Friday, February 5, 2010

Is UFT telling teachers to withdraw U rating appeal b/c NONE HAVE BEEN WON?

From an angry teacher:

teacher I work with - 17 years in system, no prior U ratings - principal went after him immediately on her arrival, last year - he got a U last June, and appealed - he was just contacted by a union rep to call about his appeal - I don't think he ever got a letter (which I did, for my U appeal hearing) - just a call from the union - he met with the rep - prior to the meeting he wrote up a very well-written statement which he read to me (he wrote it in our staff room and shared it with whoever would listen) - when he met with the union rep he was told that he should
"try to get the principal to give him as S "(!) - and then was advised that he should rescind the appeal because NONE of the U ratings have been turned over on appeal! which he did!!!!

I think it is amazing, considering the record number of U ratings, the odds of NOT ONE of them being overturned on appeal is quite mind-boggling!

does the union believe that having teachers rescind their appeals will result in principals - who, as this teacher indicated to me, was given the impression by the principal - when he met with her (as I also did, separately) on the last day of the fall term, about his current "mid-year U rating" - that she was on the carpet for the U ratings she gave last June (3 of us at this small school) - giving such teachers S ratings this year???

is this an actual strategy??? or simply desperation???

anonymous was a teacher

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

The teacher should not have withdrawn the appeal.

A better strategy would have been to participate in the U-rating hearing, later receive the letter from the Chancellor's designee upholding the U-rating, and then appeal the decision to the Commissioner of Education within thirty days under Education Law §310.

Appeals to the Commissioner were extremely difficult to win when Commissioner Mills was around. Perhaps Commissioner Steiner will be more sympathetic to teachers. Time will tell.

Anonymous said...

this is the information the UFT is NOT sharing with teachers! thanks for posting this!