Davids and Goliaths

It's starting to take on biblical proportions, this Bloom/Klein thuggery.


This is the second year Veteran Teacher X has been passed over for a teacher fellow.

X is super-qualified for the job: with more than 10 years experience, she’s bilingual and has two permanent licenses for what she’s trained to teach. It seems the newbie might not even hold the right license for the job that should have been X’s. When the announcement was made at a faculty conference that X was going to get a full program this year instead of the day-to-day subbing she was doing last year, everyone broke out into spontaneous applause; some came over to hug her. X had to tell them that she’ll only be filling in for someone on sabbatical this year. She’s still in excess and still an ATR.

Obviously, X is a beloved member of the staff, and obviously, admin's counting the change in his pocket. It wasn't so long ago when an administrator’s job involved continuity, stability, and a nurturing environment for staff and kids. Bet you don't find those concepts in Leadership Academy crash courses.


This just in from Veteran Teacher Z, also an ATR:

"I thought you might want to be made aware, if you aren't already, that the union is no longer grieving against new schools/principals who don't hire the 50% of teachers in the closing schools as is required by the contract."

Much lauded as an English teacher of long standing with not a single letter in her file except for praise, Z took student teachers in under her wings, mentored for years, and prepared (and ran) professional development. The UFT even offered her a job in its Peer Intervention program. Apart from all those credentials, she’s enjoyed a whole other career involving the very theme of a new school they’re creating in her building — and in which she was, astoundingly, not installed.

"And now I find that no one wants me."

Those are the saddest words I’ve heard since I’ve joined the fight for teachers who’ve been thrown into ATR limbo.

"And now I find that no one wants me."

Hers is like so many other ones in the saga of Goliath’s chancellorship. Z’s school is going to close next year, if not sooner. In the past two years, only two of the excessed teachers were able to get jobs in the small schools upstairs, and those were only because of connections.

Not having been called in for a single interview at any of those new ones, Z complained to the union. It arranged for an interview, but too late, of course. Two teaching fellows with no classroom experience or even much familiarity with the school’s theme got the jobs. Z grieved it, and the thing eventually went to arbitration. She says it was a test case, and the UFT lost it. It will now no longer be taking grievances for teachers being excessed out of old schools who apply to new schools in their buildings.

"Most of us are now ATRs, sitting in a room waiting to be sent as a sub to some school or other while the teachers upstairs, all fellows with no experience, are being made to work long hours (with no per session). And I have heard that the halls are insane. There are now eight other schools [here, and save for two people] NONE of them have hired any of us!

"Perhaps you can make others aware of this, how our union is further destroying our contractual rights."

If anyone knows differently about the way things are done in Arbitration World, please tell us. We want to know how far this debacle is reaching, and just how much the union is NOT willing to act on our behalf.

"Something is very, very, very wrong here, and someone needs to tell the story.”

That says it all, and the Davids out here are really trying.

Please send your stories. I’ll post them, and I’ll send them to all Jennifer Medinas and Elizabeth Greens I can find.