NYC School Workers - Share your school safety reports online - #TeachersofNYC - Ten School Buildings Closed for Tuesday in NYC

Ten Schools Closed for Tuesday in NYC- see list below

As school safety reports come in there has been an overwhelming reaction to some of the follies of how they have been gathered with visits of DOE and UFT officials, leaving out the chapter leaders who wanted to be there too. Then the burden of following up falls on the shoulders of the chapter leaders who are often confused. I'm going to follow up with more details but for now if you have a report you can put them up online where 
#TeachersofNYC has been collecting reports. Go for it.

Here are some that have been gathered so far at https://sites.google.com/view/teachersofnyc/safety-reports.

CEC 14 (Williamsburg/Greenpoint Brooklyn) Resolution on School Reopening/ Mayor tours a D. 14 School, and Eva Ain't there so there is room in schools

Norm here - Sept. 4, 2020

The Community Education Council of District 14, which includes Greenpoint, Williamsburg and the northern end of Bed-Stuy, has come out with a very strong statement on opening schools, basically calling for full-scale remote learning until their concerns are met. There's a lot of depth to the statement, so please read it through. It's an indication of the major push back to the plans to open schools even with the delay.

One of the issues that has concerned me about the hard core remotes from a social justice point of view has been the childcare and learning gap from remote learning facing the most vulnerable people who get hurt the most from keeping schools closed.

They address this issue in this whereas and resolved:

Whereas the DOE has yet to address the gaps in access to childcare created by remote and blended learning models for our low income families, essential workers and those who cannot work from home but must continue to provide for their families

Be it resolved that in person services & programming be allotted to our most vulnerable students such as students with learning disabilities, students in families of essential workers, and children of single or low income parents first and foremost, with the caveat that even they cannot re-enter school buildings without adequate personnel, equipment, cleaning supplies, testing, tracing & isolation procedures in place that account for social distancing and mask wearing,

I'm still not sure the demand totally solves the problem. I don't think we can afford caveats -- schools must open for these children and priority should be given to making sure enough space is available. Call for volunteers, contributions and whatever it takes. By saying we have to wait for these demands to be met by an often incompetent DOE is a form of punting. As Jean Luc Picard said, Make it so number 1. No excuses. If the vulnerable are our priority first we know all these demands can be met immediately by shifting resources. In essence their demand is to keep the schools closed.

I spent my entire 38 years at the DOE (the last 3 part-time) working in District 14, until recently historically one of the most conservative districts in the city in the entire time I worked there. In fact I can write an entire book on the history of the school board wars in that district where a tiny white Greenpoint majority in a district that at the time was well over 90% Latinx and Black controlled the school board which dealt with k-8 schools from 1970 through the end of community control in 2002.

So seeing how progressive the CEC 14 has become includes many embedded strands about massive changes in our neighborhoods. (I lived through these type of changes in the opposite direction in East NY Brooklyn (District 19) on the 60s when the neighborhood went from mostly white to overwhelming people of color.)
The numbers given below, 58% Latinx students and 21% African American, show clear signs of the 25 years of gentrification in the district which I would assume is now over 30% white and scattered beyond Greenpoint. District 14 has the most charters in the city per capital and Eva occupies space in a number of buildings and since she is staying full remote her buildings are empty and available. There is no mention of this.

In the meantime, probably based on this statement, we read that Friday the Mayor toured a District 14 school:

Mayor Tours Bed-Stuy School Readying For In-Person Reopening | Bed-Stuy, NY Patch

September 3, 2020

Whereas community school district 14 is comprised of 58% Latinx students and 21% African American students whose families are disproportionately impacted by the health disparities exacerbated by covid 19,

Whereas almost 2,000 students in community school district 14 were designated English Language Learners in the 2019 school year, not including our multilingual families and families of mixed documentation status, affecting their ability to access life saving and pertinent information regarding Covid 19 and school reopening,

Whereas 32% of community school district 14 students had IEPs in the 2019 school year which require services that have proven challenging to render in the digital space, causing trauma and regression for some of our most vulnerable learners despite the best efforts of our paras, occupational therapists and other support staff; but also presents safety concerns in the physical space with infection rates varying across our city full of student commuters using mass transit,

Whereas the DOE has yet to address the gaps in access to childcare created by remote and blended learning models for our low income families, essential workers and those who cannot work from home but must continue to provide for their families,

Whereas we know the data used to suggest school reopening can be successful is skewed due to a lack of access, information and engagement with tens of thousands of families, particularly in the Bronx and Brooklyn where individual infections rates are well above the accepted average for a safe reopening,

Whereas scientists don’t yet know the long-term health affects of COVID-19 on adults or young people and we refuse to gamble on the health of our students,

Whereas we support parent choice, but find it disingenuous that parents would be given options before they’ve been consulted or fully informed and forced to choose between various plans, they didn’t have the opportunity to help develop,

Whereas, we stand with teachers, custodians, kitchen staff, school aides, secretaries, counselors, paras, arts educators, physical education instructors and more school staff who have not been engaged in a meaningful way with regard to the school reopening conversation,

Whereas the brunt of planning for this unprecedented time for our school communities was unfairly placed on individual Principals and school leadership teams who are not public health professionals and have widely disparate access to the funding and personnel needed to make their school communities safe,

Whereas the Movement of Rank and File Educators, the Alliance for Quality Education, the United Federation of Teachers, The Custodial Engineers Union, the School Aide & Cafeteria Workers Union, The New York State Nurses Association and the Council of School Administrators have all come out in support of a delayed reopening and our needs cannot be feasibly Met with a week and a half extension that doesn’t address the lack of resources schools and families experiencing,

Whereas Principals in school districts 1, 2, 6, 9, 13 and 15 have come out in support of a delayed reopening.

