even weaker as there is a very strong belief by both the NYC DOE and the UFT that our career path should last no longer than five or perhaps ten years at best....
All Randi seems to care about is that our dues (which will be raised again in October...WHY? WHY? WHY?) are collected and that her very high salary is paid. If Randi lost her position in the union, would she go back to teaching? Does she have a love of teaching????
Even more, does she have a love of teachers?
Once again, to the ambiguous language in our 2005 contract, I received a letter from my principal stating that our school will be open from August 27-29 to set up our classrooms and 30-31 will be all day professional development days. Gee, now do you think I have a choice in the matter?
This really sucks. Thank you Randi. Thanks for really looking out for the best interest of your teachers. You are A number 1 in my book. NOT! I do not have sexy time with Teacher Union Boss.
"#5 Be observed by a supervisor out to get you.
One of the great stress relievers. And no anxiety of having to grieve a negative letter in your file thanks to the 2005 contract."
Instances of "supervisory abuse" may be appealed directly to the Commissioner of Education in Albany.
Article 7 of the Education Law provides in part as follows:
§ 310. Appeals or petitions to commissioner of education and other proceedings.
Any party conceiving himself aggrieved may appeal by petition to the commissioner of education who is hereby authorized and required to examine and decide the same; and the commissioner of education may also institute such proceedings as are authorized under this article. The petition may be made in consequence of any action: ...
7. By any other official act or decision of any officer, school authorities, or meetings concerning any other matter under this chapter, or any other act pertaining to common schools.
See http://www.counsel.nysed.gov for further information.
If your staff were unified and as such ignored the principal's implied order to come in on those arbitrary non-compensated days for room prep, then your principal would learn a lesson. It's a matter of chapter building. If members volunteer to be their own worst enemy ( or tied for it), then they have only themselves to blame.
oh man, did your readers leave stuff out!
-Randi makes at least over 350 grand on three payrolls- UFT, NYSUT, AFT. plus an unlimited expense account-worth tens of thousands- to entertain and feed herself, deputy mayors and candidates, consultants, hangers on and newspaper folks. She has an SUV and a driver- he makes 120K to ferry her back and forth to he Hamptons. Add it up- gasoline, insurance, lease payments, maintenance, parking- it's all free for this "average" person.
Add: she is in the NYC pension system for her part-time job at Clara Barton- so the value of her pension is increased every year, just like teachers- except she hardly taught!!
Add: she has surrounded herself with sycophants whose main job is to say yes to whatever crazy scheme and or sellout Randi comes up with. She tolerates no dissent, rewards her sychophants, allows the incompetents who are her friends to scam the union, punishes those to speak up (think principals)and is wholly owned by BloomKlein and Wall Street- she does whatever they tell her to do.
She hires $20,000 a month consultants who wear different hats with other clients (Murdoch, the Jets, the Post. whose side are they on?)
Question: How does she get away with filing the LM2 reports a year and a half after they are due? The figures on the last report should be raised by whatever increase teachers got. Someone should ask the Department of Labor why they allow this.
ADD- Unity folks get free parking at 52 Broadway that is worth $40 a day because they refuse to ride the subways. Plus they get their tolls paid for and $32 a day to use their car for "UFT business." (going to one school).
ADD- THe Unity crew-50 of them- treated themselves to a five-day vacation in Philadelphia the July 4 week- for an NEA convention! This defines chutzpah.
keep it coming folks-
-Eugene Debs.
The UFT is no longer a labor union. It is just a dues syphoning patronage mill.
Teachers now pay over $1000 per year in dues. For what? Seriously...and our dues are going up again in October and again in May.
For a new teacher, that $1000 means a lot.
Sometimes I think that there should be an investigation done by the government looking into what the UFT does with its millions. I am sure everything is legal (because there are so many loopholes). Remember that Randi's digs at 52 Broadway are paid for by us--the membership. Instead of spartan, modest offices, they are palaces. All on my back....
The humor is back. Go Norm.
I am really looking forward to going back into a building where teachers are scared into picking up huge pieces of furniture and climbing on desks to put up posters of standards. I knew there was a reason why the "new" contract was a good idea! Who needs rest and relaxation?
To 2:03 PM, August 13, 2007,
What if the principal decided to put a letter in her/his/staff file for not having their room set up in time for the first day of school? How exactly would the principal learn their lesson? I imagine if teachers left the PD to set up their classroom, that would be insubordination. And what teacher would want to get behind the eight ball the first day of school?
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