Gypsy Teacher gets the cold shoulder

As I was walking to cover my classes-of-the-day at my school-of-the-week, I saw a familiar face smiling at me. I couldn't place him at first but I smiled back. He introduced himself to me and when I introduced myself I saw his smile slipping. He is the man that I begged to help me through emails and phone calls when they sent me to a school more than an hour from my house. After he failed to help me, I never heard from him again or had any contact with him until today. 

Anyway, I began to talk about the plight of the ATRs and how we are being sent to schools far and wide, most with no vacancies. He agreed that the plight of the teachers in District 76 was appalling. When I asked if a remedy was near, he heed and hawed and said that it would mean an informal agreement between the UFT and the DOE.

As I prodded him further he seemed to close down and look for an escape. "I have to teach my class," he said to me, as I continued to question him on what the UFT was doing to help the ATRs.  He just threw out something about Mulgrew playing politics which I didn't understand.

Then somehow we approached the topic of a class action age discrimination suit against the DOE and he stated we would never win and it would crumble in court. "Why?" I asked. He mentioned something about statistics; again I didn't understand. Maybe this ATR business is making me dumb but I just think he wasn't making much sense.

Anyway, he was inching away as I brought up the fact that principals are still using long-term or day-to-day subs to fill vacancies.  A case in point is my grievance, in which a day-to-day sub is working a full position that should be mine.  "Did you email Amy Arundell?" I told him the UFT was told by me AND others of subs in positions and still NOTHING is being done! 

Finally, he escaped into the men's room. I waited for him and asked him point blank why he was avoiding me and he just said he had to go teach his class, as he left me standing there frustrated and angry! Seems I feel this way a lot lately!










Picture credits: http://mychinaconnection.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/12/give-someone-the-cold-shoulder1.jpg
                                                                                                http://blogs.orlandosentinel.com/features_momsatwork/files/2010/01/mensroom.jpg

The UFT 1% turns a deaf ear

Remember the letter that Philip Nobile wrote to all the UFT bigwigs about the two-hour commute from Brooklyn to Staten Island that the DOE was subjecting him to?  You forgot?  It seems that the UFT forgot it about it also, since none of their top leaders chose to answer Nobile's plea for help.  Here is Nobile's post mortem on this sorry story:

Sad to say, but no surprise, none of the UFT 1 percent responded to my plea re ATRs condemned to hardship commutes. Apparently, Mulgrew et al. have other things on their mind. 

Thomas Bennett

Still, there is light at the end of the tunnel. BASIS rep Tom Bennett says that our complaints have not gone unheard:

"I certainly agree and echo your sentiments. The District 76 situation is a disgrace. We are certainly making this case in conversations with the DOE, and we’re hopeful that there are a few sane people left on the other side. I’ll let you know if I hear any good news."

Bennett told me later on the phone that some S.I. principals have been accommodating. So on Friday I called the faraway McCown Expeditionary School on the Island, this week's assignment, and said that I would be unable (i.e., adverse) to make the monastic 7:45am start. 

"Could you make it by 8:30?" I was asked. That I could do. I urge ATRS to follow the same route for the time being.

Photo credit:  http://www.uft.org/files/photo/thomas-bennett_0.jpg