ATR Severance Offer - from Mike Sill at UFT

As you have likely heard, the DOE is offering a voluntary severance to all members of the ATR pool and to UFT-represented employees in Title I-funded positions in the nonpublic schools.

In order to be eligible, a person must be a member of the ATR pool (whether in a rotational or provisional assignment) or a UFT-represented DOE employee working in a Title I position in a nonpublic school.

Anyone who agrees to take the severance will receive $50,000 before taxes, on or about Sept. 16, 2019.

ATR Karen Sklaire Benefit Show for Puerto Rico School

I posted Karen Skaire's remarkable statement to the UFT Ex Bd: ATRs to UFT - It is About Dignity, Don't Tell Us We Are Lucky to Have a Job.

I saw Karen Sklaire's one woman show on her experience teaching at the Fringe a few years and hope to make one of these fundraising shows for a school in Puerto Rico devastated by the hurricane next Monday or  Tuesday. I posted Karen's dramatic statement on being an ATR at a recent UFT Ex Bd meeting.

ATRs to UFT - It is About Dignity, Don't Tell Us We Are Lucky to Have a Job

From Our Island To Yours: A Benefit for La Escuela Jaime In P.R. is a benefit we are doing for this school in Ponce, Puerto Rico

Right now this Puerto Rican school is out of power and communication is very difficult. This is why we are doing this benefit to raise money for this school, these kids and this community.

They need:
-Air conditioners so we can get the school up and running
- A generator
- uniforms for the kids
- supplies for the students so they can start school again!

Come out on December 4th and 5th and 100% of your money to go towards rebuilding this school.

Tuesday December 5th Ripple of Hope: One Teacher's Journey to Make an Impact..by Karen Sklaire 7pm

Tickets are at:https://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/3177667
$25 DONATION!!!

Come see two award winning performances directed by award winning director Padraic Lillis

Take a break from Holiday chaos and make a difference! #givingTuesday

If by chance you cannot make it- please make a donation to the same site!( but we REALLY would love you to be there!)
Can't wait to see you!
Make a difference for these children and these teachers!!!

A first-person account of an ATR teacher in New York City Public Schools - Seeing The Positives

I've told my story (Attacks on ATRs is Spear at All Teachers Plus Why Not Have a Permanent Corps of ATR) of being an ATR in my first year and a half as a teacher from Sept. 1967-Feb. 1969 -- an experience that I believe turned me from a no-nothing 6-week summer trainee -- ala TFA -- into a confident teacher. So I found this email from Ed Notes reader Nick Weber confirms my thesis that using a permanent ATR corp for beginning teachers as a sort of apprenticeship would make sense --  also cost so much less because it would consist of beginning teachers -- we need subs anyway so why not make use of them but add the mission that schools they are attached to would also function like teaching hospitals? Re-branding the ATR program in this way would lead to buy in -- having extra hands on deck in schools can never hurt.

Here is Nick's intro:

As one of the youngest ATR's in the city (30) I have been an ATR for the past three years, and have been reading the accounts from "journalists" that fail to even ask an ATR their take on the process. While I note the difficulties inherent with not being given a restroom key, unfair evaluation, and being treated by some as a second class citizen; this is not the totality of my experience.

As the old adage goes, when life throws us lemons...  In light of this sentiment, below you will find my positive take on the experience, and the positive experiences I have been able to collect from it.  It has provided me one of the most unexpected life experiences, and one that has enriched me as a professional and person.   I humbly offer the following account below, in the hopes that you may publish it with my name, so that we may turn the tide on the representation of what is a cadre of highly trained and brilliant professionals, enriching schools across our City in wonderful ways.

----ATR Nick Weber

I can imagine the storm this posting will incur from a certain segment of the besieged ATR community. Nick is 30 years old and has a long way to go in the system so he has a perspective that may differ from long-time teachers. I do want to echo some of the points he makes about being able to visit many other classrooms as opposed to the isolating experience when you are a "normal" teacher. We know from some prominent ATRS - Eterno, Portelos, Zucker that they have managed to handle things pretty well -- James is the only one who has had a stable situation - relatively.

The press doing reporting on ATRs might want to chat with Nick and get his perspective. 

A first-person account of an ATR teacher in New York City Public Schools 

The Traveling Teacher

It is a rare and select opportunity for an educator to receive an invitation to visit another classroom within their own school site, let alone a chance to visit over three dozen school sites as a faculty member of each community.  In spite of the rarity, my assignment for the past three years within the Department of Education has been to do just this:  teach students in classrooms across schools, grade levels, and content areas.  It has been an unexpected blessing that provided me an opportunity to grow in unique ways I never imagined possible. To help populations of students I never imagined that I would work with, and learn from dozens of professionals who, in total, have several millennia of classroom years of experience. This account of my experience has to be abridged in order to present some of the insights of my time as an ATR.  It is an account that reveals, a side of being an ATR which has been beneficial to increasing my teaching ability and practice. 

The assignment of schools for ATR teachers remains a veiled calculus that is beyond analysis.  For our purposes, ATR teachers are sent into literally any DOE institution and regardless of their licensure and work to “cover” any topic or grade level.  My personal experience teaching as an ATR ranges from Pre-K all the way through senior year. A non-exhaustive list of content domains I have taught are as follows; Algebra, Geometry, Calculus, Chemistry, American History, Global History, Art, Design, Physics, Spanish, Latin, American-American Literature, American Literature, Theater, Music, Economics, Physical Education, Business Marketing, Coding, and library sciences.  This constant rotation has afforded me insight into how students learn, across content areas, and among the most diverse student population in the world. It has granted me the opportunity to peer into diverse school communities and learn how they function from my interactions with principals, assistant principals, teacher leaders, teachers, students, food service workers, School Safety Agents, and custodial staffs.  With reflection, these experiences have enabled me to understand public education in New York City as an ingrained member of a school community, with teaching obligations parallel to fellow educators, yet under a rotating set of conditions.  

Switching both the school and classroom setting permits an amazing level of professional growth, should one engage in the teaching process with fidelity.  My experience being an ATR was to treat every classroom, as my classroom.  Every lesson, as if I had weeks to craft it, not merely hours.  Every student, as my student.  

