New Action – UFT

The following resolution was introduced at the UFT Executive Board Monday, May 19, 2014. It was defeated on a caucus-line vote

UFT Executive Board Resolution on Identifying Schools With High Staff Turnover

Whereas, the Open Market Transfer Period runs from the present through the beginning of August, and
Whereas, every year thousands of our members apply for schools to transfer into, and
Whereas, high turnover rates are an indication that a school may have a problematic administration, and
Whereas, our members seeking transfers may not know which schools have high turnovers rates, but that information is available to the UFT, therefore be it
Resolved, that the UFT will establish a procedure in which a member can call a borough office and learn if a school in that borough has a high turnover rate, and be it further
Resolved, that the UFT will publish a list in the New York Teacher which details which schools have exceptionally high staff turnover.

The Unity speakers against asserted that publishing the names of high turnover schools would be calling those schools bad schools, and that some high turnover schools are simply hard-to-staff schools, and that the staffs of those schools would be publicly shamed. Further, members already call the borough offices with questions.

High turnover rates are one of a number of factors that potential transfers should know about. Sometimes there is an understandable reason for a high number, but usually there is not. New Action continues to believe that teachers who need to transfer should have as much information as possible about the schools they are applying to.  In agreeing to the open market transfer system in 2005, the union should have assumed the obligation to protect transfers by providing such information.