Francesco Portelos - Cultist Behavior?

I am officially requesting that Francesco Portelos cease and desist from contacting me further in any form or manner. 

This is my response to the unsolicited and harassing emails I have received after unsubscribing to emails in a several email groups led by Francesco Portelos, however they were all returned to me 'Undelivered'. 

I cannot support the Solidarity Caucus and as a result, Francesco Portelos will stop at nothing to harass me. Please remember that you have free will and am sending this out to protect the safety and well being of my family and friends.

For your concern....Solidarity has displayed many (not all- but you be the judge) of the characteristics that are present in a cultist environment...

  

  My question is , why I am i still receiving these emails even after I have not only unsubscribed(twice) from this group, but also requested that the cult leader Portelos remove me from his group? I consider this email to be a form of harassment and further steps have been taken.

Portelos dictates in great detail how members should think, act and feel...

I too was fooled, but luckily I got out in time. 

Jim Callaghan - "Helping teachers or seeking revenge?"

Jim Callaghan

As reassigned teachers, we were the NYC DOE/UFT’s dirty little secret. In the press, we were characterized as those ‘bad’ teachers who sat and did nothing all day on the taxpayer’s dollar. The reality was that many of the teachers sent to the rubber rooms had no idea why they were suddenly not teaching and often waited months for formal charges that did not arrive for months or even years. The union’s lack of response to the press in our defense spoke volumes. Being ignored by our union was the ultimate betrayal. It seemed that they were more concerned about hiding the problem and keeping a low profile rather than supporting us or solving it.
 

In response to the growing number of reassigned teachers and the pressure to do ‘something’ in show of support, the UFT created a Rubber Room “SWAT” team, whose job it was to visit the Reassignment Centers and counsel the reassigned teachers.  The members of the SWAT team were hand selected by Unity leader, Randi Weingarten.  SWAT team members Jim Callaghan and Ron Isaac made random visits to our reassignment center, claiming to offer moral support, but from a reassigned teacher’s point of view, they were making a visit solely to provide a quick fix by Randi Weingarten in an effort to silence the reassigned members, make sure they did not get out of line, or speak ill of the union. (‘Damage Control’).  As long as the reassigned teachers did not make waves, contact the press or step out of line, it seemed that they, Jim and Ron, were doing a ‘great’ job.

For instance, one of the three reps that visited our Rubber room a handful of times in 2008 was Mr. Jim Callaghan. I bring up his name because much to my surprise, he recently began showing up on my FB newsfeed. During the time that he was part of the RR SWAT team, Mr. Callaghan was a writer for the NY Teacher publication.  It was evident from the first time Mr. Callaghan entered our Prospect Place RR with his nose turned up and ‘holier than thou attitude’ that he was not to be trusted. He was cocky, condescending, and seemed to have no interest in talking with or listening to any of the teacher’s troubles or concerns. When asked a question, he often responded with a loud, sarcastic or snide remark, often alluding to the fact that everyone in the room was most likely guilty. During further visits to the RR, Mr. Callaghan was aloof, unapproachable and barely spoke to or made eye contact with any of the teachers. In addition, he made no effort to hide the fact that he didn’t want to be there. To the reassigned teachers, Mr. Callaghan was a joke and we often placed bets on how long he would last before dismissing himself permanently to the restroom.  His visits lasted no longer than 15 minutes, during which time he never sat down, never removed his coat and was constantly checking his watch. On one occasion he even used the excuse that his parking meter was running out and that he had to leave early.

Reassignment Center @ Prospect Heights

Whatever Mr. Callaghan’s agenda was, it was certainly NOT to help the reassigned teachers.

Since the days of the RR, Mr. Callaghan was fired from the UFT for trying to unionize the writers.  Now, years later, Mr. Callaghan claims to be someone who wants to ‘help’ the newly formed “Solidarity Caucus” led by Francesco Portelos, expose the corruption of the long reigning UFT Unity Caucus. In my opinion, Mr. Callaghan is the last person I would call on as a poster child to promote and attract new members to a caucus that is in need of positive support. Even more surprising was his invitation to a Solidarity meeting where he was given an open forum to speak. Rather than attempt to empower the new members of Solidarity during his videotaped speech, the vain Mr. Callaghan used the forum to air his long suppressed anger against the union who fired him, and, rip apart several individuals (not present) that he has a personal dislike for.  