Working with over seven thousand students and hundreds of colleagues, it is a rare day that goes by when I don’t run into someone who I taught or worked with over the past few years. Sharing a smile and pleasant conversation to catch up with them, has been a true blessing of this constant rotation.  Updates abound with their college success, career growth, entrepreneurial endeavors, volunteering, military service, and persistent growth and learning, among a cadre of students who face no shortage of adversity against them.  The more students I teach and professionals I work with -- the more I discover that the human condition is categorically similar.  When we invest with kindness, support, and care for a generation; the result is a success all around. 

ATR teachers are often considered merely substitutes. This is an unfortunate understanding,  and should the ATR view themselves as such, would result in a self-fulfilling prophecy.  The facts are less glamorous than sensationalist accounts.  In contrast to the experience of being a substitute, the average ATR teacher has years, even decades of experience.  Hence, divergent from a substitute walking into a classroom, ATR educators are full-fledged teachers, who understand classroom dynamics, pedagogy, learning theory, and evaluation. 

That is to say, ATR teachers who constantly strive to perfect their teaching methods and reflect on every lesson, are able to experience an enormous amount of growth within a framework where change is the rule, rather than the exception.  With every class and student I teach, I reflect on what aspects of the lesson were successful, and what aspects of the lesson should be altered next time for improvement?  Research and our own personal experiences reveal that when teachers remain static, their lessons slowly ossify, and student interest decreases. Any pedagogue will acknowledge, that decreased student engagement results in lower student learning.  Teachers who remain, avid learners, are the ones who meet the greatest success. 

Within the United States, the current method of teacher preparation frequently compartmentalizes teacher training into both grade and subject-level specializations.  Frequently, this specialization comes at a cost of understanding the continuity of learning from pre-K to grade 12. While it is imperative to prepare teachers to understand the content and pedagogy with respect to subject domain (i.e. Middle School math, high school Chemistry; grade level 12 Economics), the process of teacher preparation may serve to isolate the teacher beyond what is needed or beneficial.  Teachers must be able to understand how learning occurs, and see the connections across grade level, student populations and understand barriers to learning. 

Evidence of hyper-specialization within education abounds. Teachers often identify strongly as history teachers, math teachers, and science teachers.  Yet, does not every subject impact another?  Should teachers (and administrators) not understand how students learn across content areas? Are not the most brilliant discoveries often found by researchers working outside their field of direct experience?  If so, we must expressly ensure teachers see connections, strategies, and methods across content areas. 

The world of today places great emphasis and opportunity on students who can see connections across domains and specializations. Our economy values individuals who have diverse skill-sets, and are able to reach across specializations. Innovation demands that we prepare students to create, rather than solely to perform within a limited task range. Thus, our teacher preparation must reflect this. 

Preparing an English teacher to teach High School, results in teachers who encounter challenges with supporting who enter high school reading at the 6th-grade level.  Alternatively, middle school math teachers, may not understand the rigors of Algebra on the 9th-grade level and thus fail to prepare a continuity of instruction for their pupils to engage with instruction on the high school level.  This is not a fault of the teacher, but rather a system of teacher preparation that focuses on a single subject and grade level.  I title hyper-focused content area specialization,  ‘silos of instruction’. These silos, unfortunately, carry all the way through teacher preparation and are maintained within many schools.  My integration into around three dozen school communities, permit me to see the inefficiency many schools experience with single subject content area teams.  An example of this is when high school math departments, fail to realize many of their English language students perform poorly on state math exams as a product of language deficits, rather than mathematic difficulties.  A partnership between these departments could address such concerns.  

Teaching across student populations and content domains,  aided my ability to view how student psychological, social, and academic development occurs.  In contrast to remaining with solely one student population, being an ATR grants insight into how students acquire knowledge at all grade levels of the public school. The ATR teacher, given their expansive placement with regard to grade and content domain; has the opportunity to see not only grade level benchmarks but additionally content area connections.  They have the chance to see the connections between literature on the elementary level, and mathematics benchmarks on the tenth grade.  No other teaching opportunity within our City or nation provides this diversity of applied growth and learning for teachers.  For rather than being an observer there to 'evaluate' learning, ATR teachers are in the classroom as a co-constructor of knowledge.  For example, I have witnessed how deficiencies regarding reading, translate as barriers to understanding math concepts when instructed and evaluated with a high degree of written instructions.  Using the tools  I have gained while teaching both concurrently,  has helped me to facilitate student learning to address these challenges. 

Teaching methods are critical to engaging students in the learning process.  One of the benefits of ATR rotation is the chance to acquire new "tools" or teaching methods.  Working with around 70 co-teachers (classrooms with both a special education and general education teacher in the room) I have had the chance to acquire a host of teaching strategies. One of my favorite teaching growth activities is to adapt and implement strategies in unconventional manners to increase student learning.  Take for example my use of "foldables" (a  project most often associated with English Language Arts methods) to increase Algebra passing rates.  Along with a co-teacher, we planned lessons using these manipulatives and found that students increased their pass rate of the state Regents Exams to one of the highest in the school.  The process of working with so many different and amazingly talented educators in the City, has been one of true joy and a professional honor.  Viewing how teachers adapt to students, integrate their interests and needs into the lessons they teach, and passionately support students far beyond the scope of their duties, reveals the level of professional dedication of so many teachers.  While the role of ATR is particularly suited to working with diverse professionals across content areas, I encourage regularly assigned teachers to simply ask around their school to find amazing educators, and engage in peer observation with fellow teachers. 

ATR assignments to school communities for myself have ranged from a single week to around eight months in duration.  Within so many school communities, I have discovered that the school climate and culture may be radically divergent. The diversity of school environment is something to be encouraged.  For example, students at Art and Design High School in Manhattan often express their creativity via sketches and artwork they draw in their portfolio notebooks, purchased in the school store which sells them to students at cost.  In contrast, schools such as Grammercy Arts, focus their artistic expression most profoundly through theater arts such as drama and dance.  To comparatively evaluate the “quality” of such radically different environments, using the same basis, is a fool’s errand.  Success in the classroom is similar to success in real life, it simply looks different for everyone.  Different populations of students with unique needs and teachers with unique skill-sets are invariably different. Society must come to embrace the diversity of excellence, and how it manifests across schools. 

Successful schools tailor their course and extracurricular offerings to match the student and staff interests and abilities.  Student interest is a critical ingredient for school success.  Being an ATR has allowed me to witness how the same student, engages in learning across different content areas and classes. That is to say, a student who thrives in group work in a History class, may be reserved and quiet in a science class.  Discovering indeed that a particular student learns best through group activities, may be a critical piece of information that educators fail to notice with some students. Why would they not? Indeed the single content area focus, as well as departments based on subject area, often place barriers in terms of teacher's  knowledge of students. Exploring how an individual student learns, is a critical feature of student success, and one that must be understood by members across of a school community. In an ATR role, it becomes apparent that every student has learning preferences, and these must be understood to best support student learning on a student-by-student level. 

