If the UFT is against MAP, what are we doing about it? – UFT Exec Board Minutes and Analysis 10-7-2024

Summary and Analysis:

• There were some reports on issues with paraprofessional hiring and a vacancy survey the UFT will execute to help demonstrate discrepancies with the actual situation versus the data as logged.
• There was discussion on MOSL, which can be a problem for some teachers depending on the selection. Chapter Leaders are encouraged to go to MOSL trainings to help make sure teachers are tied to tests that make sense and don’t hurt them. Though MOSL is always a bit of a gamble and some question its veracity, It’s good to make MOSL less of a gamble and as likely to help teachers as possible.
• NAC’s own Michael Shulman gave an important report on the work the Retiree Advocate-led RTC chapter is doing to organize phone banking for important elections this year.
• NAC’s own Ed Calamia asked an important question about what we’re doing to help people affected by Hurricane Helene.
• Ibeth Mejia asked an important question about Medicare Advantage, which the UFT led the charge for pushing retirees onto until just after Retiree Advocate won the RTC election, unseating Unity for the first time in UFT history. (Retiree Advocate won largely based on their organizing efforts around Medicare Advantage). Mulgrew appeared deceptive, therefore, when he claimed in response to Ibeth’s question that the UFT was the only union officially against MAP (or, probably better described: this most recent MAP negotiation). In fact the Unity-led UFT led the charge for MAP and was one of the principle reasons we were in a financial hole (which we’re still in) that required us to find ways to make healthcare savings. For an article showing a vote in which many unions, but NOT the UFT (i.e. Mulgrew), went against the MAP decision before Unity lost an election, see here.

Unofficial minutes follow.

Moment of silence for Oct. 7

Open Mic

Name left out for privacy: daughter going through something heavy, explain after – thanks to Rashad. Secure, big weight off shoulders. Daughter’s mother in law is on her death bed, has cancer. Fighting it, then everything accelerated. Wasn’t sure if she had done everything needed with papers, so Rashad reached out to UFT legal, they quickly responded and papers were finalized. Thank you to UFT legal plan for that.

Minutes approved (see appendix).

President’s Report:

Mulgrew: whole bunch of people left administration today. Drama with chancellor last week. Keep focused on DOE. SPED has never been good with this department of ed. Thank Ots/Pts – went out and talked about all the kids getting referred for outside contracting – those are kids not getting their services. Also have a contractual provision where they can use a 9^th period for extra money. Now DOE is saying they might pilot it because not sure they can pay that, not even embarrassed. Passing chancellors have led to a lot of drama at Tweed courthouse.

Alex Jallot: who is in charge?

Mulgrew: good question…I might have to give you a different answer on a different day. We don’t have enough for phone banking even if they’re full, but congressional race is here in New York. 2-3 good, 2 others in a complete deadlock, so need to switch resources. Phone banking matters -makes a difference. As move forward, headed into chapter leader training time. Second MOSL meeting is this Wednesday. Spoken to a lot of folks – important decision that schools make on a yearly basis. Every year have schools that make bad decisions, every teacher gets dinged, but as different options become available – drilling down, some decisions good for some schools and not others. When first started with MOSL, some teachers upset because only wanted to be rated on own class, but it turns out you want a large set and maybe not in the subject you teach. One day, who knows where this will all go. If we get that done, we can start changing teacher evaluation. Never any good old days of teacher evaluation, just made it more complicated and crazy, but never any good old days. In fact, we’ve had much fairer observations since combined observations and MOSL. There’s no going back to administrators have final authority – not going back to that. People upstate say they want to go back to that. Why? Small town, everyone knows each other, no bad ratings. But we work under system where people used it punitively against us. Politics, politics…nothing is moving. But SPED we need to start focusing on. Mess in D75 and community schools. Para hiring freezed til last week, services not being provided. Wherever this stuff goes with the Mayor, we’ll see.

Golf outing this week. It’s October – one month down.

Ibeth Mejia: Want to follow up about question asked in last executive board meeting. Since we pulled support from MAP in June, how is the union going to take action in terms of pushing against our mayor, because he seems to still be for MAP, but majority of UFT members are concerned about this.

Mulgrew: He hasn’t spoken about this in months. Just like you, I do my job. Our position is clear, told him what our position is. But read the lawsuit that was filed, doesn’t mean the City can’t do it. Part of the danger of that lawsuit. So in MLC, UFT is still the only union that has officially said we will not support this. Had conversation with the rest of the MLC, but their actions are not matching what they said.

Mejia: Can we take action with City Council people?

Mulgrew: No matter what, City would have to have MLC agree with it, say a scenario where it’s brought up for a vote, knowing what we were going to do, that might push people in that direction, but now they support it. We’re the only ones who have been on record sending that letter saying we don’t support it. Always had a few thousand in MAP programs, so it’s an option for those who want it, but not the same one we negotiated. Those are the traditional ones. So when you’re talking to the other unions, ask them why we’re the only ones with this position.

