Adult Ed Superintendent Rose Marie Mills targeted veteran teachers over age and they sue - UFT Mum

At an Ex Bd meeting, an adult ed teacher used her 2-minute open mic period to call attention to a consultation meeting she attended where Rose-Marie Mills castigated and humiliated her. Sitting silently was the UFT District Rep Patty Crispino sat there silently and did not stand up for the teacher.

That was a clue to how the UFT leadership has responded to the repeated complaints from Adult Ed teachers and have allowed Mills to engage in abusive behavior.

Sue Edelman has another one of her Sunday specials exposing supervisor abuse in the NY Post, this time about one of the major DOE slugs, Adult Ed Superintendent Rose-Marie Mills, vicious and despicable, who has been allowed to purge teachers while the UFT leadership sits on its hands. I know, I know -- they brought it up in consultation and then throw their hands up.

Ed Notes has reported on Adult Ed for years. Here are a few from this past year:

• Councilman Danny Dromm Hearing on Adult Ed Issues 
• First UFT Ex Bd Meeting of Year - A Stephen King Horror Movie
• Adult Education Teacher to UFT Exec Bd

One of our long-time pals, Roberta Pikser, who attends most of our pre-Ex bd meetings in the back of the lobby of the UFT, lost her job a year ago in the purge and the UFT has done precious little to help people get their jobs back. At one of the UFT Ex Bd meetings, a retired adult ed chapter leader castigated the leadership for lack of action, but when I asked if I could publish her speech she declined, saying she wanted to work behind the scenes with the leadership. Good luck to that.

Arthur has a post on this today - Another Day, Another Abusive Administrator -

Fired adult ed. teacher Roberta Pikser has been coming fairly regularly to Executive Board meetings. I've gotten to hear a lot about this firsthand. A lot of what I hear seems outright scandalous, so was pretty happy to read about it today in the Post. They say sunlight is the best disinfectant, and this particular branch of the Department of Education seems infected to the core.

UFT is an enabler of abusive principals
I also think the UFT/Unity leadership also seems infected to the core - with a defeatist non-militant approach to the slugs running so many districts and schools. The NY Teacher should be loaded with stories as should UFT social media.

I believe that every principal has to live in fear of a UFT reaction -- and also the CSA must know that they will not have a cozy relationship with the UFT.

A comment on the suit:

And our union emphatically told the chapter that an age discrimination lawsuit was a waste of time and not a good strategy. And here a small group of determined teachers have filed a legit suit and it has garnered attention in two newspapers!

BRAVO! 

Note that de Blasio did his political attack on the NY Post claiming he hopes it will disappear --- maybe because of stories like this.

Superintendent targeted veteran teachers over age: suit

By Susan Edelman

June 2, 2018

Councilman Danny Dromm Hearing on Adult Ed Issues

Betty Gottfried—Adult Ed. ex CL—speaks of fight in adult ed., says union has given good attention. Says 12 teachers who were pushed out have testified, urges leaders to watch video. Says teachers were magnificent. Says Danny Drumm watched and complimented teachers. Says Sterling Roberson wants more input from adult ed. teachers and that is a very welcome statement.  Reads statement from 1992 as example of participating chapter, asks for return to that. Thanks Mulgrew for involvement. Says he listens..... Arthur Goldstein notes from Sept. 25 EB meeting

https://councilnyc.viebit.com/player.php?hash=gRZDhyRWzhjv
 
I like Betty. But she is being generous about the response of the UFT, which has put one of the worst reps in charge of Adult Ed. [I have another blog post coming with more details.] I seem to be one of the few who want to call out UFT people who fuck up -- the leadership joined the teacher "accountability" bandwagon -- they should be held to even stricter standards.

UFT leadership has refused to publicize adult ed issues until MORE and bloggers began to partner with them in getting the story out. Here is one more as the heat on the DOE rises.

MORE was sent this from an Adult Ed teacher re: the Dromm hearing:

Council Member Danny Dromm from Queens held a hearing on adult ed and our infamous superintendent Mills' boss, Laura Feijoo, was there. CM Dromm did an excellent job interrogating Ms. Feijoo and she and Mills' data guy, Vernon Kellman, were not equipped for the questions and confrontation.