One person whom he publicly attacked was a former Rubber Room SWAT Team member, the third member, Betsy Combier.  At the meeting, he maligns the name, work and character of Ms. Combier.
While I am no fan of Unity, it is obvious that Mr. Callaghan is a scorned man with a personal vendetta against those whom he feels wronged him. As someone who knew Betsy and the genuine nature of her work, I am naturally puzzled as to why the arrogant Mr. Callaghan would feel the need to launch a seemingly random attack on her. In contrast to the lack of support that Mr. Callaghan failed to provide to the reassigned teachers, Ms. Combier’s dedication to her job as a SWAT team member went way beyond the call of duty. While Mr. Callaghan made a mockery of the teachers, Ms. Combier was a source of comfort and ongoing support.  She listened to their stories and often wiped their tears, of which there were many.  Ms. Combier lent an ear to those who had no one to share their fears and concerns with. Most importantly, when she said she was going to do something, she did it. Whether it was making a follow up call, answering questions or researching information, Ms. Combier always came through. Long after Mr. Callaghan stopped showing up, Ms. Combier remains a pillar of strength for teachers like myself. Ms. Combier used her vast experience of observing 3020a hearings to help teachers who were desperately in need of advice. She was truly an excellent source of information as well as a comfort to us.

 Why would a group assemble to discuss winning an election and putting Unity out, then make such a mockery of a person who has continuously assisted educators and is not even running for office?  Is this the way to win votes? This makes no sense. 

The Betsy Combier that I knew from the Rubber Room, IS and ALWAYS has been a strong teacher advocate.  She is, undeniably, the real thing. Is Jim Callaghan so desperate  to build himself up that he must resort to tarnishing the reputation of others?

"When I once asked Mr. Callaghan why his articles in the NY Teacher never addressed the concerns and injustices of the Rubber Room, he got defensive and blamed the Union Leaders for tying his hands and not allowing those stories to appear in the paper. It always seemed that he had someone else to blame for not doing his job. He even daringly suggested that if I had something to say, that I create a blog of my own ;)

A Day in the Life of an ATR...

After 20 years of teaching in the NYC schools, I have spent the last three years rotating on a weekly basis to and from 52 different school locations.  While most professionals change jobs an average of 3 times at most in a lifetime, an ‘ATR’, aka a teacher belonging to the ‘Absent Teacher Reserve’, begins a new job every Monday morning.  Yes, a new job, meaning new school, new colleagues, new principals, and a brand new set of rules every Monday morning.
  

Oh, you don’t know what an ATR is? I’m not surprised… It is scarcely mentioned in the UFT paper or discussed at UFT meetings. There are even tenured teachers who know nothing about Absent Teacher Reserve thanks to the UFT who tries to keep it under wraps. The ATR status, created by the Department of Education/ and the Useless United Federation of Teachers, has been purposely destroying careers of tenured teachers for quite some time now, right under the nose of its’ very own employees. 

ATRs are hard working, tenured and experienced professionals who are often 50+ years in age and high on the salary ladder.  It is no wonder that these highly qualified teachers are unwanted by principals and their limited budgets… A principal can easily fill 2 positions for the price of one ATR. ATRs have lost their permanent position in their school building due to either a school closing, or a failed attempt to have them terminated through false or trumped up allegations by their administrator. Regardless of an arbitrator’s decision to have these teachers return to their classroom through 3020a, the Department of Education has single handedly deemed them unfit and ineligible to teach, and REFUSES to play fair and place them back in their classrooms.

 The DOE lies when they say that the ATRs are incompetent and don’t want to work. They do want to work, ARE working and have been working, but are treated as unwanted visitors and/or substitute teachers, (not their choice) and have been rotating from school to school on a weekly and often daily basis while the UFT turns the other way.

Who are the ATRs?  (You can read about some of them HERE)

So, here it is… The life of an ATR…

While regular teachers have the same issue, I’m sure many ATRs will agree when I say that PARKING is one of the toughest issues facing an ATR who relies on their car to get to work. What makes it especially tough is that an ATR has no idea what their schedule will be on any given day. I have arrived 60-90 minutes early to an assignment just to procure a legal parking spot, one in which I won’t have to move during the day for alternate side parking. Unlike a regularly assigned teacher, I have no way of knowing in advance if I will have a lunch or prep period that coincides with my need to move my car.  In addition, most schools have a limited number of parking passes that are equally distributed to their teachers and rotated on a monthly basis.

