THIS CAN BE A SIGNIFICANT LAWSUIT.
YOU CAN'T SEPARATE THE PETER LAMPHERE CASE FROM THE BATTLE OVER LIFO.
Unfortunately, the UFT doesn't go there.
AS LONG AS ONE EVEN ONE TEACHER IS U-RATED FOR POLITICAL REASONS ALL U RATINGS BECOME SUSPECT. DOE POLICY SUPPORTING ANYTHING EVERY PRINCIPAL DOES MAKES IT HARDER TO REMOVE TEACHERS WHO MIGHT BE INCOMPETENT.
HOPE TO SEE YOU FRIDAY OR SEND A CONTRIBUTION
Former Bronx High School of Science chapter leader and math teacher Peter Lamphere received U ratings as retaliation for the role he played as union rep. Outrageous one would say. I was told by a teacher who was mentored by Peter that he is one of the best. That teacher was also forced out of Bronx High but landed at one of the top schools in the city. Peter should be the poster boy for why Last In First Out should be defended with every ounce of energy. He is suing the DOE and I hope the Principal of Bronx High. Peter is holding 2 fundraisers, today in the Bronx and next week in Brooklyn (I'm going to that one.) If you can't make it you can donate online.
I'll keep my mouth shut about a union allows chapter leaders to be attacked which undermines the union at its root level and instead works out deals to arrange a transfer to a small school, thus in the process also removing an opposition chapter leader from a large school. Ooops! It slipped out.
Defend Teachers Against Harassment
A teacher holds a sign at a June 2010 picket near Mayor Bloomberg’s house about the Bronx Science case
Help raise funds for a lawsuit to reverse Peter Lamphere’s unfair U rating. Come to one of two fundraising parties:
Friday, February 11th, 6pm
40 Clarkson Ave., Apt. 4K, Brooklyn (B/Q to Parkside)
On April 16th of last year, fact finder Carol Wittenberg found that the teachers of the Bronx Science math department were harassed by their supervisor. These twenty teachers (in a department of twenty-two) filed a special harassment complaint in 2008, because of repeated incidents in which the Assistant Principal had reduced teachers to tears, criticized them in front of their students, and even at one point called a teacher “disgusting” in a meeting. This bullying was combined with unjustified disciplinary actions against the staff—all the untenured teachers who signed the complaint were forced to leave within a year—and now only seven of the original twenty still teach at Bronx Science. Nevertheless, the Department of Education continues to defend the indefensible actions of its administrators, sustaining a retaliatory unsatisfactory rating in 2008 against then UFT Delegate (and later Chapter Leader) Peter Lamphere.
Join the struggle against arbitrary and capricious decisions by supervisors.
While the national conversation focuses on questions of “teacher quality”—the actions by principals retaliating against whistle-blowers and union activists goes unscrutinized. These actions lead to high turnover and difficult working conditions at our schools, even at nationally acclaimed institutions like the Bronx High School of Science. A legal victory in this case will send a message to teachers everywhere that their rights can be defended against abusive management.
Checks to assist with legal actions can be made out to the Teacher's Defense Fund, and mailed to 305 E. 140th St. #5A, Bronx, NY 10454. Donations are not tax-deductible.
Donate online at http://defendteachers.bbnow.org/
I would love for the public to know of the capricious and arbitrary conduct that my former administrator inflicted on me. Former admin treated me like I was a POW criminal being chased by the Gestapo.
ReplyDeleteI was way too progressive with teaching an early childhood grade and was given NO PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT plan to guide me me in probationary years. I had no curriculum given to me and I basically had to develop my own.
I am the PRIME example as to why the soon-to-be obsolete rating system is subjective for teachers.
What is the name of this MAth AP?
ReplyDeleteDidnt Jim Callaghan say in his letter to The Chief (which protected its former hack writer McFadyen and Weingarten and Mulgrew) that Mulgrew pulled a paragraph out of his story that said the principal of Bronx Science lied under oath at an arbitration?
ReplyDeleteWhy wont Mulgrew ask for an indictment?
what is his personal benefit for his double dealing?
We know what the payoff was for Weingarten- she slit Caroline Kennedy's throat after she was rejected by Paterson to be the United States Senator- right after she took the AFT job.
Having suffered at the hand of the liar Principal Valerie Reidy and her minion Science AP Falzone, since fired, I can empathize with recent victims. I just heard that an AP at Bronx Science forced a senior teacher to pass the AP's failing child. When the failing grade was raised to a 65 it was deemed still too low, so ultimately the child received a 70. Is this the way you succeed these days at Bronx Science, where even parents are intimidated because they fear retribution from the administration?
ReplyDelete"Tenure" offers little protection against unethical, unscrupulous administrators championed by Klein, Black,
Bloomberg and his hand-picked PEP. Even if this lawsuit is successful, the melanoma has already metastasized at Bronx Science. The best high school in the city now is clearly Hunter College High School where the faculty is free from the politics and stupidity of the DOE. Bloomberg is too blinded by his perceived success to see the truth.
Having suffered at the hand of the liar Principal Valerie Reidy and her minion Science AP Falzone, since fired, I can empathize with recent victims. I just heard that an AP at Bronx Science forced a senior teacher to pass the AP's failing child. When the failing grade was raised to a 65 it was deemed still too low, so ultimately the child received a 70. Is this the way you succeed these days at Bronx Science, where even parents are intimidated because they fear retribution from the administration?
ReplyDelete"Tenure" offers little protection against unethical, unscrupulous administrators championed by Klein, Black,
Bloomberg and his hand-picked PEP. Even if this lawsuit is successful, the melanoma has already metastasized at Bronx Science. The best high school in the city now is clearly Hunter College High School where the faculty is free from the politics and stupidity of the DOE. Bloomberg is too blinded by his perceived success to see the truth.
Civil negligence lawsuits have never been an idealized format for resolving this unique phenomemon because there is invariably some bank account of public money set aside to pay all damages levied against high school administrators in the NYC Public Schools. The defendants continue to do what they are accused of doing in the public high schools after the damages which the civil court orders them to pay are paid for them as part of their routinized job perks. Does anyone remember how our long-retired generation once proscribed these derivative banker fiscal executor commissioned officer Lieutenant departmental APs, a rank and salary line created nowhere outside the NYC Public High Schools, from routinely meting out physical punishments and sexual harrassment to teachers in the NYC public high schools? Their bargaining agent, the Council of Supervisors and Administrators, then unwisely forwarded a negotiator's position paper to the press alleging that these derivative banker fiscal executors should be spending their day in school visiting classes and maintaining ongoing logs of teacher performance. The winning response wsa a federal criminal one and not a civil negligence one. How can a derivative banker fiscal executor commissioned officer Lieutenant unique to the public high schools of NYC, even when called the departmental Assistant Principal of Supervision, take care of his or her fiscal executor responsiblities once he or she becomes too occupied helping parents, observing classes and maintaining written records of teacher performance? This represents a criminal and not a civil allegation, a federal criminal conflict of interest violation colloquially termed conspiracy and money laundering which fedearally criminally proscribes derivative banker fiscal executor commissioned officer Lieutenant departmental AP Supervision in the city's public high schools from regularly observing teachers,regularly rating teachers and regularly helping parents.
ReplyDelete