Your UFT at Work: Charlie Turner Emails Jeff Kaufman

Will Brooklyn HS District Rep Charlie Turner visit Chapter Leader Jeff Kaufman's school even though Jeff tells him not to bother? I bet he will since Unity slugs like Turner are supposed to go in and try to undermine chapter leaders who are viewed as "opposition." (I have stories from more than one school.)

Jeff refers to Turner's last uninvited visit along with HS VEEP Leo Casey when they both were there to undermine Jeff due to some complaint from a teacher who happened to be associated with E4E. You can watch Jeff tell about it in this video I shot in July 2011 posted at https://vimeo.com/26575544.  Since I consider Turner one of the bigger shits in the UFT hierarchy, I got more than a little chuckle from Jeff's comments.

From: Charlie Turner [mailto:cturner@uft.org]
Sent: Monday, October 22, 2012 1:44 PM
To: JeffB
Subject: Issues at your school
Hi Jeff,

I haven’t heard from you lately. You didn’t respond to my inquiry about curriculum, etc. Please get back to me about that stuff. Also, does your school have a library and a librarian? Let me know.

Thanks,
Charley
Charley Turner
UFT District Representative
Brooklyn High Schools

Charley,

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Thank you for your concern about my chapter. While issues come up from time to time our staff has remained unified and resilient toward administration overreaching. Fortunately we have not had to utilize our grievance procedure past Step 1 to resolve differences.

Perhaps what most concerns our Chapter is the looming fact-finding and the recent contract negotiations in Newark in which our Union leadership has played a major role in a pay for performance scheme. Additionally the failure of any progress in reformulating assessment metrics for transfer schools has doomed us to become future ATRs. The last contact I had with the Union about this issue was in the Spring of 2011.

Yes, we have a library and a librarian.

Jeff

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Jeff,
Thanks for the information. I find it surprising that your teachers are so intent with the Newark negotiations.
With regard to the assessment metrics for Transfer schools, the union is pressuring the DOE to use a Transfer school waver that was agreed to last spring with Bushwick Community High School.
I would be happy to visit your school to discuss these and other issues with your members.
Regards
Charley

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Charley,

Our Union has provided precious little in the way of information about contract negotiations over the last 3 years except to say they weren’t going well and that we are once again going to fact-finding (which you know has brought us teacher busting contracts the last 2 times we went this route). Our teachers need to know what to expect from fact-finding and how our Union leadership will react to further DOE demands to emasculate teachers and their role in education.

I was never notified about the agreement that Bushwick Community High School made last year. What are the details? Who made the agreement and what does it provide? (A copy of the same would be greatly appreciated). My understanding, the last I was advised about this issue, was that the Regents tabled the waiver application.

Given your last appearance with Leo Casey I strongly advise against any visits at this time.

Jeff