Overall, rather than viewing the ATR experience as one of diminished responsibly and growth, I have engaged these past years in this role in a manner which illuminated me to the experience of learning within the public schools of New York City.  Teaching in a plethora of schools, across grade levels, across content domains, and with some of the finest educators to wonderful students who strive forward each day in spite of the many obstacles, has been one of the most enriching teaching experiences I could have ever imagined. 

- Nick Weber, ATR

On "Fair" Student Funding, ATRs, Chalkbeat Deformer Reporting

I blogged yesterday (Farina to Principals - Wink, Wink - Go Get Em - Schools With Placed ATRs Must Absorb Salaries) about that ridiculous Chalkbeat story echoing the Families for Excellent Schools line on ATRS. Why a deformy group would focus so much attention on ATRS -- not exactly the crucial education issue of our time? The answer it that they are using it as a wedge as part of the broader attack on seniority, tenure, highly paid teachers, disparaging certified teachers- the "hey, anyone can teach" etc.

Arthur Goldstein took on Chalkbeat on his blog --

NYC Educator

Reformy Chalkbeat Deems Paying Teachers Inconvenient - Who'd have thought that Chalkbeat NY, after taking all that money from Gates and the Walmart family, would suddenly go all community service on us. Arthur was as perturbed by that phony demo photo used as I was.

 I just adore the photo Chalkbeat chooses to recycle, the one of a dozen people organized by the well-financed so-called Families for Excellent Schools standing around stereotyping ATR teachers. It would take me about five minutes to organize a dozen people to stand outside the Chalkbeat office with signs that say "Chalkbeat Sucks."

Not a bad idea to illustrate a point.

Then there is a parent shill named Nicole Thomas who writes a piece at the Daily News assaulting ATRs. Nicole just woke up one day and decided the existence of 800 ATRs in a system of 100,000 education personnel is the most important threat to her children's education. Nicole is one of those bought parents by the deformies. I bet she was at one of those phony 20 people rallies.

ATR Peter Zucker took Nicole Thomas on and ripped her op ed to piece.

I know where your bread is buttered Nicole. StudentsFirstNY butters it, and butters it well. You want to hang with these people? You think for a moment that StudentsFirst cares about you or your family, or even your community? You are being played like a fiddle and when you outlive your usefulness, see how long, if ever, it takes Jenny Sedlis to return your calls.

But if you want to hang with these people, know that StudentsFirst is the evil spawn of Michelle Rhee. Read this and tell the world how you would feel if Rhee was your child's teacher. These are the type of people you are being a sycophant for.

SOUTH BRONX SCHOOL Open Blog Post to Nicole Thomas (ATR Basher) Parent at PS 256 in Brooklyn

Now we know that one of the wedges used to attack teaching as a career is the fair student funding formula.

Leonie Haimson savages the Fair Student Formula in a must-read blog: https://nycpublicschoolparents.blogspot.com/2017/08/fair-student-funding-atr-system-two-bad.html

NYC Public School Parents

Fair student funding & the ATR system - two bad policies undermining NYC schools

Today Chalkbeat covers the budgetary ramifactions of the new agreement between the UFT and the NYC Department of Education in which the DOE will place ATR teachers (on Absent Teacher Reserve) in schools with vacancies, whether the principal chooses these particular teachers or not.  In addition, unlike earlier years, the principal will have to pay the full amount of their salaries – which are often much higher than the average teacher salary, even though the school only receives funding for the average salary under the Fair Student Funding system, implemented by Joel Klein in 2007, after much controversy and protest.

Let's look at how our stalwarts at the UFT are handling the situation. Arthur comments:

 I'm also disappointed in UFT leadership, which seems to believe that, even with the idiotic so-called Fair Student Funding, that there will be no issue hiring senior teachers. In fact, schools themselves now have to pay teachers out of their own budgets. Why would a principal hire a 100K teacher when a 50K teacher would do? After all, who values experience anymore? You could stock your whole building with newbies and turn them over every three years before they get tenure and start speaking up.

 Mulgrew, given an opportunity to point out certain essential truths, punted. I will urge our high school ex bd people to hold their feet to the fire on making a strong stand -- including educating the public - on the damages of FSF.


 

Farina to Principals - Wink, Wink - Go Get Em - Schools With Placed ATRs Must Absorb Salaries

At the very least, one Bronx principal said, he’d be wary of the hire. “If someone automatically puts an ATR into my school,” he said, “I would go in there and observe them quite a bit.” --- Chalkbeat

Chalkbeat as usual doesn't get to the heart of the matter. That the DOE is making sure not to provide financial backing to schools taking ATRs - schools I am betting will be chosen based on the ability of the principal to be especially vicious. Note not one contact from the reporter with a comment from an ATR.

They are walking in with targets on their backs.

Mulgrew of course is exposed as a sham supporter of ATRs - instead of screaming about the fair student funding formula he says this:

Principals have historically exaggerated the impact on their school budget of hiring someone from the ATR pool,” he said in a statement. “We have found the impact of hiring a more experienced teacher, whether from the open market or the ATR pool, does not derail a school budget.”

What a crock - of course the higher salary impacts a school budget -- that was the very purpose of Fair Student Funding in the first place -- to incentivize principals to do salary dumps. As usual the UFT comes up on the wrong side of the issue.

The article does at least point up the UFT flip-flop in providing financial support to the school.

Ironically, this is an issue the UFT set out to tackle in its 2014 contract with the Department of Education. A provision in the contract states that schools that hire an ATR teacher would not have that teacher’s salary included in the school’s average teacher salary calculation. That agreement stood for both the 2015–16 and 2016–17 school years. 

“Principals no longer have a reason to pass over more senior educators in favor of newer hires with lower salaries,” the UFT promised in a statement on the 2014 contract posted online.

During the 2016–17 school year, the DOE also offered two options for subsidizing the salaries of ATR members. The first subsidized the costs of permanent ATR hires by 50 percent the first year and 25 percent the next. The second allowed principals to have the full cost of the teacher’s salary subsidized for the 2016–17 year. Ultimately, a total of 372 teachers were hired with those incentives last year. 