Once entering a school building, I am asked to sign in and show my ID at the security desk.  In some schools, I must only show ID on Monday, but in some, I am asked to show ID every day of the week.  I am given a “visitor’s” sticker or “visitor’s” pass that I am required to wear around my neck, which I find degrading since I am not a visitor, I am an employee, (who are they kidding?) and directed to the main office, which is usually one flight up the stairs.

 It is in the main office that the tone for my day is set with a either a greeting, a casual groan, a dirty look, a few whispers, or most often, the complete denial of my existence.

When I am finally acknowledged it’s like this: “Oh the ”ATR” is here.” (My new name) “Oh you’re back”, or “What’s your file number?” I am often handed a school manual, which cites the individual rules of the school and asked to sign a paper stating that I received it.

“Here’s your time card and schedule.”  I am asked to “clock in”, although as a teacher, I am not required to. I do this as a protective measure so that a school cannot say that I wasn’t there, or that I was late.

My schedule is handed to me by *someone. (*school aide, secretary, or an assistant principal. It wouldn’t surprise me if a custodian handed me my schedule.) Your guess is as good as mine-- because in this ‘professional’ setting, no one bothers to introduce themself /selves unless asked to.  If there is no schedule prepared for me, I am either ignored, or asked to wait on a bench, or to wait in the teacher’s lounge, or some other remote location for an unspecified amount of time. When I actually get to the teacher’s lounge or wherever I am asked to wait, it is usually at that point when I am immediately paged to return to the office for my schedule.

From a professional point of view, do you think that it might be beneficial for a teacher to know what grade, type of class or subject they will be teaching for the next 8 hours? As a common branch teacher who is not certified in Special Education, one might think it would be important to know whether the students have IEPs, special needs or diversified schedules. The DOE thinks not. While the DOE is ridding Common Branch Licensed teachers from the Junior High and High Schools, they are sending CB licensed ATRs to fill those vacancies on a provisional basis. Does this make sense?

 I take a few seconds to look at the schedule I am given, and ask if there are any specific instructions pertaining to lunchtime transitions and dismissal procedures. (I ask because nine out of ten times I am left by myself to dismiss children as young as 5 to parents, uncles, cousins and guardians whom I am seeing for the first time. In which case, if I am informed early enough, I will pre-request assistance with dismissal.)

I must note that while in rotation from school to school, one learns quickly that no two schools are the same in any way, shape or form. This significant difference between schools makes the job of rotating so much more difficult. It is impossible to get familiar with the staff/master a routine/ learn the safety/fire drill code & the expectations of administration in 1 to 5 days…then run off to another school and learn another routine, etc. on the following Monday. If one is not familiar with the safety code of a school and is supposed to follow it, wouldn’t that be cause for concern? This lack of uniformity between schools is foreign and most surprising news for those who never leave the comfort of their appointed work place. Administration expects that because one is a  “teacher”, one automatically knows everything about schools and children- ALL of the schools and ALL of the children. Kind of the same ignorant way of thinking that the reformers have….if one sat in a classroom as a child, shouldn’t they be able to dictate what should be taught and how?  A school is a school isn’t it?  Umm, not exactly.

 NEWS FLASH! ---No two schools have the same rules, procedures or time schedules. Let’s look at some of the differences between schools that may throw off a tenured teacher, substitute teacher, visitor (even a teacher in rotation) who is entering the school for the first time…

Some schools have a half of a minute or two between periods, and some do not. (no time between periods translates to no time for a bathroom break for an ATR.)

Some schools have ‘extended’ day worked into their schedule and some have an additional complicated routines added on to their day either in the am or pm part of the day.

Some admins provide ATRs with a clear gridded schedule with periods, school hours and preps to follow. On the other hand, admins have handed me a barely legible scribbled ‘post it’ note with some classes written on it- that lacks a time schedule.

Individual schools have their own codes written on time schedules, such as PE, or G, or *&^%$ meaning gym and an ATR is left on their own to decipher these codes everyday.

The rest is on a ‘need to know’ basis and because I need to know, I have to ask…

“Where is the bathroom, teacher’s lounge, auditorium and lunchroom?”

“Is there a place where I can hang my coat?” It is quite burdensome to carry around a coat all day when moving from class to class each period.

“Do you have a teacher’s lounge, refrigerator, microwave, place to stay on a prep?”

