Motion on ATRs for the UFT Delegate Assembly

Read the call of the ATRs we posted a few days ago. Here is their motion which they will try to present at today's Delegate Assembly.

Motion

ATR Urgent Situation

WHEREAS, at the start of this school year, classes are more crowded than ever, state money budgeted for reducing class size is used for other purposes, and more than half (54 percent) of New York City schools have seen their class sizes or student-teacher ratios increase in recent years; and

WHEREAS, almost 1,400 teachers are assigned to the Absent Teacher Reserve, in many cases because their schools have been reorganized out from under them, and due to the new funding formulate which works against senior teachers; and

WHEREAS, these teachers are highly qualified, yet are kept in substitute pools, and sometimes even prevented from teaching; and

WHEREAS, the mainstream media, the mayor, the chancellor and the “New Teacher Project,” funded by the DOE, are scape-goating teachers in a publicity barrage, trying to break our contract and put ATR teachers on unpaid leave after a year or 18 months; and

WHEREAS, ATR teachers are facing stepped-up harassment from principals such as formal observations in classes outside their license area, truncated or no pre-ob conference, and where the sub has not had the opportunity to know the students' particular interests and abilities; and

WHEREAS, many new teachers in the Teaching Fellows program have also not received assignments and are facing the threat of being terminated in December and dropped from the program if they do not find a position; and

WHEREAS, this is a vital issue for the UFT and affects all union brothers and sisters—teachers, paras, secretaries, speech teachers and pathologists, counselors, social workers/psychologists, and others -- by enabling the DOE to drop tenured staff from their positions and leave them in limbo; and

WHEREAS, students suffer when the DOE refuses to reduce class size while keeping qualified teachers out of the classroom; and

WHEREAS, the UFT has called for a moratorium on new hiring until the ATRs are placed, yet this proposal has been ignored by the Tweed, the Mayor’s Office and the Media.

THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED, that the UFT will organize a mass citywide rally to show our unity and strength, calling on the NYC Department of Education to reduce class size and give assigned positions to all teachers in the Absent Teacher Reserve who want assignments before any new teachers are hired; and

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED, that the Teaching Fellows, many of whom gave up jobs and traveled to NYC to become teachers, not be terminated, and instead be placed in positions in the DOE, before any new teachers are hired.