But starting in the upcoming school year, neither of those policies will be in place. Schools will not receive the incentives and the salaries of ATR teachers will be included in a school’s average teacher salary once they are permanently hired. 

The UFT declined to comment on the apparent flip-flop, and neither the UFT nor the city’s Department of Education could estimate the average number of years of experience of teachers in the pool.

The article by Daniela Brighenti is oh-so leaning in the direction of the ed deform attacks on ATRs -- behind which is an attack on teacher tenure protections. Daniela might have reached out to some ATRs to get their take -- maybe she thought she would catch something.

This is the lead blurb.

ATR FUNDING When members of the Absent Teacher Reserve are placed this fall, schools will incur the full cost of the new hires, without incentives the city has provided in the past. Chalkbeat

Did Chalkbeat funder Families for Excellent Schools (I'm guessing here) write this piece?

At the top of their article it says: support independent journalism -- my biggest laugh of the day - so far.

Look at the photo that leads their piece -FES gets 20 people out - probably paid - and that becomes the lede.

Look at their headline:

draining the pool [echo of Trump draining the swamp]

New York City’s plan to place teachers from its Absent Teacher Reserve pool could take a bite out of school budgets

Here is the complete article:

 http://www.chalkbeat.org/posts/ny/2017/08/03/new-york-citys-plan-to-place-teachers-from-its-absent-teacher-reserve-pool-could-take-a-bite-out-of-school-budgets/

Reminder of ATR Meeting Sat. Nov. 19 1-4 PM - ATR History - 2008 Rally Redux

A really energizing video. You captured the essence of both events. That RW set up the informational session at HQ to run simultaneously with the militant event outside Tweed is grounds for recall.... the apoplexy of her crew was borderline hysterical (funny and overwrought). Wine and cheese...you can't make it up.... Comments on ed notes, Nov. 30, 2008

In prep for tomorrow's ATR event at CUNY, https://www.facebook.com/events/1315597125131158/?ti=icl


I was asked to review the events of Nov. 2008 and checked back in the Ed Notes archives. The Nov. 30, 2008 piece by Angel Gonzalez outlines the events of Nov. 24 2008 as the UFT and DOE tried to undercut the rally.  (The rally sparked us to found the  Grassroots Education Movement (GEM) a few months later which was the precursor of MORE.)

In all my years of being involved this was one of the best grassroots rallies - it pulled out 200 or more people -- and I've always hoped the ATRs would do something again but despite various attempts by Angel and me and others through 2011 to use GEM as an organizing tool, nothing ever jelled again.

Since the UFT tried to split the rally I went to the wine and cheese UFT diversion while David Bellel taped the rally itself at Tweed - the UFT stationed people at the subway to try to divert people away from the rally to the wine and cheese. At 6PM the UFT leadership meandered uptown toward the rally with Randi trying to convince me to give her the tape. I broke the tape into 2 parts. Most people only watch Part 1 - watch Part 2 which includes Randi's walk up Broadway and how she tried to speak - as did Leo Casey.

Here was the intro to the videos:

On November 24, 2008, teachers without positions, known as ATRs, held a rally at Tweed. They had forced the UFT to endorse the rally but in the interim the UFT signed an agreement with the DOE. The leadership called for an information meeting at UFT HQ, a mile away at the very same time the rally was due to start. Mass confusion. I taped the UFTHQ while David Bellel did the rally. The back story is how desperate UFT leaders were to suppress the tape I made. In fact, today at the Delegate Assembly they will pass a gag rule to try to prevent future embarrassment.

Part 1 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Ac-Ul1m8-0




Part 2 - watch Randi get shouted down by irate ATRs.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hG4xrbgiGqU



There was an ATR support blog which covered the events:
http://supportatrs.blogspot.com/

Tonight's Great Demo -- We Stood Up for the ATRs

Here is Angel's excellent report on Nov. 30, 2008

ATRs/Seniority Rights: The Fight for All Members' Rights

Guest column

By Angel Gonzalez, Retired UFT Teacher - November 30, 2008

The October Delegate Assembly (DA) resolution calling for a mass Nov.24 rally at the DOE was initiated by ATR Ad-Hoc Committee members who were supported by UFT opposition caucuses (e.g. ICE and TJC) and many other delegates who understand that seniority is a sacrosanct union provision.

The resolution called for a protest to support the ATRS:

"THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED, that the UFT will organize a mass citywide rally to show our unity and strength, calling on the NYC Department of Education to reduce class size and give assigned positions to all teachers in the Absent Teacher Reserve who want assignments before any new teachers are hired."

While Randi Weingarten initially signaled tepid approval for this friendly amendment to support the ATRs, she simultaneously threatened to cancel support--and move the body to reject it--if she did not agree with the argument (the motivator) for it as presented by John Powers. The DA did overwhelmingly approve the call for this "Support the ATRs" rally, with Ms. Weingarten's subsequent approval.

Perhaps Ms. Weingarten's reluctance to support such a militant mobilization, initiated at the grass roots, was due to the realization that the source of the ATRs' predicament lay in our last [two] contracts, in which the UFT Executive Board negotiated away seniority transfer rights. For years, the UFT leadership's strategy has been to lobby government officials for "favors" to our members in exchange for an endorsement from our union. This focus on intimacy at the top has contributed to our leaders' becoming disconnected from our day-to-day reality in the classroom. Depending upon fickle politicians as opposed to the strength and conviction of our members has served to backfire on teachers and the students and families we serve.

The DA is the body that should direct the UFT Executive Board. If this is so, why do so many delegates feel that the Executive Board has to approve our decisions in order for them to be realized? In truly democratic structures, the leadership fulfills the will of the membership—not the other way around. Our DA saw an opportunity to seize the moment and affirm that reducing class size while also allowing our experienced teachers to continue to offer their expertise benefits students and honors the hard-won rights that our colleagues fought so hard for in years past.

As the Nov. 24 date set for the rally approached, and as rank and file members began to be energized with the feeling that together we were finally fighting back, the UFT Executive Board was quietly negotiating--what can only be characterized as a back-room deal--to temporarily stall the dismantling of seniority and tenure. It is unclear if the motivation for these discussions was to assuage the powerful City Administration who obviously did not approve of an angry rally exposing the outrage of the ATR fiasco, or to quell the spontaneous mobilization of so many members who felt that they were helping to construct a movement to defend our rights.