 “Is there a bathroom key?” I am quite sure that I am never going to get a bathroom key, but I humor myself each time, and ask anyway. In response, Ms. Secretary looks at me like I have 5 heads and tells me that I need to catch a teacher either going in or coming out of the bathroom. I think to myself, “Is that like catching a bus?”  “We never give bathroom keys to subs,” says Ms. Secretary.

 Next question, classroom key…I ask for a classroom key and am directed to an unlocked key cabinet where several hundred keys hang in disarray.

 “The classroom door should be unlocked already, but if it’s not, come back down (which translates to, “Walk up 5 flights of stairs, check the door and if it’s locked, come back down for the key”)", says Ms. Secretary.  

Last but not least I ask, “Where do I pick up the kids?” I am often sent to the auditorium only to learn that the students are outside, have already been picked up by a cluster teacher, or in the lunchroom.

I get to the classroom and the door is locked. With hands full of schedules, attendance folders and lessons, coat, bag and lunch, I find an open door nearby and manage to juggle the phone to call the office and then must wait for a custodian to open the classroom door. With zero time to search the room for a lesson plan that may be nonexistent, I drop off my things and head down to ‘find’ my class. I enter into an auditorium filled to the brim with kids and wait till someone notices that I have no idea where I am. 

Then, I claim my students and I go off…into the abyss of this unfamiliar hallway with equally confused students to this mystery classroom in the insane world of the DOE.

Aside from the usual pettiness that most teachers engage in over coffee machines and water dispensers, cruel notes left on the refrigerator door and who sits where at the royal lunch table is the bubble of ignorance that these teachers and colleagues exist in…

Here are some of their actual comments:

You’re so lucky you don’t have to be observed!

The slave labor is here!

Why don’t you apply for a classroom position?

I had an ATR in my classroom once and he did nothing.

Aren’t you the rubber room people?

You get paid as much as we do, you should know what to do!

How can I get to be an ATR and do nothing all day?

I would give anything to not have to write lesson plans.

Are you a sub?

So, what is it exactly that you do?  The saddest part of is, is that these questions are not coming from young, newbie teachers. What’s an ATR?  I once told a teacher that the ATRs are really sent to observe the classroom teachers. That really made her day!

As a regular classroom teacher, I was required to leave a lesson plan or ‘sub folder’ in the room if I was going to be out for the day. Why is it then that nine times out of ten, there are no lesson plans in the room when I arrive?  As an ATR, I am always prepared with at least one comprehensive lesson plan for each grade of the school I am in, as I never know in advance what grade I will be sent to each day.  I may be required to go to a different grade each period, or be assigned to one class for the entire day. Yes, I am a teacher, but I am not a magician who can pull a complete day of lessons out of a hat at a moment’s notice.

As I begin my fourth year as an ATR, I am ridden with frustration and anxiety. Time and again, the articles in the paper fail to tell the truth, and the public continues to be misinformed about who we are. We are professionals who ARE WORKING and WANT TO CONTINUE WORKING and are being denied the privilege of working in the capacity where we can be most productive.  Weekly Rotation denies us the continuity of knowing our students and colleagues and the productivity that results from daily interaction. Rather than utilize the enormous talent available in the ATR pool, our new chancellor has allowed the hiring of young and inexperienced teachers to fill the vast amount of open positions resulting from the expansion of Universal Pre-K and huge retirement incentives in the new contract. Why hire new teachers when you have hundreds of qualified ATRs already on payroll? We are tired of being named as the scapegoats for an already dysfunctional education system. Which leads me to the final question that has all of us wondering…

 Mr. Mulgrew, Where are you?

A LETTER TO NYC TEACHERS...

A Letter to New York City’s School Teachers

BY KEVIN PROSEN

LINK TO ORIGINAL ARTICLE HERE    New York teachers should vote no on the proposed union contract — for love and for money.

cayoup / Flickr

Dear colleagues,

I know you’ve given the proposed UFT contract a lot of thought, and have heard a lot of talk about it among co-workers and with parents. I know there’s plenty of confusion, and little in the way of what seems to be objective information about a document that will shape your life at work for a very long time.

I would like to step back from the minuteness of this discussion for a moment, and discuss the nature of the work we do..The press likes to portray teaching as a job for the indolent — those languorous summer vacations, the short work day. These people are lying, and they know it.

Teaching is exhausting work, and it extends well beyond the time we spend in the workplace. Every teacher works a “second shift” without compensation at home. This is the time we spend grading papers, writing plans, and (increasingly over the last few years) completing tedious and purposeless paperwork to fulfill “accountability” mandates.

