Big News: Thousands of Teachers Saved by Arbitrator From Falling into ATR Cesspool

The prospect of thousands of teachers falling into the ATR cesspool has been averted, at least temporarily, by an independent arbitrator.  The arbitrator ruled that the Mayor's plan to "turnaround" 24 schools is a violation of the Collective Bargaining Agreement.

Gotham Schools reports:

An arbitrator has ruled that the city’s plans to reform 24 struggling schools by overhauling their staffs violated its collective bargaining agreements with the teachers and principals unions.

The arbitrator’s decision adds a new and abrupt twist to the six-month-long shakeup at the schools. It also virtually guarantees that the city cannot claim more than $40 million in federal funds for the schools that the overhaul process, known as “turnaround,” was aimed at securing.

The turnaround rules require the schools to replace half of their teachers, and the city was trying to use a clause in its contract with the teachers union, known as 18-D, to make that happen. In recent weeks, “18-D committees” told hundreds and probably thousands of teachers and staff members at the schools they could not return next year. 

Under the arbitrator’s ruling, all of those staff members are now free to take their jobs back.

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