Ms. Weingarten's proposal to alter the character of the rally into a silent candle-light vigil would have reduced us to a group of passive mourners, as opposed to a body of professionals rightly proclaiming what belongs to us, while exposing the City's ill-conceived and costly indignation to which it condemns our ATRs. The DA was correct in identifying the need for a mass rally, and strong member opposition to a "silent vigil" forced the Executive Board to back down.

A week before the rally, further attempts to squelch it materialized in the "deal" brokered by the Executive Board and the City—again only a temporary band-aid on a gaping wound. This agreement encourages, rather than mandates, placement of ATRs with an administration whose track record has shown unprecedented commitment to eat away at public unions' power. It is tantamount to having the fox watch the chicken coop. The deal was characterized as a resolution to the issue by the UFT leadership, who decided there was no need for a rally after all.

It would appear that the threat of the rally was being utilized by the UFT leadership to maneuver this deal. This is corroborated by the fact that the Union made no genuine efforts to mobilize or organize in any broad way for this event. However, the passion of the members and our just cause began to take on a life of its own, beyond the leadership's control. Teachers are tired of give-backs. We deserve more respect than that.

The final blow to this member-driven initiative was the Executive Board's decision to call for a meeting to celebrate the band-aid "agreement" at Wall Street [UFT] Headquarters, at exactly the same time as the rally! A leadership that truly supported its members' needs and aspirations would have instead supported this rally. A subsequent meeting could have announced the proposed temporary stop-gap measure, with the recognition that serious errors were made in the 2005 negotiations—the framework that set these unfortunate events in motion.

Regardless, the ATR rally started at 4PM, bringing out over 200 spirited members -- thanks to the hard work of the rank and file organizers. Many speakers denounced both the City and the UFT officials who created this situation and allowed it to fester so long.

Although Ms. Weingarten declared that the rally was unnecessary at the 4pm Wall Street "wine and cheese" meeting, she appeared with a bullhorn as the rally was winding down at 6pm (with about 75 people). She gave lukewarm thanks to the organizers, perhaps to assert a certain level of control or to save face, in light of such strong grass roots sentiment regarding what many have defined as a carefully crafted strategy to chip away at tenure .

When Marjorie Stamberg, a key rally organizer, approached the bullhorn to address the crowd, Ms. Weingarten refused to let her speak, chastising her "for what she did." The crowd chanted: "Let Marjorie speak!" forcing Ms. Weingarten to relent. After Marjorie spoke, many members began to chant: "Restore Seniority Transfer Rights Now!"

Clearly frazzled with the dissidence targeted at UFT leadership, the Executive Board's contingent left the rally.

This rally was an excellent beginning in our hard battle ahead to restore our contractual seniority transfer rights, to protect tenure, and to bolster and defend our contract.

In a truly democratic union, the leadership has faith in and responds to the will of the membership. The "deals" that have been made over the past 30 years to "save" unions have in fact resulted in the dismantling of Trade Unions and workers' rights across this country.

We cannot abide continued UFT complicity with the City's plans, which waste valuable qualified experienced educators--and over $75 million annually--while further diminishing the quality of education that our children deserve. Our communities have the right to know that part of this plan results in experienced and quality educators being replaced with less costly, less experienced teachers, thus impacting negatively on the quality of education for their children.

The lack of information, transparency and open debate in our union denies member input into critical issues about pedagogy and historic union rights. An uninformed membership gives even a well-intentioned leadership free rein to function as it pleases. As the economy worsens, we need to take a strong stand in defense of the rights of teachers and communities, rather than to facilitate the erosion of all that has been built over the years.

From the momentum generated by the ATR Ad-Hoc Committee, we could help to build a democratic movement within the UFT that recognizes that our strength derives from our members' interactions, conversations and mobilizations. Such efforts will require a great deal of work, but the alternative is to passively stand by as we observe the destruction of quality education and ALL of our members' rights.

We need to build the fight for a UFT contract that promotes and defends:
1. Seniority Rights
2. Tenure Rights
3. Smaller Class Size
4. Against All Merit Pay Schemes
5. Against the use of testing to rate teacher performance
6. Quality and Justice - Not Testing
7. No cutbacks
8. No more privatization schemes (Charter Schools and vouchers inclusive)
9. No layoffs and more.

Our current UFT leadership has not indicated its commitment to achieve these goals—it is up to the members to make this happen!

For more about the ATR Rally, the ATR issue, the current UFT-ATR agreement with the City and other comments go to:

http://supportatrs.blogspot.com/ and

http://iceuftblog.blogspot.com/search?updated-min=2008-01-01T00%3A00%3A00-05%3A00&updated-max=2009-01-01T00%3A00%3A00-05%3A00&max-results=50

Details for the event tomorrow:

Arthur Goldstein suggested MORE hold an event for ATRS where they get to speak and discuss issues of importance to them. He asked an expert on ATRs - blogger Chaz if he would be there to share his knowledge. What will be the outcome? Could be some proposals or just a place where ATRs emerge with more knowledge than they had going in. At the very least some discussion on dealing with gotcha supervisors and protecting themselves.
In addition - there will be some talk about ATRs who have gotten permanent positions and how that occurred - not many but some.

ATR Information Event

Please share with ATRs in your school

History: How the DOE and UFT created this mess starting with the 2005 contract, the 2008 ATR rally, the UFT wine and cheese party, the 2011 deal where ATRS were sacrificed (weekly rotation) for no layoffs,  the 2014 agreement plus recent updates.

Know your rights and lack thereof; how to deal with roving supervisors; survival techniques

Fighting back. What do we want? What can we do to pressure UFT and DOE for change?

Experienced ATRs will be on hand to answer questions.  Special guests: blogger Chaz's School Daze, James and Camille Eterno and Ex Bd member Arthur Goldstein.

Saturday, Nov. 19, 1:00 PM-4PM

CUNY Grad Center, 5^th Ave between 34^th and 35^th St. Bring ID.

Room 5414

Sponsored by MORE/UFT and Independent Community of Educators

MORE Holds ATR Informational Event - Next Saturday, Nov. 19 1-4 PM

Arthur Goldstein suggested MORE hold an event for ATRS where they get to speak and discuss issues of importance to them. He asked an expert on ATRs - blogger Chaz if he would be there to share his knowledge. What will be the outcome? Could be some proposals or just a place where ATRs emerge with more knowledge than they had going in. At the very least some discussion on dealing with gotcha supervisors and protecting themselves.
In addition - there will be some talk about ATRs who have gotten permanent positions and how that occurred - not many but some.