Whereas elected officials such as City Council member and Education Committee Chair Mark Treyger, Public Advocate Jumaane Williams and CMs Brannan and Gondardes have come out in support of a delayed reopening, and have already spoken out against what a 10 day delay leaves to be desired,

Whereas equitable, community focused plans and suggestions for a phased, delayed, safe and equitable reopening have been created by The Urban Assembly Maker Academy, the Coalition for Educational Justice, The Alliance for Quality Education, Public Advocate Williams, Councilman Treyger and Parents for Responsive Equitable Safe Schools (PRESS NYC) which represents parents and teachers from over 10 school districts throughout the city of New York,

Whereas out of over 200 parents, students, teachers and elected officials who testified at the August panel for educational policy meeting, only ONE spoke in favor of schools reopening on September 10th,

Whereas over 50 teachers, students, parents, grandparents, PA, PTA, SLT members and principals from over 20 schools in district 14 convened in the second week of a August to discuss our current situation and co create a resolution that would meet the pressing needs of each family in our diverse district,

Whereas on August 24th, over 50 district 14 Principals, Assistant Principals and administrators penned an open letter to the chancellor, governor, mayor and district leadership calling for a delayed reopening, many of whom are happy for the current delay but still need more time,

Be it resolved that community school district 14 delay school reopening in solidarity with its administrators, educators, school support staff, families and students until a plan that addresses the aforementioned issues is in place with the funding, infrastructure, and personnel to bring it to fruition safely and equitably,

Be it resolved that community school district 14 create a phased plan for reinstating in school learning at such a time as we have the funding and personnel necessary for a safe return for EACH school in the district rather than allowing inequities to grow based on which school communities are able to raise their own funds to protect themselves and each other, which none of us should have to,

Be it resolved that in person services & programming be allotted to our most vulnerable students such as students with learning disabilities, students in families of essential workers, and children of single or low income parents first and foremost, with the caveat that even they cannot re-enter school buildings without adequate personnel, equipment, cleaning supplies, testing, tracing & isolation procedures in place that account for social distancing and mask wearing,

Be it resolved that community school district 14 ensure that critical school re opening, covid 19 and relevant resource documents be translated in the languages relevant to our diverse community including but not limited to Spanish, Polish, Chinese and Arabic.

Be it resolved that families who have struggled with lack of technology access and training to use said technology, language barriers that prevent communication with schools or other accessibility issues be provided paper packets mailed to their homes in addition to the use of robo calls in each language represented in a given school community.

Be it resolved that community school district 14 leadership advocate for funding and work with mutual aid organizers, community based organizations, childcare centers and other relevant service providers to answer the call of impacted families with no adequate childcare available to them in any of the 3 models the department of education has presented and that district leadership advocate for funding for our childcare centers and CBO’s.

Be it resolved that community school district 14 leadership co create socio emotionally supportive, culturally responsive in school and remote learning strategies and pathways to inclusion and accessibility like the department of education should have done, leaning on the collaboration and expertise of anti racist educators, parents and students already doing the work of uprooting inequity,

Be it resolved that community school district 14 include teachers, school staff & personnel, students and families in the reopening process as trusted partners with effective and timely communication, transparency, equity and collaboration at the center of all engagement.

Cc: file TS

Mike Schirtzer, Lone Ex Bd Vote NO - 99-1 - He Explains

I believe Mulgrew and UFT leadership are trying to do everything in their power to ensure our safety. I’m just not sure its enough, hence the vote NO... Mike Schirtzer

Norm here, Sept. 3, 2020, 2 PM

I'm trying to sort out the competing points of view on the recent developments in the return to school as NYC is the only big city that is not going full remote. And we just heard that Eva Moskowitz is going full remote until December -- but I believe it is about money -- why should she spend for PPE and cleaning when she gets the same amount of money for zooming?

Mike Schirtzer calls himself the 1% - the one out of a hundred Ex Bd members who voted NO on agreement and he also was part of the 18% who voted NO at the Del. Ass. Mike is one of two non-Unity Caucus Ex Bd members.

On August 23 Mike wrote a piece on NYC Educator

Strike or Die- It’s Our Choice

He had harsh words for the mayor:

Our union and all unions were built on the belief that an injury to one is an injury to all. The sacrifice you would make for your loved ones is the sacrifice we take on for our union brothers and sisters ask of you.
Will we let another UFT member die? Will we let another of our family members die?
Will we allow our students to walk into conditions that aren’t safe or secure? Will we allow them to risk the health of their family members if they are asymptomatic?
Will we let a mayor that refuses to work with the teachers, principals or parents of NYC force open schools that have no business being open?
We joined a union. This means we never walk alone and when we stand, we stand together.

I thought the Strike or Die point was a bit over the top but reflects the real fears people have, if not for themselves, for family members. Yesterday I was texting with a prominent UFT activist who lives alone with her 71 year old mother who she helps care for and is frightened for her mom if she has to go in to schools.

There are calls for a strike until there is more testing along the lines the union called for originally. When I heard Mulgrew's original testing demand I thought it was absolutely impossible and was clearly a bargaining demand. I also mocked the inept contact tracing, especially with this much testing.

Could Mulgrew have gotten a better deal on testing? Possibly. Would people strike for a better testing deal? I wonder what a membership vote would show.

Mike Schirtzer was asked by someone who condemned "Mulgrew's betrayal" to provide some illumination to what is going on. Mike is clearly ambivalent, as are so many others. At times he seems to be arguing both sides. People who wrestle with issues like these as opposed to push-button ideologues often find a path that works for them.

Have Mike's views changed since Aug. 23's Strike or Die and what caused them to change? Mike is clearly ambivalent and these two articles only ten days apart reflect the agonizing choices facing most of you.

The other independent (non-Unity) Ex Bd member, Arthur Goldstein, is also ambivalent. He felt schools should not open and was absolutely prepared to strike and points out that as Chapter leader of a 300 member school, he spent the past weeks getting his colleagues ready to strike. Arthur put up piece after piece this summer tearing apart the plans to open.

Have things changed? He gives his recent take at NYC Educator. Arthur apparently did not vote NO and in this piece his title somewhat mocks the idea of a sellout:

The Big Sell Out -- http://nyceducator.com/2020/09/the-big-sell-out.html
For the last day or so I've been inundated with messages on Twitter that this agreement is a sell out, that we shouldn't have done it, and all sorts of other things. I understand the feeling. I also understand what our asks were, and what we got. I'm not entirely sure all the critics of what we did have that clear. For the record, I came into this debate wanting only online instruction. I wrote an op-ed in the Daily News back in June saying the hybrid plan made no sense.  I've learned more about it since. For example, we will not be teaching from classrooms and zooming at the same time. Still, I stand by my assessment of the hybrid plan. If anything, it's even worse now that we have this blended learning remote nonsense. This system is poorly thought out, and it will collapse under the weight of its lack of vision.

