Wednesday, October 24, 2012
ATR Reports on Bronx UFT Meeting
About 100 attendees. Meeting well run by Amy ( only speaker from UFT ). about 15 were guidance/social workers. 65 % female; 50 % non white. 1/3 first time ATRS. 1800 ATR # confirmed. UFT seems to be pushing ATR rights a little more; supposedly DOE is clamping down on Principal ATR abuses; UFT wants ATRs to notify them promptly of any perceived problems. NO ATR chapter will be formed.
Crowd was fairly passive but had many questions but little new info. UFT meets with DOE regularly; one person asked if ATRs could serve as mentors or teacher assists in CR; say they brought this up to DOE but was rejected.
Amy emphasized that ATRs must be treated just like other teachers in the school.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
It shouldn't astound me, (though for sheer chutzpah, Unity is hard to beat, its like they are our masters, rather than as officers of our Union our servants), that the leadership is so resistant to allowing ATRs to be any part of the process.
ReplyDeleteThey refuse to let us have representation, i.e., functional chapters that would unite us and enable us to develop resistance to the effrontery of the administrators at the schools we rotate to. They refuse even include actual ATRs or an ATR Advisory Committee to review the agreement or assess the issues that ATRs confront.
Of course it is true that if there were an ATR Advisory Board or elections for ATR Reps, Unity would pull out all the stops to dump their "Yes-people" on them as non-elected members.
ATRs! The more frequently we discuss, build and raise the platform of the social justice caucus of the UFT, MORE (Movement of Rank and File Educators) with our colleagues (ATR and assigned teachers), the better the chance that the current pie cards controlling the Union and feasting in the double trough of DOE salaries and pensions and UFT pensions (for more look up what some of the UNITY official automatons will retire with) will lose ground.
There is an election in the spring and the hundred and more rank and file MORE members meeting monthly now, and hundreds more that are joining now or are on the mailing list are counting on you to use your critical thinking skills and the hope that springs eternal in human breasts to make room for real teachers in the Union leadership.
For more about MORE go to morecaucusnyc.org and learn what role you can play.
Join MORE, be the change we all need to improve our schools, resist the evaluations (MORE is circulating a petition to require that a membership vote be taken to approve the rating system), stop school closings and "Fight the Power" wielded by the Department of Education with the long term collaboration by UNITY misleaders.
Our Student Learning Conditions Are Our Teaching Conditions
Herb Michael