ATR Information Event

Please share with ATRs in your school

History: How the DOE and UFT created this mess starting with the 2005 contract, the 2008 ATR rally, the UFT wine and cheese party, the 2011 deal where ATRS were sacrificed (weekly rotation) for no layoffs,  the 2014 agreement plus recent updates.

Know your rights and lack thereof; how to deal with roving supervisors; survival techniques

Fighting back. What do we want? What can we do to pressure UFT and DOE for change?

Experienced ATRs will be on hand to answer questions.  Special guests: blogger Chaz's School Daze, James and Camille Eterno and Ex Bd member Arthur Goldstein.

Saturday, Nov. 19, 1:00 PM-4PM

CUNY Grad Center, 5^th Ave between 34^th and 35^th St. Bring ID.

Room 5414

Sponsored by MORE/UFT and Independent Community of Educators

An ATR Tells Us a Story - Where is the UFT's Plan of Assistance to Defend an ATR Under Assault?

A MORE contact, a former chapter leader, reached out to us

Support should be in quotes

because she felt an ATR who was rotated into her school and had impressed many people, was being set up by the field supervisor (failed supervisor in many cases).

In one of the best conversations I've had with an ATR, it took a few fascinating hours for me to get the full story from the ATR and it is clear there is an unfair vendetta going on coming from the field supervisor on up. Other than one scumbag principal, the other schools being rotated into have been fairly supportive and even in some cases resisted attempts to set him up. (Yes there are witnesses to requests that he be given the worst class timed to the field supervisor visit.)

I got names and numbers as we worked up the chain of command but still have to do more digging.

Because our primary aim is to protect the ATR we are treading very carefully and not publishing many details and may not be able to do so until things are further along in the process. The good thing is that the fear he was operating under seems to have been broken once it became clear what his fate will be.

We are also developing a strategy of defense that goes beyond the narrow confines of what the UFT offers, which is precious little. One of the options on the table is trying to use contacts in MORE to look for job openings that might free him from ATR status (One MORE CL has already gotten 4 ATRs regular jobs in his school.)

When and if the full story comes out we will see just how the UFT does as little as it can. Like when you ask if the DOE people can do something that is outrageous the UFT response is "they can." End of story -- no sense that they will try to fight the rule that allows the response "they can."

This ATR has been in a lot of schools and has a smart analysis of what is working and what is not in each one. A deep repository of knowledge of just how deep this system sucks resides in the body of ATRs - and this is just one part of the story of why the DOE wants to break so many ATRs to the point where they appear to be paranoiac lunatics.

While he says in every school most teachers are miserable, there are still a bunch of schools where he came away with respect for the principal and the rest of the administration. There was only one school with an awful principal and when we can we will expose the school and the principal. We will also praise and slam the particular people up and down the line who helped or acted like slime.

Included is an interesting story about a consulting firm hired to help go after ATRs that has ties to the Mulgrew family.

One clear sign you have become a target - whether an ATR or not - is when they ask you to sign the dreaded "Plan of Assistance" and the "log of assistance" where they demonstrate how they "helped" you.

Maybe it is time for ATRs to ask the UFT for a plan of assistance on how they will stand up for you and keep their own log of non-assistance.

ATR James Eterno Elected Delegate from Middle College HS; Why are there ATRS at all?

James' election by a staff that probably had little knowledge of the ATR situation until James arrived, is a significant breakthrough. James proved to his colleagues in every school he was sent to that the vision being promoted about ATRS - as incompetent - and worse - was false.

Having James Eterno back at the DA, along with his pal Arthur Goldstein reporting back is a win-win for us all.

Before I get to the story about James' election as delegate to a school that he probably won't be in this fall, I want to comment on the general ATR situation.

That James Eterno has not been snapped up by schools all over the city is a testament to the disaster the ATR/Open market/end of seniority. The 2005 contract opened the door to massive ed deform once the DOE was freed from having to assign people based on seniority, a system with some flaws, but one that worked, on the whole. Having a thousand or more people floating around the system year after year is a form of insanity.

The essence of the problem to me is the free market approach to education. In that world no principal should ever be forced to accept a teacher they don't want - even if the principal is nuts, or racist or whatever - the principal is king (or queen) and the teacher is mud.

Now we know that BloomKlein wanted to just fire people after 6 months or a year but that would have sunk the 2005 contract, which despite massive publicity, the opposition managed to get almost 40% to vote NO. So BloomKlein knew that had a basic winner in that contract and were willing to take on the costs of maintaining an ATR system as a loss leader- figuring that over time they would get the rest of what they wanted. I believe, the UFT seeing what happened in Chicago where the firing of teachers outright was a key element in overturning that union leadership, realized that they couldn't afford the political price of firing people. So instead, the UFT has worked with the DOE - with a wink and nod - to try to marginalize the ATRs and separate them from the rest of the members to the point where they would just turn their backs on them - figuring it would never happen to them (most don't seem to see the charter school tsunami coming).

Thus, James' election by a staff that probably had little knowledge of the ATR situation until James arrived, is a significant breakthrough. James proved to his colleagues in every school he was sent to that the vision being promoted about ATRS - as incompetent - and worse - was false.

Most massive organized systems like the DOE - have some formats that assign people to other positions when jobs disappear - and in the DOE, often intentionally disappeared. I remember the day that a young black man was assigned to our school by the district to teach special ed. We had no black male teachers in our school - in fact, I don't think we had ever had one. Looked like a win-win for us. My principal, who I suspected - due to upbringing and political views - had biased views on race - sent him back to the district - she didn't want him. The district sent him back to the school. She sent him back to the district - they sent him back a 3rd time -- I remember him sitting on the bench outside the office. I asked him what was going on - he shrugged. In the end, the principal had to accept him and he became an integral part of our staff one of the most popular people in our school. The thought has never left me that the only reason the principal kept sending him back was that he was a black man. In later years when we became friendly he seemed to agree -- but he was accepting of that as the way the world worked.

I tell this story because of the seeming horror whenever we suggest that excess people should be permanently assigned to schools, the way it was done for almost a century in this school system.

Here is James' story on the ICE blog of his election. He has told me that there are some amazing colleagues at his school who went very far towards helping him get elected. Kudos to them.