I hear a lot of this -- that the second we see spread, the plan will collapse. But Arthur also pinpoints the flaws in the concept even if there is no spread. Reading both Arthur and Mike gives us an important perspective that must be added to other voices out there.

Here is Mike's piece.

Why I supported a strike if necessary and voted NO on the agreement, by Mike Schirtzer, UFT Ex Bd, teacher Leon Goldstein HS.

Our union was threatening to strike because we demanded safety protocols in place in every school to protect our communities from COVID and a testing process to ensure we can do robust contact tracing, while keeping those that test positive out of school until they test negative to prevent community spread.

The mayor was steadfast in his opposition to anything our union proposed and would not even meet with the leaders of our union to negotiate.

It was the very threat of a job action and litigation by our union that forced this mayor to come to the negotiating table to address the issue of keeping our children and educators safe. Before that point he wouldn't budge.

Why did we have to come to the brink of a strike to have a mayor sign on to a safety plan developed by scientists and medical experts?

It was our union leadership and rank and file that brought the mayor to the table, because they were willing to say our safety is important enough to strike, as it should be.

Now that I am a parent with a little one to feed, nurture and take care of, I understand the loss of pay or the loss of a place to send my child so I can go to work is something that would have a great impact on myself, my wife, and my child. 

I fully understand the power of a strike threat and the willingness to go on strike has a wide impact that lasts well beyond the strike into future negotiations in addition to building union solidarity among the rank and file. Despite the frightening aspects of striking, there is also a level of excitement for the union - a badge of honor for being part of a massive event. Labor activists understand this full well but the majority of members do not necessarily see beyond the immediate issues at hand. Now if the leadership had engaged in a full education campaign of the membership on a continual basis, things might be different. But they're not.

A strike is not a game, nor should it be taken lightly or with such gusto that the strike, not the reasons we are threatening to do so, becomes the main goal. Union activists that I worked with and struggled with are often guilty of this, as was I before I was a parent with a family. 

On the other side we have a union leadership and staffers that have spent years treating the strike as a boogie man. It was as we should never mention it. It was a thing of the past. "Nowadays we settle everything at the table with our political partners”, was the prevailing wisdom.

Anytime someone from opposition, a dissident like myself, or rank and file member dared to mention strike, we were provided a summary lesson on Taylor Law, why it's illegal and how much it will cost us. I understand the UFT's desire not to strike, yet I don't understand why we ever took it off the table as an option. President Mulgrew threatened strike and was building towards it not because he wanted to provide the membership with a unifying experience with future negotiations in mind, but because we were forced to have a safe reopening plan in place.

As a union it was difficult to transition from scaring everyone away from mentioning the word to trying to actually preparing our members to walk out together. We also have to take into account there is a membership that actually exists, not one that we, those in opposition or dissidents, want to exist. 

Whether we like it or not we have a very divergent membership covering a wide political spectrum. A sizable contingent supports Trump and does not take COVID as seriously as they should. Some would not support a strike and we have to get them to even agree to wear a mask, never mind strike for COVID testing. The UFT leadership held some very contentious meetings with some schools where there was a big push back.

How many of your members and friends would be willing to walk out for a more stringent testing protocol? When this agreement is characterized as "caving in" how many chapters are willing to strike for universal testing, rather the 10-20% percent we agreed to?

Also these are negotiations. I know UTLA (LA teachers union) and CTU (Chicago) are viewed as militant success stories and did use the strike threat to accomplish full-time remote, and having already struck this past year helped, but they too gave up some to gain some. Such is the nature of negotiations. 

This should not have been a management vs. labor issue to begin with. The union wanted to work with the mayor to develop plans during this pandemic. That feeling was obviously not mutual because he did his own thing without the UFT or CSA  - up until now. It is clear that the union leveraged the power of the rank and file to get the mayor to the table to agree to a safety plan, much better than anything we had in place. I hope our union leadership, officers and staffers learned a valuable lesson in the power of rank and file organizing and how the threat of a job action results in victory and we shouldn't take this option off the table as the COVID crisis continues and layoffs loom.

By now you must be asking yourself why I voted NO both at the UFT Executive Board and at the Delegate Assembly against this agreement. First and foremost I didn’t see the actual agreement, other than the email I received earlier Tuesday from Mulgrew and Carranza.

When I asked for the actual agreement in writing at the Executive Board, I was told it’s “an amendment to the plan the mayor and DOE submitted to the state”. I still have yet to see that amendment and initial plan, nor have any of the delegates or executive board members been asked to vote on it. We can’t vote for or against an agreement we haven’t even looked at.

An old friend of mine, a retired chapter leader and long-time union activist and a know-it-all of Robert's Rules of Order told me "in that case you should have abstained". My answer to that is, "No, we can not afford to abstain on matters of life and death. I trust that this agreement is made in good faith."

In no way do I believe president Mulgrew would “betray” us as I have read in many places. As I have had the luxury that many others have not, of working with him and his confidants in recent months, from the paid parental leave campaign we won to working to move our union in a direction of more member engagement and social justice oriented events, to dealing with lack of leadership from government at every level in response to this COVID crisis, I have learned Mulgrew is a good and decent man who does put his members first and really cares about our kids. He is a working-class guy, worked his ass off to become a teacher, and like me, did it by working during the day and going to college at night. In no way do I believe Mulgrew or our union leadership, officers or staffers would do anything to put our members in harm’s way.

I feel better knowing that they are confident that this plan will work and to characterize them as betraying members is unfair. I trust them, but in order to vote yes or no I must see the agreement. I need to see for myself the evidence that says random testing or medical monitoring is better than opening with universal testing for all. I believe our plan is far superior to any out there, but I need to understand why the other large cities, even with low transmission rates are still going all remote and we’re not. Even Eva Moskowitz is going full remote with Success Academy until December.

Without all these facts in front of me, without being a scientist or medical expert, I can't willingly vote yes and send my friends - teachers, school-aides, principals, assistant principals, counselor, librarians, secretaries, paras, nor the students we serve into working conditions we can never guarantee won't be susceptible to transmitting COVID. I have a medical accommodation due to a heart condition and I would rather be at school than remote teaching, but I can't dare let my friends or kids go into a situation I wouldn't.

The schools have been given guideline after guideline from the state, city, and DOE. They sometimes contradict each other and at times make no sense. Our school doesn't have the human capital to even make the safety plan we drew up at school work. Schools are left to make these arrangements without a scientist or medical expert on the ground checking it.

