What's worse: the Rubber Room or the ATR?

Our resident gadfly, Philip Nobile, sent the following email to Amy Arundel, who is the UFT's liason to the teachers of the ATR.  To the best of our knowledge, Ms. Arundel has not yet replied.  

Amy: 

Tom Bennett, my Brooklyn District Representative, told me that ATRs must perform any duties that regular teachers perform. Since C-6 assignments vary from school to school, it’s hard to know whether some ATR orders violate the contract. 

Chaz’s current blog post on ATRs had this comment from an ATR:

If a principal tells me to answer phone -file - copy or do cafeteria duty, I politely say NO and that I will grieve immediately. Then I go back to the teacher's room and take out my book. It has worked every time because it is the LAW! Atrs are letting themselves be abused even more than we are!! Don't let them abuse you - just say no.

Do you agree? 

An admirable chapter leader further commented on how he/she protects ATRs: 

I'm a chapter leader in a small school in the Bronx. One thing that I make sure is to inform the members, even the ATRs, of their rights. I check the ATRs' program to ensure that none of their rights are violated. When the rotation of ATRs begin in October, I speak to the ATR(s) and tell them about their prep, lunch and professional periods. If I see something wrong, I immediately go to administration to have it corrected. It is the responsibility of the chapter leader to protect the members. I don't know how chapter leaders do it in a large comprehensive school, but in a small school there should be no excuse from the chapter leader.

Bill Kalogeras at Automotive is the only CL who treated me similarly in my travels last year throughout Brooklyn/S.I. Why hasn’t the UFT drawn up an advisory to CLs on how to handle ATRs? Or have I missed it?

In the good old days of rubber rooms, we not only had elected reps (liaisons) and monthly meetings at 52 Broadway, but Randi produced a brochure on our rights. 

Can you explain why ATRs in good standing get less respect than accused members in the past?

Philip

UFT to ATRs: Information, Yes; Organization, No Way in Hell

Report from the Brooklyn ATR Meeting (Tuesday, October 4, 2011)

By Philip Nobile 

A crowd of over one hundred, mostly over 40 years of age, listened to a 45-minute presentation by Special Rep Amy Arundell and Co-Staff Director LeRoy Barr and then asked lots and lots of questions about our absurd predicament for almost two hours. The presenters were incisive and sympathetic in the information department. Apparently, they had cooled off from their hot meeting in The Bronx on Monday. 

“We know the DOE will screw things up and we’ll stay on top of this,” promised Barr who repeated the party line that ATRs should be happy rather than angry with their new deal. “It was not an ATR agreement, it was a no-layoff agreement,” he emphasized. “The DOE said you didn’t work. They wanted to lay you off. We will not allow them to lay you off.” 

Nevertheless, Barr’s solidarity soon evaporated when he squelched the unanimous clamor for establishing borough chapters to represent our interests. “We’re not here to talk about that,” he said, adding with typical top-down arrogance, “that’s not what you want.” 

The Information 

Arundell, a former middle-school Social Science teacher from the Bronx, is the UFT’s personnel person and now its designated ATR authority and apologist. She began with the mechanics of next week’s rotation and later addressed specific inquiries. Some highlights: 

►Brooklyn high school teachers will be assigned to District 73 or District 76 (including, horrors, Staten Island). K-8 teachers will remain in the districts from which they were excessed. This is a contractual right. 

►Principals cannot keep you in your current school unless they hire you to fill a vacancy, budget you on Galaxy, and inform the DOE.  No exceptions. 

►Your file stays in the school from which you were excessed and it’s unclear where files go if your school is closed. 

►You can be observed anytime, even if you’re teaching out of license.  

►Ratings are up in the air. No agreement yet with the DOE, but the UFT is opposed to evaluating teachers who spend only one week, or even one month, in a school. 

►If you’re absent, see the payroll secretary. For long term absence, contact Special Representative Debbie Poulos. For personal days, call your District Representative. 

►If you don’t get a new assignment in your DOE email by Friday, October 7, continue to report to your current school next Tuesday, October 11.

No Way In Hell Organization 

Several attendees, including this correspondent, protested the UFT’s pretense of representation via strange and ever-changing Chapter Leaders and soon-to-be overwhelmed District reps as back-ups. Without chapters of our own, we are out of the normal union loop, unable to attend chapter meetings and forbidden access to Delegate Assemblies. Even our allegedly lesser brethren in rubber rooms of yore had elected liaisons and monthly meetings at 52 Broadway. Denying such basic union rights to ATRs is unconscionable. 