That “second shift” tells us a lot about the work we do — and how it is valued. Why, after all, do we consent to doing it? Because we might get a “drive-by” observation and be scored on a rubric the next day. But also, of course, because our children deserve it.

Last week was Teacher Appreciation Week, when everybody points out that we do this unpaid work at home “for the love of it.” This love is supposed to be part of the compensation of doing our job. But people are less comfortable considering that love is not compensation; love is work.

I’m always amazed at how my colleagues labor for endless hours outside of their paid workday; at the money they pay out of pocket for school supplies. Hundreds of dollars of every teacher’s wage is put back into the system each year in these meagerly compensated expenses. Ask any teacher why, and they will tell you that they do it because they love “their” kids.

We do, of course, love our students. But we also can’t allow this to be used as blackmail for accepting less than our fair share.

Love for our profession and for other people’s children has its costs: in the attention we pay to our own children, in the toll it takes on our own mental health and well-being, in those out-of-pocket expenses. We shouldn’t deprecate the importance of having time for our own families, our personal health, our spiritual and mental well-being. We can’t be effective teachers if we are stressed, tired, and impatient.

For teachers, loving is part of our job, and we work and love very much. It’s exhausting, loving and working so much, for such little pay — which explains why over 32,000 mid-career teachers have left the system over the past eleven years. We can’t live on these wages, and we have only so much love, and time, to give.

It’s not only exhaustion, of course. We have been under a sustained attack for years, from the media, from self-styled “reformers,” from politicians in both parties. The threat of standardized tests and the disastrous consequences of poor student performance looms over us like a dark cloud. We’ve been slandered as greedy, lazy, incompetent, and overpaid, and we sometimes feel like we have very few friends.

We can only counter that isolation if we make it clear that the conditions of our labor are also the conditions under which our students learn.

Our union president wrote an editorial the other day talking about how under this contract, teachers will drive school reform. Out of a desire for “collaboration,” we will be doing the dirty work of our enemies — not necessarily our cozy new Chancellor or our liberal mayor, but the forces looming behind them: the financial and real estate interests, the venture-philanthropists, the charter school privatizers, the testing profiteers, and the Democratic Party hierarchy.

These forces have made considerable progress in dismantling the public system, and they have no intention of going backwards. We can’t collaborate with those who seek to destroy us. I want no responsibility for the kinds of reforms these people are selling: they are dangerous and will eradicate what remains of the democratic, humanistic tradition of public education.

We should know by now that these innovations are toxic — not only to us, but also to the students we serve. These kinds of education reforms have created a system in New York that is, as a recent study showed, the most segregated in the nation. Teacher morale is at an all-time low. Suicides among our students are at epidemic levels.

This contract codifies testing as a part of teacher evaluation at the same time that tens of thousands of parents across New York opted their children out of high-stakes testing. It proposes “innovation schools” with “thin” contracts, implying that our rights at work are somehow an impediment to good education. It makes it easier to fire teachers who lost their jobs as a result of budget cuts and school closures. It divides us with merit pay and undermines our integrity as a union. It does nothing to address our swollen class sizes or stanch the teacher exodus from the city.

What interest do we have in “driving” such reforms?

We also know that our union president has said “the cupboard was bare” — that retroactive pay is not a “God-given right,” and that we should be satisfied with this money being further delayed. If workers have not won the right to be paid for the labor they have already done, then the labor movement has fallen very far indeed.

This is money that we are owed, and that those of us who are those mid-career teachers that will have to leave the system in the next few years — who can’t continue working for these wages — will never see. The proposed pay increases fall below the rate of inflation, our rents continue to spiral upward, and every year the conditions of life for working New Yorkers gets worse.

We’ve been told by our union that if we vote this down we will go “to the back of the line” — that we could be waiting for years for a contract. We were told that if we could just wait out Bloomberg, we would be richly rewarded. Yet here we are, still waiting.

To say that there is no money in New York for teachers and city workers can only make sense in the cramped imagination of union officialdom. There is money for high stakes testing, there is money for consultants, for metal detectors and prisons, for Wall Street. There are limitless tax incentives for the luxury condos that are taking over our neighborhoods like a cancer. Billions of dollars circulate through our city every day.

When we say there should be money for us, we are saying that our city should value its schools and its workers as much as its financial institutions and real estate.