Michael Sill: We’re going to be sending out a survey about vacancies. Matter of practice, DOE doesn’t open nomination period until October, ostensibly so excessed paras could be placed, but there’s a shortage – an overwhelming need. So put off nomination period for their own bureaucratic reasons. Other reason, weird name for a document that’s a record of the budget, including HR realities. There’s a paraprofessional section and a per diem section, so if you look at that budget, rarely will you see vacancies under the paraprofessional section into per diem so they can pay the per diems, and then somebody asks how many vacancies are in the system for paras, but then vacancies are closed because they were moved into the per diem section of the budget. So I’m pursuing – so even basing on voluntary contributions is based on SEISIS, we don’t have access to that. They don’t talk to Galaxy – so we need the voluntary contributions of information, not names but numbers. I think those numbers will totally outstrip DOE numbers. Para need greatest than ever reported in City’s history.

Question Period:

Ed Calamia: Over the past period of time, we’ve all witnessed the devasting impact of Hurricane Helene, what are already doing, how could we do more, know an election is going on, a lot happening, but have heard disturbing things coming out of there and help seems needed. Government overwhelmed, donno.

Karen Alford: Can’t answer on macro level, but on micro level, but we’re constantly raising money at events. Golf a big one to raise money for disaster relief. Retirees in that area, we’ve reached out to the ones we know about, disaster relief checking in with them. Some folks just happy to see us checking in with them.

Reports from Districts:

Karen Alford: At our core, working toward community service. Great time for civic education. Robust panel happening. October 8.

Aqeel Williams: New schools in district. Building top notch, shallow narrow hallways. Beautiful, architecturally stunning. An official Bronx Debate Academy in the Bronx, District 9. Full circle moment for Green family.

Name Missed: ribbon cutting for one of newest schools in district 20. 130 new students. Look forward to expanding.

Daniel Rodriguez: 2 events, phone banking at bronx high schools at borough office. Thank everyone at Bronx Borough Office. School visit at Walton campus, joint visit with Janella Hinds to meet with all the CLs, something I try to push is to have chapter leaders find a common goal to work on something together – hard goal to say no to. Was a meeting about IM curriculum, and at this point right now, I believe they have almost hired a librarian – we’re excited about this. We’ve also committed to follow up on these issues. Really big win, working library – students who came in as Freshman who never had a library. Hoping this will be the first year where they’ll end that cycle. CLs will see that when we work together.

Adam Shapiro: On behalf of Nancy Armando, had back to school. On same day in District 21 had back to school day as one. On Friday the 22^nd, frustrations a CL mentioned that there weren’t door buzzers at school yet. Reached out to the councilman and assembly member in district and got a response that school would be getting buzzer installed.

Servia Silva: Ribbon cutting in district, 10 years of lobbying, letter writing, community rallying, finally have pool fixed in area so kids don’t have to go elsewhere to swim. 16^th is Pink day. 6 walks at different locations: 20^th and 27^th, go to website to find site that works for you. Last year we raised 100k, maybe we can double to 200k.

Teresa Bellow: NYSUT was sponsor at lovely event where we celebrated Andrea Stuart Cousins, champion for NYS educators for many years. A lot of rep from UFT among others. Remember to turn over your ballots for equal rights.

Rashad Brown: LGBTQ history month.

Michael Shulman: Not a member of this exec board, but am a recently elected vice chair of the RTC. I thought people should know, not speaking for Bennet Fisher, last week was the first day of the phone banks for RTC. Tremendous success. Full house, even ran out of devices. Made calls for congressional reps on Long Island – have two other dates coming up this week.

Legislative Report:

Thanks for various events. Upcoming buses to PA. Refer to UFT website and PACs. Vote.

One Special Order of Business:

Shawn Rockowitz: Monday December 23 is a stupid day to have school in person. Going into past, there is a history of closing schools on that day when it’s a Monday. Save money by closing, makes holiday/travel plans easier for students/staff, whoever makes the decision, if that person won’t do it, at least pivot to remote – see if IBM can support that.

Passes.

Stand Adjourned.

Appendix – Official Minutes (approved in this Executive Board meeting)

Executive Board Minutes

September 23, 2024

Present:      Adika, Aklu, Alford, Aromando, Arroyo, Artis, Atkinson, Ayrovainen, Bacon, Barr, Bello, Bennett, Bongiovanni,  R. Brown, T. Brown, Calamia, Cambria, Castro, Conaboy, Coppola, Crinigan, Crispino, Diakite, DiBenedetto, Eaddy, Espert, Friedman, Gaglione, Garcia, Ginese, Gordon, Highland, Hill, Josaphat, Kazansky, Khalid, S. Lee, V. Lee, Mantell, Mejia, Miller, Mulgrew, T. Murphy, Nanay, Perez, Polite, Poulos, Ramos, Robbins, Rock, Romero-Lee, Rotkowitz, Ruiz, Rzonca, Santos, Sarabia, Schirtzer, Shapiro, Sill, Silva, Sorkin, Surpris, Thompson, Tindal, Usatch, Vaccaro, Weinerman, Yon.