Arundell pre-emptively defended the UFT’s third class representation of ATRs: “I will respectfully disagree that Chapter Leaders are not capable of representing you,” she said, raising her voice. “YOU ARE REPRESENTED. YOU ARE NOT A DISTINCT CLASS.” 

Nobody in the audience bought this poppycock. Cheers and clapping greeted the following dissents. 

►Herb Michael, former Chapter Leader, said: “I’m not convinced I’m really represented. We’re in a special situation. That’s why there’s a special agreement including a committee to review compliance. I’d feel more comfortable if some ATRs looked at it. We need to meet on a regular basis. Why can’t we have a motion on the floor to elect a chapter leader?” 

This is when Barr claimed that he knew better and that we didn’t want chapters to represent us. Adopting Randi Weingarten's line against rubber room chapters, he said, “You don’t want to be in a permanent class.” Such strained reasoning--as if chapter status would mean anything more than standard representation for us outcasts. At the least, Randi appeased reassigned teachers with monthly meetings in Manhattan. But ATRs in good standing are deprived of that small kindness. 

►John Lawhead said: “I’m amazed at the innocence of your assumptions. I’m in a school with no Chapter Leader. And now you’re telling us that District Leaders are going to make up the difference? What kind of union do you want to be, merely a service organization? You’ve got to use us in some way. We could be reps in schools.” 

By this time, Barr was gone and Brooklyn Borough Rep Howie Schoor stood in at the podium. He was whispering in Arundell’s ear while Lawhead spoke and may have missed his larger point about the UFT’s soul. But puffing up, he said that he would make certain that District Reps did their jobs. 

►Your correspondent, former Chapter Leader and three-year graduate of Brooklyn’s Chapel St. rubber room, spoke up: “I wanted to thank LeRoy for telling us what we want. But I know what we want; (turning to the audience): How many of you want a chapter for ATRs? (the room erupted unanimously in favor and I turned back to Schoor). Will you explain why we can’t have a chapter and will you give us your sign-up list so that we can better organize? 

Schoor and I have a complicated history. He is a nice fellow and has been generous with his time and assistance over the years. But just as often he has failed in nerve apropos my quarrels with the UFT and DOE. For example, I sent him three emails prior to the meeting asking for permission to briefly organize ATRs on site before the start of his informational session. No response. So I renewed my request on arrival. The answer was no. “It’s our meeting,” he said. I reminded him that his Special Rep Liz Perez, speaking for Barr, originally rejected my suggestion for an ATR gathering and that today’s meeting was just as much ours as the UFT’s. That got me nowhere, of course. Thereupon I entered the packed conference room and while people finished up their noshes, I defied Schoor by introducing myself and urging my colleagues to press our agenda as outlined in a Grassroots Education Movement broadsheet handed out by Norm Scott of ednotesonline. Schoor tried to shut me down almost immediately, but let me finish without interruption. 

As for our demand for a chapter, ever Schoor, the tone-deaf bureaucrat, declared that Union policy was made by the Executive Committee and Delegate Assemblies blah, blah, blah. And no, he would not share the sign-up list. In retort, I jabbed, “Such is the democracy we work in!” 

As the meeting wound down, two older female ATRs summed up our frustration with cris de coeur eliciting loud cheers. Said one: “Mulgrew doesn’t seem to care. Notice he’s not here and I bet he won’t be at the other meetings either.” 

And the other: “It's all about age and money. School aides are teaching classes in my school. Principals will not hire us. Where is the union in this? I want my dues back.”

Photo credit: 
http://t3.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcTvJMVRz32Ds33koGKwBmBvrKnWMP3hhs9YfOTIDSHNbQf08Zye1Q

Quotation of the Day 9/3/2011

Page 403: We learn that the closing of the rubber rooms in New York City hasn’t really accomplished much. Rather than be fired since they won their hearings, many of these teachers became part of what’s called ATR or Absent Teacher Reserve where, according to Brill, “they were still paid to do nothing.” Actually, they don’t do ‘nothing’ but serve as substitute teachers when regular teachers are absent. Though they do get paid more than subs who are not ATR, it’s not accurate to say they do ‘nothing.’

This is from a poor, tortured soul named Gary Rubinstein, who has plowed through Steven Brill's Class Warfare and written fact-checking notes on the entire book.  Rubinstein stayed awake all the way to page 403, where he noticed that Brill, like so many others, has swallowed the canard that ATR teachers sit around in a room with padded walls and do nothing.  Shame on Brill (as usual) and kudos to Rubinstein.