We thought you might enjoy the hearing. We certainly did. 9 people came out publicly about the mismanagement of the OACE at the hands of Mills. And several more wrote anonymous written testimony to Dromm's office. We are hoping this is the beginning of some much needed changes within the OACE.

Thank you for all your support along the way. It was invaluable to us.

Please watch!

Hello you all, that was amazing!!! In case you haven't had enough, here is the video, fresh off the presses. Sorry everyone couldn't be there. I counted 14. Dromm said it's the most he's ever had. Thanks to EVERYONE who played a part in this. xoxox to you all and anyone who hasn't yet sent in testimony, you still have 5 days from today!

https://councilnyc.viebit.com/player.php?hash=gRZDhyRWzhjv

NYCC-PV-CH-CHA_170920-103022.mp4 councilnyc.viebit.com

Adult Education Teacher to UFT Exec Bd

The Adult ed chapter of the UFT has been under assault since Supt Rosemary Mills took over. A group of teachers attended the UFT Ex Bd meeting last week, as I reported the other day, First UFT Ex Bd Meeting of Year - A Stephen King Horror Movie.

The fact that the UFT has allowed the chapter itself to flounder is not an insignificant factor -- like a UFT official sitting there quietly whole Rosemary Mills berated a UFT member at a meeting. I suspect, based on my instincts of how some of the UFT hacks have operated in the past, that if you are not viewed as a Unity Caucus loyalist you are under suspicion. I am told there is no chapter leader at this crucial time and people have been forced to do things ad hoc. The UFT's Patti Crispino is supposed to be on the case. If you knew Patti like I knew Patti --- don't expect much.

Note this comment from Fran Myers:  Mills knows what’s going on in chapter more than we do. We need info on discontinuance and percentages to strategize. Demand transparency.

Peter Romani read the following statement at the first UFT EB Meeting of the year:

To the Executive Committee of the UFT,

The steering committee of the Adult Education Chapter has formed the Adult Ed Action Committee. Our chapter has been under attack by Superintendent Rose Marie Mills of the Office of Adult and Continuing Education for close to 5 years.

Having consolidated her power through her close colleagues at the highest levels of DOE, she has been empowered and enabled to supervise a decades old program with 150 full-time adult education teachers and hundreds of per session K-12 teachers with absolute impunity. Noteworthy that our numbers have been shrinking every year, not by accident.

As a result, she has successfully overwhelmed every successive chapter leader with hostility, intimidation, and by running them ragged all over the 5 boroughs in this city-wide program which serves 35,000 adult students. The disciplinary hearings have increased exponentially and the paperwork redundancy and petty policies are designed in part to render any chapter leader ineffective and exhausted. We have lost yet another chapter leader this summer, retiring from the position after one year and from DOE in disgust and frustration. You may be aware that this past June we saw 20 – 30 annual “U”ratings, along with several discontinuances of vulnerable teachers. Out of 150 or so full-time teachers, this is an alarming percentage of U ratings. The observation process under Mills has become nothing more than a tool to meet quotas of harassment, hostility, early retirements, and terminations.

The Adult Education Action Committee has been formed out of a desperate attempt to continue advocating for this once proud program and the chapter members, as Ms. Mills now breaks or bends every rule, policy, or protections she arrogantly believes she can get away with. We feel let down by our union and betrayed by Chancellor Farina, Deputy Chancellor Dorita Gibson, and Senior Superintendent Laura Feijoo.

We are concerned that there will continue to be a vacuum in the chapter leadership and that Superintendent Mills will surely try to discreetly install a candidate of her choosing, knowing that there are few if any left in the chapter who would willingly run for this position. We strongly urge our UFT leadership not only to intervene meaningfully on our behalf, but to implement the following common sense remedies:

• Reconfigure and expand the chapter leader position to allow for multiple chapter leaders, perhaps one per borough citywide, in order to meet the inordinate time demands and duties of this chapter.
• Provide for a mechanism whereby the Adult Ed Action Committee can schedule meeting space on a regular basis at UFT headquarters for chapter-related business.
• Assign a separate District Representative dedicated solely to this superintendency and the needs of the Office of Adult & Continuing Education exclusively.

We understand that the political winds of public education are not blowing in our favor, but no one should have to suffer for so long in this manner at the hands of a superintendent with unchecked power, zero accountability, and the arrogant abuse of power that naturally follows from the blind, entrenched, backing of the Department of Education.

--- Peter Romani