The “checks and balances” Mulgrew talked about in this safety agreement are a necessity because March 2020 at the onset of COVID crisis was a disaster. I still don’t understand what that check and balance is, other than contacting your union representatives, as usual. That’s not fair to chapter leaders or district reps that are trained in contractual issues, not COVID response. I’m sure they will try their hardest, but it is not their area of expertise, nor is it mine. I don't want to see anyone else from DOE or otherwise die from COVID.

I believe Mulgrew and UFT leadership are trying to do everything in their power to ensure our safety. I’m just not sure its enough, hence the vote NO.

EXTRA, EXTRA
=========
Solidarity Caucus goes to court --

Teachers Will Ask Judge To Block In-Person Learning At NYC Public Schools - Gothamist
The filing of an injunctive relief was brought by UFT Solidarity, a subset group within the UFT that's criticized the school reopening plan and the narrow
"It excludes certain groups of people, including people who are cancer patients, people who are parents of small children, who may have opted to go remote," said Lydia Howrilka, a teacher and organizer with UFT Solidarity. "People like myself who are caregivers of elderly parents and guardians who unfortunately will be putting our loved ones at great risk if we were to come into work. Educators have been given this Hobson's Choice of choosing between their livelihoods and their health."

====
Arthur posted the Town Hall report by special guest Mindy Rosier-Rayburn

UFT Town Hall September 2, 2020

 

The Great 2020 NYC Teacher Strike - Or Not - August 31 Edition - NO STRIKE RESO AT EB

Norm here - Monday August 31, 2020 - 8 PM - Phew - I've been updating all day so don't notice the meandering mess of this post. I'm sure new info will be coning in constantly.

The UFT Executive Board did not vote for a strike today - we got an inkling in an earlier report: MAYOR TALKS UFT STRIKE AT PRESSER; LAYOFFS OF CITY WORKERS ON PAUSE FOR NOW

This just in:

The UFT Executive Board gives the union leadership the authority to continue negotiations with City Hall and the DOE on a school opening plan that meets the safety criteria set forth by independent medical experts; or, if negotiations fail, to bring a strike authorization vote to the Delegate Assembly on Sept. 1 starting at 3:30.

They are going to give negotiations another day. Maybe they can get air freshioners -- you know those little Xmas tree things you put in your car. I can see someone running in at 3:29 with a deal.

Read Arthur's EB report:

Still Negotiating, but UFT Can Ask for Strike Authorization Tomorrow

So -  the Delegate Assembly will meet tomorrow and depending on ongoing talks with de Blasio, may vote on a strike reso tomorrow. 

Don't hold your breath but if there is one, with Unity Caucus control and the support of the opposition, which is salivating at the idea of a strike, these votes are a slam dunk. James Eterno's headline yesterday had the essence: ICEUFTBLOG PREDICTS OVERWHELMING SUPPORT FOR JOB ACTION AT UFT EXECUTIVE BOARD AND DA THAT MIGHT NOT SAY MUCH ABOUT WHERE THE UFT MEMBERSHIP IS AT ON THE ISSUE

But if I had to bet, I say NYET - Yes, Putin interferes in UFT affairs too.

And this just in from

The latest post from MORE which definitely wants to strike:

Movement of Rank and File Educators

Contact Tracers: Reopening Schools Will Endanger NYC Communities Again - New York City Test & Trace Corps workers stand in solidarity with the Movement of Rank-and-File Educators (MORE) in their refusal to return to schools

Prematurely reopening schools will undoubtedly lead to spikes in infections across our communities, including among teachers and school staff who are tasked with in-person responsibilities. For us in the Test & Trace Corps, reopening schools could potentially lead to an increased rate of transmission that would effectively reverse the progress we have made in this City... The city’s current plan to reopen schools in early September contradicts the goals of our work: to limit the spread of COVID-19 within communities and ensure the health of all New Yorkers.

It's signed:  Anonymous NYC H&H Contact Tracers, Members of DC37
This could be one or a thousand people -- I get no names but....
I wrote about the disaster of contact tracing a few weeks ago
#EdBTTTS Back to School and Contract Tracing: Ever...

My right wing buddy Mike Antonucci always seems to be able to read between the lines and chastises the Intercept for reporting misinformation on a strike vote today citing only one MORE member as a source.

Intercepts

NYC Teacher Strike: Where There’s Smoke, There’s Smoke? -

...it reached the point this morning where a reporter asked Mayor Bill de Blasio whether the city was preparing for a strike in light of the UFT meetings.
“The UFT has spoken to this over the weekend and made it clear that a strike vote is not planned,” he replied. “I’ve spoken to [UFT President] Michael Mulgrew. It’s clear to me that it’s not on the agenda for this meeting.”
I’ve been doing this long enough to know that you have to parse every official statement from a teachers union. My reading of all this is that a strike vote is not yet on the agenda, and that no specific resolution has yet been put forward. But UFT doesn’t call representative meetings for nothing. It’s pretty obvious they want to discuss immediate future strategy, and that could include authorization for a strike or other job action, which could be placed on the agenda rather quickly if that’s what the representatives want to do.
But the press has been waaaaay out in front on this. They don’t have a single source claiming to have, or to be working on, a strike authorization resolution. In fact, they have multiple denials that anything of the sort yet exists. If a strike authorization vote occurs today and tomorrow, they can pat themselves on the back for a scoop. But if I ran a story with so little to back it up, I would be criticized, and rightly so.

When  people have a dog in the race don't always look for accuracy.

I have believed for 45 years the UFT will never strike. I still haven't been proven wrong:

I wrote this Nov. 2018-  Memories of 1975 - 

I firmly believe there can be no major gains without a credible strike threat. But I don't believe we will see that here in NYC unless there are catastrophic cuts -- like a severe depression and attempts to cut current salaries.... there are people in the UFT today who are saying the leadership should get the membership strike ready because the West Virginia and other red state strike are an example that UFT members might be ready to follow. The Taylor Law penalties is one reason why that won't happen here until NYC teachers are eating dog food like teachers in the red states.

So I began to waffle. Well, it's supposedly dog-food time in the guise of risking lives by the very act of going into a school, an economic depression where there is talk of cutting salaries and mass layoffs - the trifecta. Maybe there is some behind the scenes deal on the table trading some flexibility on opening schools for no layoffs.

