ATR Update: The Real Civil Rights Issue of Our Time - Reports from Brooklyn/Bronx UFT ATR Meetings

 UFT/DOE Sub Arrangement Makes No Sense - Unless you understand - which the UFT keeps denying  - that the entire arrangement is designed to turn ATRs - mostly older and many people of color - into weary day-to-day subs in schools where they don't know the kids with the hope they will get worn down and just plain retire or quit. I'll bet they have a computer program that calculates the furthest distance they can send a teacher legally.

The real civil rights issue of our time
Some civil rights organization ought to go and count the incredibly high percentage of African-American teachers in this pool. Even I was astounded at the Brooklyn meeting yesterday at the imbalance based on race.

I was there to give out the GEMATR Committee leaflet to advertise the October 20 meeting we are holding with the aim of solidifying an ATR support group capable of impacting on DOE and UFT policies. We think we already have begun to have an impact.

Let's start with this email from an older ATR who is only teaching under a decade in a hard to staff license area. The kind of license they are bringing people over from the Philippines to teach in. (How perfect to hold deportation over the head of teachers.) Getting a position should be a slam dunk. NOT!

This ATR makes so much sense you know there is something behind the curtain here and we know what it is.

Norm
Please read this carefully and seriously tell me what I am missing.  UFT claimed that much of the problem is that principals gamed the system that getting ATRs to work off budget.  So now only those placed in actual vacancies in their license in their districts will stay; others will rotate.  But if 10 of us are playing musical chairs as subs why not just keep the ATRs at the same school as subs and make the principal verify that the ATR was not doing a regular program?  What I see is the ATR covering a vacancy if there is one, but every week or two a new face appears who doesn't know the kids and probably doesn't know the culture or the subject and nothing will be learned.  Just like the last month where I have been covering and feebly attempting to teach living environment.  I refuse to believe that there aren't ATR science teachers in the Bronx who could do a better job than me.

I tried to check and could not find any openings in my district so I guess I'll be subbing somewhere else.  Now, based on how poorly so many students do on the Math Regents, making me a Math tutor or second teacher would seem sensible.  ATRs if not assigned to a vacancy in their license should be an extra resource in their license when not subbing. This is how it should be.

We have to focus on how the students are hurt, not about ourselves in order to get the public behind us.

Report from Brooklyn ATR Meeting (Tuesday, October 4)

UFT TO ATRS: INFORMATION YES, ORGANIZATION NO WAY IN HELL
By Philip Nobile

A crowd of one hundred, mostly over 40, listened to a 45-minute presentation by Special Rep Amy Arundell and Co-Staff Director LeRoy Barr and then asked lots and lots of questions about our absurd predicament for almost two hours. The presenters were incisive and sympathetic in the information department. Apparently, they had cooled off from their hot meeting in The Bronx on Monday.

“We know the DOE will screw things up and we’ll stay on top of this,” promised Barr who repeated the party line that ATRs should be happy rather than angry with their new deal. “It was not an ATR agreement, it was a no layoff agreement,” he emphasized. “The DOE said you didn’t work. They wanted to lay you off. We will not allow them to lay you off.” Nevertheless, Barr’s solidarity soon evaporated when he squelched the unanimous clamor for establishing borough chapters to represent our interests. “We’re not here to talk about that,” he said, adding with typical top-down arrogance, “that’s not what you want.”

The Information
Arundell, a former middle school Social Science teacher from The Bronx, is the UFT’s personnel person and now its designated ATR authority and apologist. She began with the mechanics of next week’s rotation and later addressed specific inquiries. Some highlights:

►Brooklyn high school teachers will be assigned to District 73 or District 76 (including, horrors, Staten Island). K-8 teachers will remain in the districts from which they were excessed. This is a contractual right.
►Principals cannot keep you in your current school unless they hire you to fill vacancy, budget you on Galaxy, and inform the DOE. No exceptions.
►Your file stays in school from which you were excessed and it’s unclear where files go if your school is closed.
►You can be observed anytime, even if you’re teaching out of license.
►Ratings are up in the air. No agreement yet with DOE, but UFT is opposed to evaluating teachers who spend only one week, even one month, in schools.
►If you’re absent, see the payroll secretary. For long term absence, contact Special Rep Debbie Poulos. For personal days, call your District Rep.
►If you don’t get a new assignment in DOE email by Friday, report to current school next Tuesday.