Excused:     S. Abrams, Alexander, Almonte, Anastasiou, Arundell, Barker, Bart, Colvin, Destin, Franks, Geist, Goldman, Harmon, Hinds, Hughes, Jallot, Kuzar, Lozupone, C. Murphy, Negron, Nobles, Peña, Pender, Reed, D. Rodriguez, L. Rodriguez, Rogers, Rosier-Rayburn, Sandau, Waltzer, Webb-Geddes, Wilks-Duplan, Williams, Williams-Crawford.

Secretary Barr called the meeting to order.

The following minutes were approved:  Executive Board minutes of September 9, 2024 and AdCom

minutes of September 13, 2024 and September 20, 2024.

President Mulgrew’s report:

We have been meeting with math teachers.  We have told the Department of Education that we have serious problems with their curriculum on illustrative math.  If they wanted to use this curriculum, they should have started by changing the 6^th curriculum to put the scaffolding in place so that by the time they got to the 8^th and 9^th grades they would have the skills needed for this math.   They argue that it has been successful. However, that’s been the case only where they have done this.  We want to make sure there are enough teachers that represent the city before we take next steps.

We were in South Philly on Saturday.  Thanks to those who joined us.  We had a great time.  The Philadelphia Teachers Union and the AFL-CIO were so thankful.  Every union household has been reached in the Philadelphia area.  It was well done.  The next bus is scheduled to go to Scranton and then the Lehigh Valley for the first time ever.  We are also involved in phone banking for the presidential race as well as seven very competitive congressional races in NYS.  The lists will go out for those who would like to volunteer.

The Vice Presidential debate is at CBS studios on the west side of Manhattan on Tuesday, October 1. We will have a watch party here.  We would like to have teachers front and center at the site as well to let them know how we feel about both candidates.  We want to get there early so they can use it as the prep for the debate itself.  As soon as we get that organized, we will share that information.

The drama going on right now with the mayor and his administration is not helpful.  We will have to persevere through this.  Several superintendent vacancies are still open.  Some schools do not have the basic books they need for the literacy program. There is no excuse for this. The DOE is completely incompetent.

Politics is front and center.  We will show our leadership.  This is going down to the wire.

Thanks to everyone for participating.

Secretary Barr announced that all the phone banking dates for each borough are on the UFT website.

Motion:         To adjourn.

                                              Carried

Respectfully submitted,

LeRoy Barr

Secretary

UNITED FEDERATION OF TEACHERS

52 Broadway

New York City 10004

Ad Com Minutes

September 27, 2024

Present:      Alford, Barr, Brown, Ginese, Goldman, Gordon, Hinds, Lee, Mantell, Mulgrew, Sill, Vaccaro.

Motion:       To send 4 members to the National Council of Negro Women, Inc. 61st National Convention on October 9-13, 2024, in Baltimore, MD at a cost of $2,159 per person.

                                            Carried

Motion:       To send 4 members to the NAACP’s 88^th Annual New York State Conference on October 11-13, 2024, in Armonk, NY at a cost of $1,058 per person.

                                            Carried

Motion:       To send 4 members to the CASEL Social & Emotional Learning Exchange Conference on November 12-14, 2024, in Chicago, IL at a cost of 2,305 per person.

                                            Carried

Motion:       To send 4 members to the New York State Teachers of English to Speakers of Other Languages (NYSTESOL) Conference on November 14-16, 2024, in Rochester, NY at a cost of 1,635 per person.

                                            Carried

Motion:       To send 5 members to the ACTE’s Career Tech Vision Conference on December 4-7, 2024, in San Antonio, TX, at a cost of $2,660 per person.

                                            Carried

Motion:       To adjourn

                                            Carried

Respectfully submitted,

LeRoy Barr

Secretary

UNITED FEDERATION OF TEACHERS

52 Broadway

New York City 10004

AdCom Minutes – by email

October 2, 2024

Officers:     Alford, Barr, Brown, Ginese, Goldman, Gordon, Hinds, Lee, Mantell, Mulgrew, Sill, Vaccaro.

Motion:       To approve the following:

Resolution: Close Schools on Monday, December 23, 2024

Whereas there is a longstanding practice of closing NYC Public Schools on Monday, December 23rd when it falls on a Monday; and

Whereas this practice has been followed in previous years, including 2019, 2013, 2002, 1996, 1991, and 1986; and

Whereas closing schools on December 23rd would provide students and families with a longer winter break, allowing for more rest and relaxation during the holiday season; and

Whereas closing schools on this day would reduce absenteeism and improve instructional outcomes, as students and families would be less likely to miss school for vacation or holiday travel; and

Whereas closing schools on December 23rd would alleviate the financial burden on the school system, as there would be reduced costs for food, transportation, and utilities; and

Whereas a student petition has been launched to support closing schools on December 23rd;

Therefore, be it resolved that the Chancellor of NYC Public Schools and the Board of Education should close schools on Monday, December 23, 2024, to provide students and families with an uninterrupted winter break and reduce costs for the school system.

If schools cannot be closed, then be it further resolved that the Chancellor of NYC Public Schools should implement a remote learning day on Monday, December 23, 2024, which could be used by NYCPS to fully stress test pivoting to remote by all divisional levels at the arrival times of each school in the system which has never been attempted.

                                            Carried

Respectfully submitted,

LeRoy Barr

Secretary