Still, I don't see a strike with so many unknowns. There is  enormous suspicion and distrust of de Blasio and Carranza, their incompetence so far (which I've chronicled here), and the great anger over the decision in March that led to many deaths of DOE employees. I used the hashtag #EdBTTTS: Everything de Blasio Touches Turns to Shit. Mulgrew didn't fare very well when he supported the initial decision to keep schools open and, faced with a possible sickout, deB caved and closed schools but teachers were required to go in for training.

More unknowns:

• Teachers with exceptions don't have to go in and they make up 25%. Will they strike?
• What about picket lines? If there are none then walking in is easy. Thus the union has to try to make sure there is at least a few people picketing at each school. Will people who are worried not only about going into schools but getting there be willing to picket?
• What about the portion of teachers who are OK with going in? There is a body of people who believe it is their duty no matter what to serve the kids, many for social justice reasons -- the poorest kids get the least out of remote learning, especially with parents who work and must go in.

There was a deterioration in Mulgrew's  relationship with de Blasio -- I heard a rumor in late March that they met and were heard screaming at each other. Mulgrew has paid a political price inside the UFT but he has moved the ball as he saw the ineptitude at the DOE and I did not disagree with his measured policy of letting the game come to him and it has to some extent - the CSA and parents in many districts have been pushing for a delay. Pressure to delay is building.

Parents are going nuts:

Concern and Frustration Over Lack of Detail on School Reopening Worry Southern Brooklyn Parents and Educators
“This feels like the same information we are given over and over,” a mother typed in the chatroom. “The lack of details this close to the opening - and the fact that everyday the goal posts seem to be moving - is troubling.

I have doubted there would be a strike due to the political nature of the leadership which has been anti-strike for 45 years and has conditioned the membership to fear Taylor Law penalties and is seemingly trying to switch horses in mid-stream -- mixed messages for sure. James reported earlier at ICEUFT - DAILY NEWS REPORTS CITY AND UFT ARE TALKING which has good, bad and ugly aspects since we don't know what kind of backroom deals are being made. The strike talk is most likely only a show as Mulgrew sends out mixed messages. Could they pull off a strike or are the powers that be laughing themselves silly over the very idea?

A wild card is Cuomo who punted to deB on closing schools but still holds all the cards. Is there some kind of backroom deal between him and Mulgrew to screw deB? Don't blame me for conspiracy theories - I got it directly from QAnon. The latest from Cuomo is an indication where he is heading -- and it ain't in DeB direction.

Gov. Andrew Cuomo has raised a warning flag for schools that are expected to reopen in person in some capacity in less than two weeks, forewarning that clusters of COVID-19 cases that have been popping in colleges will inevitably happen to some degree when K-12 starts the new year. And the more dense an environment -- like New York City -- the riskier the proposition.

Now I have had mixed feelings since I don't have to go in. The numbers of infections look low but do we even trust how the numbers are being thrown at us? De Blasio has a one size fits all plan for every school when the numbers vary widely by zip code. Jeff Kaufman sent me this link and the poorest areas have the highest rates: 

Data Check: Recent COVID-19 Infection Rates Vary Widely By Neighborhood

Mayor Bill de Blasio and Chancellor of Education Richard Carranza recently remarked how the city is at 1-2% infection rate citywide, and how that number is going to be used to determine the reopening of the city’s public schools – currently set to open if infection rate remains below 3% citywide.
Well, NYC is a big city and a very segregated city, and while elementary school children tend to stay in their neighborhoods, middle and high-schoolers travel significant distances across neighborhoods, so I was interested to see how well we are doing on the neighborhood level in containing the virus. The city shares this data in aggregate, cumulative numbers, which are really not telling you much about what is happening week to week or month to month as people catch the virus, get tested, get well or die.

https://bklyner.com/coronavirus-map-brooklyn/?mode=list

And I was texting with a chapter leader of a very large school who also suspects the numbers and he pointed me to a podcast with an interesting take:

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-osterholm-update-covid-19/id1504360345?i=1000485801512

Osterholm mocks the idea that one size fits all makes sense but de Blasio is a osfa advocate - like treating all restaurants equally - those with small spaces and those with massive rooms for indoor dining. Check out the podcast.

Leonie tweeted:

How fast are the results though? And what do they show about where and how the virus is still being transmitted?

There will NOT be a general membership vote, which I believe is the first time in the history of UFT strikes that will not happen. Therein lies a problem for the leadership - jeez, what if a strike vote fails or wins by a slim majority? In the old days there would be visits to every school to drum up support. Randi did that in 2002 with a strike vote even though we all knew it was a PR stunt.

Does democracy count? Not much anymore nationally and in unions (and I include caucuses). Jonathan Halabi, long-time Ex Bd member for a dozen years (but no longer) wrote to the leadership asking for a vote for reasons beyond democracy:

I understand that there is consideration of strike authorization votes at the Executive Board and the Delegate Assembly.

I also understand that there may not be a membership vote. I hope I am mistaken.  That would be a serious error.

There is the issue of democracy. but I think that is relatively minor.

But the issues of member engagement loom large. Organizing a vote increases member engagement, and member buy-in. It also provides real-time feedback from the field. Are chapter leaders organizing? Is there resistance? What are the issues? 

The activity around organizing a vote makes a strike more effective. 
For members who are already on board, it makes a smaller difference; the vote increases enthusiasm.  But for members on the fence, skipping the vote sends the message that the leaders don't trust the members, or don't care what they think. It will harden the pockets of resistance.
I don't know if support in the field is at 95%, 85%, 75%, 65% or 55%... but even at 85% we need to win more people over.

A membership vote makes us - and any potential job action - stronger. 

I hope that I was indeed mistaken - that a membership vote is planned. But if that is not the case, I would thank you to consider the matter carefully,

Jonathan Halabi

Since there won't be a membership vote and Halabi's points are valid, it makes me more inclined to doubt the leadership is going to strike. Is the leadership afraid of the outcome? In fact are they afraid of the membership itself which may be totally unpredictable?

You bet they are as the middle managers - the District Reps - mostly communicate with chapter leaders in the UFT top down structure and rely on them to pass on the views of the rank and file in the schools. They don't always get it right as even many chapter leaders don't have strong organizations in their own schools. The neglect of organizing by the UFT chickens may come home to roost as the union tries to go from zero to 60.