Talking about those larger issues means stepping outside the current narrow frame of debate and challenging the larger forces that set the limits for this discussion. It means acknowledging that there’s no fix for education that doesn’t also challenge the racism and inequality of our wider society. It requires courage and vision, both of which are in short supply among the powerful.

If we vote “no” on this proposed deal, we will, of course, be attacked in the press as greedy labor aristocrats. But this isn’t only about the UFT, and we can’t talk as though it is. We must challenge the idea that we are somehow not deserving of a professional wage. But we also need to point out that this deal will set the pattern for hundreds of thousands of other city workers.

Saying no to this deal is about drawing a line for the entire working class of New York City — about saying there is a limit to what we will suffer and how little we will accept. Many of our students’ parents are city workers: they drop their kids off before making their way to operate buses and subways, to pick up our trash, to direct our traffic and clean the offices of City Hall. This is not only about us, it’s about solidarity with the rest of working New York. It is about making our city a more humane place for the people who love it enough to keep it running. That is the language we need to speak in.

A contract is a negotiated settlement on the conditions of exploitation under which you will spend most of your waking life. Don’t accept arguments that this offer is “the best we can get” from anybody who won’t have to work under its terms. Not from liberal mayors, not from union leaders making generous salaries on your dues money, not from newspaper editors; it’s your life under discussion, not theirs.

I hope you will join me and the majority of teachers in my school in voting no on this contract. By all means, do it for the money. But also, do it for love.

In solidarity,

Kevin Prosen

Chapter leader, IS 230
Jackson Heights, Queens
Kevin Prosen is a chapter leader in the United Federation of Teachers and a member of the Movement of Rank-and-File Educators, the UFT's social justice caucus.

VOTE WITH YOUR WALLET-How To Cancel Your COPE Contributions From Your Paychecks.

 Did you read the ATR article in the NY Teacher this month?

           What a surprise!... neither did I.

Time and again, the UFT ignores, and fails to address the disturbing issues that ATRs are faced with every day.   I refuse to pay extra money (COPE) to a union who does not support the interests of those who need it most.  

         

This NY Times article is a prime example of how our union leader fails to acknowledge the ATRs and sell a contract that will destroy them with expedited 3020a hearings.

           WE need to spread the word that Mulgrew 's proposed CONTRACT IS A SHAM.   

http://www.wnyc.org/story/mulgrew-teachers-drive-reforms-new-labor-contract

By MICHAEL MULGREW

The tentative agreement between the city and the United Federation of Teachers, of which I am president, is a good deal for the students, schools and communities we serve, in addition to the teachers themselves.

It gives educators more time for professional work, training and parent engagement; it will foster idea-sharing by allowing accomplished teachers to remain teaching while extending their reach to help others.

And a new program will give educators in collaborative school communities a greater voice in decision-making and give the school an opportunity to try ideas outside the confines of the contract and Department of Education regulations.

This agreement also addresses two critical priorities for our members: making the teacher evaluation system simpler and fairer and reducing unnecessary paperwork that takes us away from our students.

It also obligates the department to provide educators in core subjects with appropriate curriculum, something which we have long fought for. In terms of treating teachers as the professionals they are, it offers a fair set of wage increases over the life of the contract.

Our previous mayor tried to make it impossible for the next administration to give educators the raises they deserve. Mayor Bloomberg failed to set aside money in the budget to pay teachers the two 4 percent raises for 2009 and 2010 that other city workers received. He also purposely drained the city’s entire labor reserve fund. Over the five long years Bloomberg refused to negotiate, the cost of paying out those raises ballooned.

By agreeing to stretch out these retroactive payments and raises, we made our members whole and at the same time won significant raises in the contract’s later years.

After years of fighting off bad ideas from so-called “education reformers,” we have, in this contract, turned the tables by enabling teacher-led innovations in our schools.

Working in partnership with Mayor Bill de Blasio and Chancellor Carmen Farina, we now have the opportunity to rebuild our city’s school system with educators – not bureaucrats or consultants – in the driver’s seat.

Our agreement is the product of a shared belief that it is our school communities that must be the agents of change.

How to cancel your COPE contributions from your paychecks:

Please send a fax requesting to cancel your COPE contribution. The information they need from you is displayed below.