MIDDLE COLLEGE HS SENDS ATR TO DA

 

Eterno Off ATR Rotation Pool But Still An ATR - Time for UFT to Establish an ATR Chapter

For those of you who are following my travelogue around the high schools of Queens, I have some news. I am being taken off the Absent Teacher Reserve Rotation train wreck by Middle College High School for the rest of the 2014-15 school year. Middle College was one of the schools I wandered through this fall.  Apparently, I did something right there as they called me in for an interview for a Leave Replacement Teacher position.  I don't know how to say thank you enough to Principal Linda Siegmund and her faculty for rescuing me from ATR rotations to let me actually teach again. The new trimester starts today.  Middle College is a very progressive school that I am looking forward to working in... James Eterno on the ICE blog.

It is not often we have cause to celebrate the actions of principals but let's hail Linda Siegmund for giving James an opportunity despite his notoriety as a union activist and former opposition presidential candidate (2010) against Mulgrew. Given that James and Camille saw the birth of their 2nd child back in July this is also a much-needed stability factor in their lives.

Arthur Goldstein at NYC Educator blog has a strong piece on the ATR situation today: An ATR by Any Other Name

"If you aren't treated the same as every other working teacher, it's ludicrous to say you're the same as every other working teacher."

I'd like to get a list of the limits on ATRs even when they get a year-long provisional appointment. We know that they can never accumulate school seniority or even put in a preference sheet and in some cases can't get per session. In fact a provisional who would like permanent placement has to be very well behaved and pretty much give up any protections in the contract. And imagine their VAM ratings - do provisional ATRs get rated and observed by their admins the same way?

Isn't it time for the UFT to stop stonewalling and establish an ATR chapter? MORE brought this up at the October DA and it was turned down by Unity.

Resolution  for  Full  Union  Representation  for  ATRs  

 Whereas,  the  Delegate  Assembly  is  the  highest  policy  making  body  in  the  United  Federation  of   Teachers,  and

 Whereas,  federal  labor  law  requires  that  policy  making  bodies  within  a  union  be  democratically   elected  with  each  member  entitled  to  a  vote,  and
 Whereas,  Absent  Teacher  Reserves  (ATRs)  are  not  entitled  to  vote  in  Chapter  Elections  unless  they   happen  to  be  working  in  a  school  that  has  a  Chapter  Election  during  a  particular  week  that  the  ATR  is   working  in  a  school,  and
 Whereas,  unions  can  set  up  reasonable  rules  as  to  who  can  run  for  office,  but  it  is  not  reasonable  that   ATRs  including  Leave  Replacement  Teachers  and  Provisional  Teachers  cannot  run  or  serve  as   Delegates  or  Chapter  Leaders  simply  because  they  belong  to  no  Chapter,  and
Whereas,  the  ATR  position  has  now  been  embedded  in  the  UFT  contract  in  Section  16  of  the  2014   Memorandum  of  Agreement,  therefore  be  it

Resolved,  that  the  UFT  will  immediately  create  a  Functional  Chapter  to  represent  the  interests  of   ATRs,  Leave  Replacement  Teachers  and  Provisional  Teachers.

 Here is James' full post:

I'M BEING LET OFF THE INSANE ATR ROTATION TRAIN FOR NOW

Unfortunately, this experienced teacher may very well be back on the train next year due to his max salary. 

 

UFT Contract: Jeff Kaufman Dissects the ATR Issue Plus a Video Interview - Should All Teachers Be Frightened? HELL YES!

Jeff does a great job in tearing apart the ATR agreement in the new contract at the ICE blog.

After the DA he was interviewed by a reported for The Chief and went into the problems with due process in both the old and new contracts, pointing to how the DOE plays political games with teachers.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U1uGevRjTb0&feature=share&list=UU9iVb99ewF1omA6LbPUWEOg






http://iceuftblog.blogspot.com/2014/05/the-problematic-language-is-not-only.html

The “Problematic” Language is Not the Only Part of the Agreement that is Problematic

Absent Teacher Reserve

In order to fully understand the insidious nature of the proposed contract’s ATR provisions it is necessary to break down the language.

1.    Definition.  An ATR is anyone in excess after the first day of school
who is not a para or OT/PT.

2.    Severance. A severance program is established in which an ATR can collect from 1 week of pay for 3 to 4 years of service up to 10 weeks of pay for ATRs with more than 20 years’ service. ATRs are only eligible for this program during a narrow 30 day window between 30 and 60 days of ratification of the contract.

Problematic:  If, as Mulgrew stated at the DA, the contract is approved by the first week of June this entire window will be in the summer.

3.    Interviews. Each year from September 15 through October 15 the DOE will make an effort to schedule interviews for ATRs with principals in their district/borough and license areas. After October 15 the ATRs may be sent to interviews. “An ATR that declines or fails to report to an interview, upon written request of it, two or more times without good cause shall be treated as having voluntarily resigned his/her employment.”

Problematic:  This provision is unprecedented. There is no limit placed on the number of interviews or the length of time that the 2 failures to report must be committed. Additionally since the language is “declines or fails” the DOE need only document two missed interviews and the burden shifts to the teacher to convince an arbitrator (while receiving no pay since the teacher has been determined to have voluntarily resigned) that she had “good cause” for not showing up. There is no provision for “expedited arbitrations” and it appears the challenge to the DOE action of forcible resignation must go through the grievance procedure. If a teacher misses the first interview how will the DOE determine if it was with or without good cause. Glaringly omitted is any procedure for this determination. Under the provisions of our current contract a teacher may be brought up on 3020-a charges for an allegation of two missed interviews without good cause. Assuming the DOE would even try to dismiss a teacher for failure to attend an interview there is not an arbitrator on our panel that would even consider dismissal for the most egregious violation. Rather the UFT has joined with the DOE to effectively terminate a tenured teacher’s employment without the protections of 3020-a. The resulting grievance would not be decided using 3020-a or its history of protections. While Mulgrew might say “so be it” as he stated at the recent DA he and anyone who votes for this contract is basically saying you will not be protected.

This same provision applies to an ATR assignment only under the proposed contract you have only one chance to fail to appear for the assignment within 2 days or you will be considered to have voluntarily resigned. Again, the only way, under the language of the proposed contract to challenge the DOE’s determination that a teacher has failed, without good cause, to have appeared within 2 days is by way of the grievance procedure where the burden is on the teacher to prove good cause to sustain the grievance.

4.    Assignment of ATRs. Two classes of ATRs are created under the contract proposal. One class, those ATRs who have a disciplinary history where by a finding or stipulation resulted in a suspension of 30 days or more or a fine of $2,000 or more and those who do not have such disciplinary history. Those with the discipline history are not required to be assigned to a temporary position (in other words left to the weekly humiliation of traveling as a sub from school to school).