Strike membership votes in Chicago and LA over the past year were overwhelming in favor (over 90%). But they spent months preparing the membership with meetings and propaganda. The UFT? Until Mulgrew talked strike two weeks ago, Nada - and therein lies the rub for the UFT in managing a successful strike. But they are ramping up just in case.

Jeff Kaufman made the great point about the UFT in the 70s and now. The leadership and staff were battle hardened strike vets while the current crew have spent their time managing the membership to tamp down militancy. But I see some good signs with the energy of independent Ex Bd ex-MORE members Arthur Goldstein and Mike Schirtzer and Mindy Rosier.

Luckily for the union - and I say this with  much irony - MORE Caucus has been organizing since March - and has done a much better job than the UFT -- there were 1000 participants in the MORE strike prep meeting on Saturday with people waiting to get in, with multiple zoom meetings each week, rallies and marches.

Ironically, the virus crisis and Zoom has enormously helped MORE grow exponentially -- 1000 people were at their strike Prep meeting on Saturday with people in the waiting room. It has been hard all these years gathering people in one space in person. Zoom has been a savior for MORE organizing and they finally are implementing local district organizing which I had been screaming for from MORE's earliest days. Kudos to them. There is a rally in district 15 coming up and they've been holding district level zooms that are well attended. (A dist 13/14 [my former district[ meeting had 160 people the other day.) This represents the first big threat to Unity at the ground level that I've seen in a long time. Let's see if MORE can make hay post epidemic on broader issues.

At most the UFT has been holding meetings with chapter leaders and delegates and asking them to hold meetings in their schools -- the usual top down unmass action the UFT engages in. They are planning a week of action: https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1IH7Nx0sBv4_5hl57HTVDWB8hwvk4C0P9ezQRADDjNO4/mobilepresent?slide=id.g934a24817f_0_19

You judge if you think it will have an effect and if rank and file other than the most active participate.

If the UFT leadership doesn't strike and gets a lousy deal expect an explosion from the activist portion of the union and their supporters. 

There will supposedly be a town hall with Mulgrew on Wednesday about the Memorandum of Agreement (MOA) with the DOE - if there is not a strike. Reports are the MOA has many flaws with massive remote class sizes. If they agreed to that, then what?

In addition to MORE and to a lesser extend Solidarity Caucus, James Eterno at the ICEUFT blog has also been a pressure point with his large readership. Eterno comments:

What is going on in the schools behind the scenes will most likely still be a  mystery after the DA. That 80-90% yes vote won't mean that much but if I am wrong and there is anything greater than a 20-25% no vote because of independents (people who don't belong to any caucus) and/or a Unity revolt, then there is likely a significant portion of the membership who are opposed to any job action. 

My antennae are detecting both enormous enthusiasm for a strike from the left wing for reasons beyond the safety issue (I will delve into the ideology behind striking in a follow-up) but they are getting a lot of support even with trepidation from people who just plain fear going into schools.

On the other hand some are telling me that there is no interest in their schools for a strike and when the union shows up they turn off, as they always have. Too many UFT spokespeople have little ability to connect with rank and file. And hearing the strike rah-rah so suddenly after 45 years of scaring people with the Taylor Law is problematical.

Is the leadership feeling some pressure from MORE and the ICE blog and was Mulgrew's move towards striking based in part on that pressure? I'd say partially but also due to this error in not calling for schools to be closed earlier in March and his lack of push back when teachers were told to go in for those extra three "training" - LOL - days the week of March 16. The number of school personnel who died not soon after is the lingering after effect.

In 1975 thousands of us massed outside the DOE headquarters at 110 Livingston Street and marched across the Brooklyn Bridge. The current leadership is in a quandary in terms of a mass march. How do you argue the dangers of  going on to school and then engage in a mass action? Well, there are answers to that - like the protests here in NYC have not led to a spike in cases and going into a school itself is indoors. Like how does de Blasio not let indoor dining open but schools are OK?

Strike Penalties are on their minds - loss of tenure is not in Taylor Law

In my 2018 article and subsequent ones I talked about the letter I received from the chancellor on Dec. 1 1975 with my penalties. Item 1 was loss of tenure for a year which I consider more onerous than two for one penalties, though these certainly curtail the idea of a long strike which allows the city to wait out the strike. I guess we lost tenure then but it didn't seem to matter. Did the DOE just toss that penalty in on their own outside the Taylor Law? There are no signs in the law about tenure. I even got an email from the chapter leader of my old school (the last time I taught there was almost 25 years ago) asking about the Taylor Law penalties, which I've written about here, here, here. In the latter piece from Nov. 23, 2018 I dug down into expectations of the UFT leadership.

There are so many balls in the air over going back to school and the potential UFT strike for full-time remote learning, trying to disentangle it all has led to such overload that I end up retreating into escapist reading and TV. But I have been getting calls and messages for some insights and have been dragged away from my reveries.  Right after I hit PUBLISH I will revert to fantasy land.

The best reporting on the UFT and DOE is coming from James Eterno at the ICEUFT blog. Check it every day.

ICEUFTBLOG PREDICTS OVERWHELMING SUPPORT FOR JOB ACTION AT UFT EXECUTIVE BOARD AND DA THAT MIGHT NOT SAY MUCH ABOUT WHERE THE UFT MEMBERSHIP IS AT ON THE ISSUE

And Arthur Goldstein at http://nyceducator.com/
Exposing the de Blasio and Carranza plans
Magical Blended Teachers

And Jon Halabi: https://jd2718.org/

With UFT Strike Looming, Links for The Case for and Against Opening Schools in NYC

Norm here -- Saturday, August 29, 2020, 8:30 AM, Updated 11 AM

My instinct (from a distance with no dog in the race) is to keep doing remote. But I approach this issue as not only an advocate but as a
journalist/observer.  I have been gathering just a few links for a variety of views. Consider the possibilities of layoffs - more or less depending on remote?

The UFT and the strike is a separate issue which I have to address seriously -- yes Virginia, I do have doubts about the strike and the UFT leadership ability to pull one off successfully - and the kind of trickery I suspect may be going on. (See James at the ICE blog for detailed and up to date analysis of the UFT situation). Also see the comment arguing against a strike. My Nov. 2018 post on the Taylor Law is here: 


I've already been receiving questions and critics upon the earlier posting and an adding them

First are the opinions of two people I respect enormously with differing positions. (Don't be lazy, click on through to some juicy stuff.)


