UFT Adult Education Chapter to Mulgrew - Rose-Marie Mills is still a problem

We call upon our union to defend us. We call upon our union to stop the harassment of the senior Teachers of Adult Education....

This statement was read at the April 8th UFT Ex Bd meeting:

From: Working Group of the Adult Education Chapter of the UFT
To: Michael Mulgrew, LeRoy Barr, Anthony Harmon

Dear Brothers Mulgrew, Barr, and Harmon and members of the Executive Committee:

Due to the unceasing efforts of members of the Adult Education Chapter of the United Federation of Teachers, Rose-Marie Mills has been removed from the Superintendency of the Office of Adult and Continuing Education. Unfortunately, the Department of Education, rather than dismissing Ms. Mills, has merely moved her, and she now oversees instruction of Adult Education, of which she has shown herself to know nothing, as well as being involved with funding and data (whatever that may be taken to mean). Testing anomalies still abound, with, for example, ESL Students being emailed math packets in English then being tested as distance learners, increasing the EPE hours billed to the State, though the Students have not received instruction in the subject they came to study: English. Though paperwork issues were supposedly resolved, paperwork is increasing, with Teachers forced to do more and more data entry on their own time.



Ms. Mills’ appointees are still answering to her, which is shown by the ongoing harassment her hires continue to visit upon the senior Teachers in the form of constant observations and repeated Unsatisfactory ratings of the most experienced and well-respected of them. The newer Teachers, unprotected by tenure and perceiving themselves to be unprotected by the UFT, are afraid to push back against the oppressive supervisors. Further, under the reorganization of D 79, our Adult Education licenses, our benefits, and our very specialized knowledge of how to teach this population may well be endangered. From several of our regions, we hear there is the almost complete replacement of experienced, tenured senior Teachers with part-time per-session day school Teachers and the wholesale elimination of full-time day classes in local communities. There are almost no daytime classes in local schools and all the full-time 30-hour teachers have to work a split shift. Most egregiously, our Chapter Leader has been falsely accused, brought up on 3020 A charges, and reassigned to some sort of administrative duty at the express request of her Principal, Tiffany Taylor Oates. This is clearly an attack, not on her, but on our chapter, and can most likely be traced to our former Superintendent.

We call upon our union to defend us. We call upon our union to stop the harassment of the senior Teachers of Adult Education. We call on our union to file a group grievance for the 20% of the Office of Adult and Continuing Education Teachers, all over the age of 40, who were given Unsatisfactory ratings two years ago, causing them either to be driven out of the Department of Education or causing them to lose money because they are no longer permitted to substitute. We call on our union to defend our jobs and to stop the conversion of Adult Education to a part-time program, staffed by people who are not specialists in the field. We call on our union to stop the increasing demands on Teachers to do data entry work on their own time. We call on our union to vigorously defend our Chapter Leader.

We have been agitating for six years. Things change, but they remain the same or worse. We need answers to our demands.

Thank you.