Problematic:  While the anti-teacher animus of creating this distinction is patently obvious it is clearly a disciplinary distinction which causes those ATRs with a disciplinary history to be further disciplined without any cause. The stigma of a past disciplinary record (teachers settle cases for a variety of reasons having nothing to do with guilt or innocence) carries forward. There is no time limit for the disciplinary history. Civil Service Law prevents allegations (except criminal ones) over 3 years to be used as the basis of discipline in a termination hearing yet a case settled or found more than 3 years ago can put you in this class. This sends a message to the arbitrators that you are to be treated differently should you have a history.

It is no secret that many arbitrations end in some level of finding even where teachers are have been found to be innocent of the major charge. Arbitrators are political beings and are sensitive to these distinctions.

5.    Principal removal of ATR after assignment. Under the proposed contract a principal (not the teacher) has the complete discretion to return a teacher to the ATR pool. If the return is based on “problematic behavior,” defined as “behavior that is inconsistent with the expectations established for professionals working in school.” An ATR accused in two writings within two years of this “problematic behavior” may be accused of a “pattern of problematic behavior” which can become the basis of an “expedited 3020-a hearing” in which a hearing must be completed in one day (half day to each side) within 20 days that the teacher requests a hearing. The decision must be made within 15 days of the hearing date.

Problematic:  Under our present contract there is a provision for time and attendance expedited hearings under 3020-a. These expedited hearings may not result in termination and while they were problematic on their own the issues involved (as far as the charges were concerned) were clear; you were either at work or not. The explanations were generally unconvincing to Marty Scheinman (an arbitrator selected by the UFT for these expedited hearing) but as long as teachers knew they weren’t going to be terminated they reluctantly accepted either the agreement or decision.

The proposed contract goes over broad. What is considered problematic is itself problematic. After I researched the term problematic behavior in the case law I found references to special education students who brought IDEA cases against the DOE for failing to provide needed services. These students’ behavior was termed problematic. For a teacher I could find no case involving problematic behavior so the arbitrators are left to discern this provision without our rich history of 3020-a hearings as precedent or guidance. While the burden still rests on the DOE (it is, after all a 3020-a hearing) the expedited nature of the proceeding might and probably hurt an accused teacher. There are no time limits for the DOE to provide charges or serve the written statements of problematic behavior. Under the language of the proposal there is no clear right to grieve the first (or second, for that matter) written notice of problematic behavior. Clearly, by definition, ATRs will have no relationship with the school they have been determined to be problematic yet they (and their representatives) will be put on a crash course to prepare for the hearing which might end in the ATRs termination. While Mulgrew cited the phrase “justice delayed is justice denied” as an argument for the diminution of our 3020-a rights the fact is there is no justice in ramming through a hearing that the accused has no time or ability to defend. This is class Star Chamber procedure.

The acceptance of this procedure as a perceived benefit signals our union’s position in future contracts where it appears all teachers will “enjoy” the benefit of expedited and ill-defined termination proceedings.

This proposal is anathema to the good order of the teaching profession and must be completely understood before it is blindly accepted.

Retired Chapter Leader Slams UFT in Eval Deal, ATRs and Support for RTTT

The UFT claims we should be treated the same as regular teachers but they seem to have abandoned us and are sliding away from all members concerns....I and several others approached Amy, Jose and the other UFT leaders at the one ATR meeting and expressed our desire to contribute to the UFT our unique perspectives and substantiated concerns about violations to our contract. The UFT was not interested and they were informing us to be glad that our jobs had been saved.

..... An ATR

From a recently retired chapter leader:

Dear Norm,

It is with such trepidation, felt by many, that the implementation of the new teacher evaluation will be enforced in the 2013-2014 school year.  I just read Lynne Winderbaum’s posting in JD2718.org and wondered if the ATRs will be unfairly evaluated.  They are not assigned to a roster of students for an entire year so as to determine if there was an actual 20% growth measure.  How will they be evaluated and will it be fair?

I received an email from an ATR who was very concerned about the implications that the new teacher evaluation might have on her and others in the ATR pool.

She writes:

“I have found that many schools DO NOT have chapter leaders or they DO NOT introduce themselves to the ATR. I have called the UFT and spoken to several different people and I have found that they gave me the advise to FIND the chapter leader or come in and speak to someone at the UFT. I find this very disheartening since we are only there for five days and we need immediate action. Also I and several others approached Amy, Jose and the other UFT leaders at the one ATR meeting and expressed other desire to contribute to the UFT our unique perspectives and substantiated concerns about violations to our contract. The UFT was not interested and they were informing us to be glad that our jobs had been saved. The UFT has a worth of information that can be gathered from ATRs that can attest to the issue that many members face at various schools. it is not the word of one but of  different weekly members observing the conditions. We have not been included in any meaningful PDs or training's on the new standards but are expected to apply for employment in schools implementing these new directives. So sorry to take the long way to answer your question but I felt that needed my insight. Thanks for your continued service.”

Another situation that she encountered in travel from school to school was the following:

” As an ATR I have observed and been subject to the followings things at different schools.;

    1. NO BATHROOM KEYS

    2. NO ELEVATOR KEY

    3. LUNCH TIME SHORTER THAN CLASS ROOM TIMES

    4. BEING GIVEN CLERICAL DUTIES

    5. BEING GIVEN ALL DAY HALL DUTY

    6. NOT GIVEN ASSIGNMENTS FOR STUDENTS IN VARIOUS SUBJECTS

    7. BEING TOLD TO CLOCK IN OR SIGN IN TIME OF ARRIVAL.

Finally ATRs could have been used by the UFT to develop a comprehensive complaint to fight the DOE. ATRs have documents and have experienced the various systems that exist that do NOT comply with UFT or DOE regulations. The UFT had one meeting in October 2012 and NOTHING since then pertaining to ATRs. We also have received NO training in the new standards or the Danielson "experiment". ATRs are experienced professionals and can contribute to the STRENGTH of the dissolving commitment of the UFT. The UFT claims we should be treated the same as regular teachers but they seem to have abandoned us and are sliding away from all members concerns.”

I have not heard anything on how the new teacher evaluation will be utilized if you’re an ATR.  But, I truly hope that the union leadership’s decision to apply for the RttT money and the June 1^st imposition of the new teacher evaluation does not adversely hurt the members who are more than just union dues.