Carol Burris who was principal of the year in NYS and a champion as head of Network for Public Education which has fought for so many issues we believe in. 

Rather, it is to make the case that in those few states and cities like New York, where the virus is remarkably low, we have a moral obligation to children and our nation to try.
Opening NYC schools: an educational imperative
https://www.nydailynews.com/opinion/ny-oped-open-nyc-schools-20200825-mi5zp5h3ffcnllmhbc3j5ikxti-story.html

Carol seems to have some faith in the ability of Carranza and De Blasio to pull this off without a disaster. 

Arthur Goldstein, a friend for many years and chapter leader of one of the largest schools in NYC doesn't have that faith.

How de Blasio botched public schools’ reopening

Mayor de Blasio wants to open up schools in the worst way possible. That might be why everything he’s planned has been in the very worst way. He failed to plan for September beginning in April. There’s still no school calendar. Most recently, he gave principals only four days to plan for outdoor learning and decided it might be a good idea to check every room’s ventilation two weeks before opening.

De Blasio’s hybrid plan is outlandish.

https://www.nydailynews.com/opinion/ny-oped-how-de-blasio-botched-public-school-reopening-20200827-gg3i4fmsaza37euau55cusfxzi-story.html

Then there is the looming Layoffs witch will have long term effects

https://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/ny-de-blasio-layoffs-unions-pay-freeze-reduction-furloughs-20200825-ugufpxbhundevaaksdnvunwxgq-story.html

There is some Parent frustration

What's a Book - submitted by Fred Smith

If kids don't know what a book is, will we still have to give them reading tests?

~Fred

Thanks to Fred for some much needed laughs.

---

---

WHAT'S A BOOK?

 

 

 

 

    

Video: Back to School in NYC - or NOT - Darren Marelli

I just saw the chancellor on CBS Sunday morning national news. When asked by David Pogue who he consulted in creating his plan he replied: superintendents, parents, medical professionals, epidemiologists and later added principals. What obvious group is missing? I imagine he might add the union but even that relationship has soured.

Just one more reason teachers are willing to strike before going back. Actually showing some respect for teachers.

Darren is a social worker and a parent and husband of a teacher. Here is a video statement by him using existing footage to make his point.
https://youtu.be/HZRSJFd9Cx0

#EdBTTTS Back to School and Contract Tracing: Everything de Blasio Touches Turns to Shit

by Norm - Aug. 15, 2020

#EdBTTTS - And the number one reason for not going back to school in NYC IS: 
De Blasio sucks - at everything.  

The total lack of trust teachers for sure - and many parents have in him and his clones at the DOE. No one trusts the entire bureaucracy at DOE for their lies and misinformation and total incompetence in so many areas going back, oh, let's say to the earliest days of the Bloomberg years, followed by the management styles of Farina and Carranza.

Politico: New York City school reopening faces resistance
New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio announced that based on a survey sent to public school parents, about 75% want to send their kids back to school in September. The other 25% explicitly backed remote learning only. Some parents and teachers disputed the meaning behind those numbers. De Blasio also announced that every school will have a certified nurse on-site. However, the reopening plan still faces opposition by unions representing both teachers and administrators, who are asking to delay the start of in-person school – which is currently Sept. 10 – until at least the end of September. Union leaders say school staff don’t have enough time to prepare under the current timeline and still lack guidance on the details of reopening. The New York State Nurses Association joined the call, saying that schools statewide should postpone any return to classrooms. But their concerns are not stopping de Blasio, who said he is still moving ahead with reopening on Sept. 10, while schools Chancellor Richard Carranza continues to say the city isn’t moving too quickly.

When I heard the numbers being reported that 85% of the teachers wanted to go back I laughed out loud just from watching the social media. These distorted numbers as reported by them is a perfect indication of why they are not trusted on anything. Like do we believe there will be adequate cleaning or PPE or real enforcement of any rules?  Leonie reported.

NYC mayor said 700,000 students are ready to come back to school this fall. Really? There is some strong opposition to Mayor Bill de Blasio’s plans.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2020/08/12/nyc-mayor-said-700000-students-are-ready-come-back-school-this-fall-really/

So, I've been thinking a lot about the going back to school issue, at times torn between both sides for a variety of reasons, which I won't get deep into right now --- you can read all the issues on Arthur's and James' blogs and on facebook. I expect to do a deeper dive. Down below I focus on the contact tracing issue as an example.

I've seen a lot of attacks on Mulgrew for not being militant enough. I reserve judgement as he escalates his criticism as part of the political game he is playing. I do not object to his waiting for the game to come to him. But if you think a strike is in the offing I see no way - unless Unity Caucus itself revolts. But I'll get into that in a separate post.

I've been collecting article after article on just how disorganized the De Blasio admin has been to the point I've lost track and in fact been overwhelmed by the info coming in.

[One offtopic example of how things are screwed up are reports coming in from friends who come into JFK and breeze right through without questions. Quarantine my ass.]

I actually started writing this piece two weeks ago when I read a NYT article on contact tracing which is supposed to be part of the going back to school issue.

I posted this from a NYC teacher
Decoded and Explained - The NYC DOE Reopening Plan - 109 pages of smoke and mirrors - Anonymous NYC Teacher 

And Leonie posted this:

Mayor De Blasio Pledges A Nurse In Every School, But UFT President Says He’ll Fight Reopening If Stringent Safety Isn’t Met – CBS New York

Mulgrew is putting the blame on de Blasio, who, he said, didn’t focus on the problem of school reopening until last month. His message? “We’ve yet to see you actually get your job done. So let’s see you do your job,” he said.

https://newyork.cbslocal.com/2020/08/13/nyc-school-reopening-union-concerns/

Here I focus on the contact tracing program:

City Praises Contact-Tracing Program. Workers Call Rollout a ‘Disaster.’
....contact-tracing programs have presented an array of challenges to government officials everywhere, including difficulties hiring many workers, privacy issues and faulty technology, like apps. And New York City’s seems to have been especially plagued by problems.
some contact tracers described the program’s first six weeks as poorly run and disorganized, leaving them frustrated and fearful that their work would not have much of an impact.