No Way In Hell Organization

Several attendees, including this correspondent, protested the UFT’s pretense of representation via strange and ever-changing Chapter Leaders and soon-to-be overwhelmed District reps as back-ups. Without chapters of our own, we are out of the normal union loop, unable to attend chapter meetings and forbidden access to Delegate Assemblies. Even our allegedly lesser brethren in rubber rooms of yore had elected liaisons and monthly meetings at 52 Broadway. Denying such basic union rights to ATRs is unconscionable.

Arundell pre-emptively defended the UFT’s third class representation of ATRs (i.e., after regular teachers and past rubber roomers). “I will respectfully disagree that Chapter Leaders are not capable of representing you,” she said, raising her voice. “YOU ARE REPRESENTED. YOU ARE NOT A DISTINCT CLASS.”

Nobody in the audience bought this poppycock. Cheers and clapping greeted the following dissents.

►Herb Michael, former Chapter Leader: “I’m not convinced I’m really represented. We’re in a special situation. That’s why there’s a special agreement including a committee to review compliance. I’d feel more comfortable if some ATRs looked at it. We need to meet on a regular basis. Why can’t we have a motion on the floor to elect a chapter leader?”
This when Barr claimed that he knew better, that we didn’t want chapters to rep us. Adopting Randi’s line against rubber room chapters, he said “You don’t want to be in a permanent class.” Such strained reasoning--as if chapter status would mean anything more than standard representation for us outcasts. At the least, Randi appeased reassigned teachers with monthly meetings in Manhattan. But ATRs in good standing are deprived of that small kindness.

►John Lawhead: “I’m amazed at the innocence of your assumptions. I’m in a school with no Chapter Leader. And now you’re telling us that District Leaders are going to make up the difference? What kind of union do you want to be, merely a service organization? You’ve got to use us in some way. We could be reps in schools.”
By this time, Barr was gone and Brooklyn Borough Rep Howie Schoor stood in at the podium. He was whispering in Arundell’s ear while Lawhead spoke and may have missed his larger point about the UFT’s soul. But puffing up, he said that he would make certain that District Reps did their jobs.

►Your correspondent, former Chapter Leader and three-year graduate of Brooklyn’s Chapel St. rubber room: “I wanted to thank LeRoy for telling us what we want. But I know what we want. (turning to the audience) How many of you want a chapter for ATRs? (the room erupted unanimously in favor and I turned back to Schoor). Will you explain why we can’t have a chapter and will you give us your sign-up list so that we can better organize?

Schoor and I have a complicated history. He is a nice fellow and has been generous with his time and assistance over the years. But just as often he has failed in nerve a` propos my quarrels with the UFT and DOE. For example, I sent him three emails prior to the meeting asking for permission to briefly organize ATRs on site before the start of his informational. No response. So I renewed my request on arrival. The answer was no. “It’s our meeting,” he said. I reminded him that his Special Rep Liz Perez, speaking for Barr, originally rejected my suggestion for an ATR gathering and that today’s meeting was just as much ours as the UFT’s. That got me nowhere, of course. Thereupon I entered the packed conference room and while people finished up their noshes, I defied Schoor by introducing myself and urging my colleagues to press our agenda as outlined in a Grassroots Education Movement broadsheet handed out by Norm Scott of ednotesonline. Schoor tried to shut me down almost immediately, but let me finish without interruption.

As for our demand for a chapter, ever the tone deaf bureaucrat, Schoor declared that Union policy was made by the Executive Committee and Delegate Assemblies blah, blah, blah. And no, he would not share the sign-up list. In retort, I jabbed, “Such is the democracy we work in!”
As the meeting wound down, two older female ATRs summed up our frustration with cris de coeur eliciting loud cheers. Said one: “Mulgrew doesn’t seem to care. Notice he’s not here and I bet he won’t be at the other meetings either.”

And the other: “It all about age and money. School aides are teaching classes in my school. Principals will not hire us. Where is the union in this? I want my dues back.”

Read Marjorie Stamberg at NYC ATR
Excerpts:

The UFT leadership people presiding were Amy Arundel (Special Representative), backed up by LeRoy Barr (Staff Director), who stepped in to try to cool things out when tempers started to rise, as they did frequently.  Arundel attempted to justify the June agreement on ATRs, which grew out of the deal on no layoffs of teachers. In exchange for that, it appears the ATR situation was used a bargaining chip.

the ATR teachers at the meeting spoke out and said that in this way things were made worse for them than before.

Regarding the weekly trek from school to school, Arundel said the UFT wanted this because the principals have been gaming the system, using an ATR like a full-time staffer without any rights and without paying for them. This, they ho

 Marjorie's letter is worth reading in full: Letter from the Bronx UFT meeting

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