Graphics credit: http://www.writingforward.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/punctuation-marks-quotation-marks.gif  

ATR Trashtalk Recycled

Here we go again: someone else decides to write about the Absent Teacher Reserve (ATR) without having the slightest idea about what it is.

This time it was a site called bed-stuy.patch.com.  Instead of suffering through their errors, let's just see how they were refuted by good ol' Joseph Moses (one of my aliases). 

Your discussion of the Absent Teacher Reserve (ATR) is full of inaccuracies. 

1) Not all teachers who are excessed are "senior teachers" with six-figure salaries. Excessing frequently affects teachers who have worked only a year or two and who are earning far below six figures. 

2) Teachers are not excessed due to poor performance. The DOE states that excessing can take place for one of the following reasons: a) grade reconfiguration; b) reduction in student enrollment; c) school phase-out; d) program change.

3) Excessed teachers were never assigned to the "Rubber Room." That heaven-on-earth was reserved for teachers who had been accused of misconduct and were awaiting a hearing (click here for more information).  

4) ATRs did not begin to fill in for teachers on sabbatical or maternity leave "following last year's hiring freeze," nor will the new budget herald in an era in which ATRs begin to serve as day-to-day substitutes. I was excessed three years ago. For the first month, I filled in for a teacher on maternity leave; after that, I was sent to another school where I worked as a day-to-day substitute.

Respond! Inform!

     A fellow named Nick Collette recently wrote a string of mistruths about the Absent Teacher Reserve at a website called redcounty.com. Check out these whoppers:

           The union contract required that teachers be paid their full

           salaries and benefits if they are sent to the

           "Absent Teacher Reserve Pool."  These teachers, some

           being disciplined for astounding reasons, were

           being paid an average of $82,000 to sit in a room and 

           twiddle their thumbs because they failed at

           teaching the students they serve.

Donning the cape and tights of my alter ego, brooklynatr, I responded: 

    

 I can guarantee that I know more about the ATR than you do, because I am a member of the ATR.  I was not "sent" to the ATR for any disciplinary reason, astounding or otherwise.  Due to budgetary constraints, my original school needed to "shed" a few teachers.  The rule, as stated in the Collective Bargaining Agreement, is that the teacher within a given license area who has the least seniority is "excessed."  These teachers may be assigned by the D.O.E. to another school within their district on a permanent basis, or they may be placed in the ATR (click here for details).

Becoming an ATR has absolutely nothing to do with discipline.  It has absolutely nothing to do with failing to teach.  If we had committed a serious infraction or failed to teach our students, we would have landed in the infamous Rubber Room.  The ATR , however, is for qualified teachers with satisfactory records who got pinched by the budget and by the seniority system.

What do we do in the ATR? We do not sit in a room and twiddle our thumbs.  We teach.  Many of us have steady teaching assignments just like any other teacher.  Others, such as myself, report to work every day and are given a short-term assignment to subsitute for an absent teacher--hence the name, Absent Teacher Reserve.   Believe me, substituting for 30 seventh-graders is not the same as sitting in a room and twiddling your thumbs.    

   

This one has a happy ending.  Mr. Collette admitted that he had been misinformed and promised that he would correct his article as soon as possible.

The lesson is clear, colleagues: It pays to respond! It pays to inform!

Rubber-Room Escapees?

       On March 12, 2011,  Michael Goodwin became the latest Post columnist to spread misinformation about our schools' Absent Teacher Reserve.  Goodwin wrote that most ATRs escaped 'rubber rooms' only to suck up salary and benefits somewhere else. 

       Mr. Goodwin, I am an ATR.  I have never sat in a rubber room and I do not "suck up" salary and benefits.  I earn my salary and benefits--by teaching.

    Yes, Mr. Goodwin, every day I report to a school where I am assigned classes to teach.  That is what ATRs do--because they are teachers.

     Rubber rooms were for teachers accused of wrongdoing.  The unemployment line is for teachers whose work has been shown to be grossly incompetent.  The Absent Teacher Reserve is for teachers whose original schools needed fewer teachers than previously.  These teachers become ATRs and continue to teach in a different school.

    Believe me, I would prefer to have a "regular" teaching job, but the deck has been stacked against me.  In the meantime, I fulfill my duties as an ATR, which is also a teaching job.