They spoke of a confusing training regimen and priorities, and of newly hired supervisors who were unable to provide guidance. They said computer problems had sometimes caused patient records to disappear. And they said their performances were being tracked by call-center-style “adherence scores” that monitor the length of coffee breaks but did not account for how well tracers were building trust with clients.
Some also bristled at what they described as crackdowns on workers talking to one another.
“It reminds me of an Amazon warehouse or something, where we are judged more on call volume or case volume than the quality of conversations,” one newly hired contact tracer, a public health graduate student, said in an interview.
“To me, it seems like they hired all of us just to say we have 3,000 contact tracers so we can start opening up again, and they don’t really care about the program metrics or whether it’s a successful program,” she said.

Perfect expression of the kind of management those who work for the DOE have been seeing for years.

Note here how the tracing program was moved:

https://www.wnyc.org/story/challenges-still-face-citys-contact-tracing-program
According to her resignation letter, Dr. Oxiris Barbot decided to leave largely because Mayor de Blasio snubbed the Health Department in launching the city's contact tracing program. He gave it to the public hospital system, the Health and Hospitals Corporation, instead.
if the city's economy is ever going to recover, and people are going to get their jobs and their rent money back, people exposed to the virus need to be traced and isolated right away so a case at a workplace doesn't become an outbreak at a workplace, forcing everyone to get laid off again, how well this is done matters a lot.
how is Mayor de Blasio's decision to do contact tracing without the health department at the center of it working out?

And here's the NYT piece:

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/29/nyregion/new-york-contact-tracing.html

It's The Taxes Stupid - The Retiree Advocate

It's The Taxes Stupid - The Retiree Advocate 
Aug. 12, 2020

Tax cuts for the wealthy expands the wealth gap and deficits enormously while doing little to boost the economy. 

(I'm a member of Retiree Advocate/UFT, a group of retirees with a history of opposing the Unity Caucus in the UFT)

Tax cuts for the wealthy expands the wealth gap and deficits enormously while doing little to boost the economy.

Decoded and Explained - The NYC DOE Reopening Plan - 109 pages of smoke and mirrors - Anonymous NYC Teacher

Trapping kids inside with 10 or 12 others with no airflow sounds like a recipe COVID soup!  ...I won't accept this as a "plan" for sending my daughter back, nor do I accept it as a teacher.....anon.

I received this over the transom from a NYC teacher friend who is staying

anonymous after having been persecuted by certain criminal supervisors, the very type of people we are supposed to trust to manage safe schools. The pushback from teachers and other school employees is related to two decades of dishonesty and mistrust and this plan only serves to embellish on that history with outright distortions. Note the mention of ventilation - an LOL moment for many teachers.

A Closer Look - The NYC DOE Reopening Plan Decoded Explained
---anonymous

I was excited when New York state governor, Andrew Cuomo, announced that all districts in the state were required to have a school reopening plan. I was looking forward to seeing what the plan was! I mean, we, the parents, needed to make a decision about the school year on August 7th, with no other information except the hybrid model for physical versus online learning. We're a month out from the start of school.

A mere days after Cuomo's announcement, the New York City Department of Education published a well-formatted plan with a table of contents! Since I had to work for two years without a classroom ceiling (the roofers hung thick contractor bags over the open roof, and water/snow would pool in the bags and drain out of a tear onto the floor, speaking of safety), I thought this was an astounding turnaround in efficiency for such a bloated agency!

Well, no. It turns out that New York City's so-called schools reopening "plan"  was 109 pages of smoke and mirrors. The DOE apparently believes that codifying the outsourcing of responsibility to the parents, and reducing their own duties to "precautions" such as educating families about the importance of mandatory home temperature checks (thermometers can be provided - how helpful!), passes as a measure of confidence. And safety measures, if underscoring hand washing and social distancing can be even be considered "safety" at this juncture or just survival, only represent a fraction of the plan. For example, this is everything under the heading, "Ventilation":

"NYCDOE’s Division of School Facilities (DSF) performed an HVAC survey to determine deferred maintenance needs. DSF is performing required HVAC maintenance (including windows) and filter changes. DSF and the SCA are working together on systems that require capital-level repairs. NYCDOE is continuing to perform maintenance and modify operations to maximize the supply of outdoor air for ventilation to the greatest extent possible."

Let me translate that. The first two sentences are fairly straightforward. A bunch of bureaucrats, DSF, who work in an air conditioned office building, sent out a survey to maintenance staff asking them where they are on their to-do list in terms of HVAC. These same bureaucrats are telling maintenance departments to perform repairs on windows and filters, and ostensibly other to-do's under the heading HVAC.

Here's where we need to start breaking things down a bit more finely. The pencil pushers keeping tabs on school maintenance are pairing up with the bureaucrats from the School Construction Authority. The SCA is in charge of taking a physical building, such the Franklin K. Lane brick and mortar, phasing out the school, displacing students but more importantly teachers, and creating more "schools" to address overcrowding by dividing the large former population of the school with smaller groups of students, attending different "schools". In other words, they don't physically construct schools. They reduce the number of students that you can house in a building because you need administration and staff for all the new schools. So, the third sentence from the "plan" is saying that DSF and SCA are joining forces for an interdepartmental project!

And now the fuzziness really creeps in. These two groups of office workers will make a list of things that need to be done that will require money. Really. That's what the fourth sentence says; it's specifying the project that the two groups of bureaucrats are going to be working on. And, to conclude, the closing sentence is saying that the whole DOE system is still fixing things and changing things in order to get some air inside, if they can.

I love this plan! Trapping kids inside with 10 or 12 others with no airflow sounds like a recipe COVID soup! There are still classrooms without AC! This example paragraph is found on page 36, under the trending coronavirus topic, "Lead". The language used requires either 20 years experience inside the DOE, or 20 hours of careful scrutiny. This is their plan!

Listen, coming up with something this visible and important is not easy. I don't understand the veneer of command and control, when they obviously have neither. Sometimes, it's okay to say, we don't have this under control, and we need your constructive input and patience. Here's what we've been doing, but New York is a big city, with a myriad of needs and experiences, and it takes a while to address everything. When you issue a decree from on high, with no chance for dialogue, it causes dissent and nowadays, we don't need any more anger and confusion. We, the people, need to set the priorities and come up with solutions. I won't accept this as a "plan" for sending my daughter back, nor do I accept it as a teacher.

I also want to go on the record to say that Mayor Di Blasio and Chancellor Carranza are misreading that highly publicized figure, 75% of parents opt for in-person. Yes, that's true. I'm one of them. And I am almost 100% certain that we will, in the end, opt out.