They will send a cancellation card to your address on file along with a pre-paid return envelope so that you can fill out the card and send it back right away. As part of procedure, they must also receive the following fax from you:

RE: COPE Cancellation
TO: Danny Corum, COPE Coordinator

My name is ___________, File # _______________. I would like to cancel my COPE contribution as soon as possible.

[SIGNATURE]
[PRINTED NAME]

Please do not forget to sign and print your name on the fax. The fax should be sent to (212)510-6435. Your contribution will be cancelled when they receive the fax and the cancellation card back from you. Please do not hesitate to contact them at (212)598-6826 or at dcorum@uft.org should you have further questions.

Danny Corum
COPE Coordinator
United Federation of Teachers
Legislation & Political Action
52 Broadway, 15th Floor
New York, NY 10004
dcorum@uft.org
phone: (212)598-6826
fax: (212)510-6435

Please share this with your colleagues and let the union know that we are not sheep!

"La Toilette"

"Accountable Talk Meets ATR"...Read about it here...

They say good things come in small packages. First day on weekly rotation and I've achieved the impossible...A KEY to the bathroom!...(and what a lovely bathroom it is). Could this be a sign of better things to come?

Out of the Frying Pan... Into the Fire

This blog began 6 years ago as a personal account of 3 long and painstaking years of incarceration in one of the NYCDOE's worst Rubber Rooms. This blog gave me a place to vent my frustration and retain my sanity. In return the support that I received from the EDU bloggers was priceless. I can safely say that one cannot imagine the emotional stress and everlasting damage that the DOE's reassignment process is capable of inflicting on a DOE employee and their family unless they have lived through it themselves. Three years after the DOE 'claimed' to have closed its Rubber Rooms, I and hundreds of union members are still suffering at the hands of the DOE and the Mayor's career ending and abusive policies. I say 'union members' because that's what we are. 

Subsequently, many of my fellow RR inmates paid fines to keep their jobs or were terminated as a result of unfair 3020A hearings. I say 'unfair' because without a 3 person panel as specified in the contract, there was only one arbitrator hearing and deciding the outcome of a case. First hand experience tells me that many of these arbitrators weren't very well versed in the field of "Education Law" which remains to be in a 'class by itself'.  Most teachers who survived the hearings managed to retain their jobs but were not returned to the traditional classroom setting that they once knew.  Instead, they were branded with a new scarlet letter known as ATR status(Absent Teacher Reserve). As the former Rubber Roomers joined the ranks of hundreds of excessed teachers from failed schools(schools that were set up to fail by the DOE),  the ATR pool quickly grew and now stands at roughly two thousand members. (The DOE / UFT will not reveal the actual numbers.)  Pick up the daily paper on any given day and you will read Bloomberg and a number of other politicians describe ATRs as 'no good', 'useless' and 'lazy' teachers who are not fit to be in the classroom. You will also notice the deafening silence and inaction of the UFT on behalf of the ATR. Hmmm. 2,000 plus tenured teachers/union members without actual classrooms and not a word from the UFT... while the  DOE disperses them throughout the schools within their districts to work as glorified subs. 

As an ATR, I feel compelled to resume my voice in the blogger community after struggling through a long and agonizing silence. 

Chaz's School Daze: The DOE Informs Principals How To Use And Abuse The ATRs Based Upon The New ATR Agreement With The Union.

Although I am on a much needed hiatus, I want to thank Chaz for sharing THIS very informative link for ATRs.. As always, Chaz blogs about issues that are current, relevant and vital to teachers- and gets right to the core of the subject. Thank you Chaz! Here is the link to the blog:

Chaz's School Daze: The DOE Informs Principals How To Use And Abuse The ATRs Based Upon The New ATR Agreement With The Union.

Here is the ATR link

TEACHER ABUSE...at its' worst.

Teacher Abuse at its' Worst
"Bullying, coercive, abusive men and women--superintendents, regional leadership, directors and principals--are the real reason schools fail. I know it in my gut. Good people are forced out. Fine and fun people are targeted with "documentation" and "discipline." And what are we left with? Suck-up sycophants who lie and cheat and cover up for the bosses. They have no other choices if they want to survive. Our school districts' upper echelons of leadership are full of just such people. Abusive leadership and suck up, rear end kissing subordinates....who happen to be the bosses of other subordinates....all sucking up, lying and covering up for each other...until the chain lands flatly and completely in the classroom. There is no one to suck up to the teacher. But there are layers upon layers of danger for that teacher if she has any ethics at all. The first layer of danger is the principal."  (K.W., 2013)