UFT Election Season is here – UFT DA Notes, 10-16-2024

Summary/Analysis:

Mulgrew said it himself – it’s election season. Of course, he used this phrase to mischaracterize the speech of retirees who had just won a completed election to control the UFT’s Retired Teachers Chapter (RTC). No slate, in fact, has been announced to run against Unity this year, though some talks are occurring, and it’s presumptuous and offensive of Mulgrew to assume that retirees who are at the DA for the express purpose of saving their healthcare are merely candidates seeking further political office. Absurd. Election season is not a bad way to frame Mulgrew’s own conduct, though, who took out the Unity playbook this DA to use our dues for his own party’s campaigning. Step one: Mulgrew controlled the DA by going so long with the President’s report that it seemed like there would be no further business (until NAC’s Michael Shulman made a motion to extend the DA). Step two: Unity executive board members monopolized the new resolutions period, despite the fact that they can automatically get resolutions on the agenda via the executive board – whereas most of the UFT’s thousands of delegates only have this precious 10 minutes a month to do the same. The resolution both Unity members pushed was a resolution that pandered to retired voters. Specifically, they spoke of campaigning to increase COLA reimbursements. This is a common tactic by Unity – signal support for something that technically the UFT has no direct role in negotiating, so that if it succeeds, they can take credit, and if they don’t, it’s not really their fault. Notice  they wouldn’t put their money where their mouth is in terms of supporting the lawsuits that have kept UFT retirees from being forced onto MAP.

You heard a lot from Mulgrew campaigning about curriculum. What Mulgrew won’t do, however, is fight curriculum mandates in the first place. One thing Unity does well is demonstrate anger for failings they tie to the City or the DOE hoping that members don’t realize that UFT leadership could be doing a heck of a lot more. Curriculum is a good example. Ed Calamia wrote an interesting article that suggested a possible reason why this is here: “As a case in point, we can consider the grant-funded Teachers Centers. While it can be said that they are supporting teachers, it must also be said that they are ‘supporting’ the difficult work of implementing mandated curricula that teachers had no role in designing or choosing. With the money flowing in, the focus subtly shifts from fighting against the curriculum mandate to fighting for “supports.” The grant blunts the edge of the union’s struggle, diverting the union from what members want and toward the agenda of the grantor.”

I said this in the executive board minutes already, but I’ll say it again: Mulgrew appeared deceptive when he claimed 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. Notice, Mulgrew seemed to defend the original MAP contract in today’s DA, which should make us wonder if it might appear in a new form if/when the City resumes negotiations.

DA Minutes (informal)

Mulgrew: We need every single one of the people who have been voted into our representative assembly. Every year we start by talking about the challenges going into the school year, but also something also comes. We didn’t expect chancellor to announce retiring on third week of September. As of today, officially have a new chancellor, Melissa Ramos. We wish well of every new chancellor.

Moment of silence – Benita Wright, Ps 129, passed. Election chair. Sudden. To our chapter leaders in D5. Hearts go out to you.

National News: Not much nationally. Think you all know. Everyone is good on the national. One of most disgusting presidential races in time. Phone banking thousands of contacts every night. Headed to PA. All of Philly covered, waiting for where needed next week, but probably Lehigh Valley, which is interesting because we’ve never been asked to door knock there before. Very mountainous, so bring your good sneakers.

Doing a massive amount of phone banking. Always multiple candidates, because not just presidential election. All sorts of conversations. I’ve done some, people don’t believe it’s me. Really important work. Hope you all do.

Believe in people’s freedom of choice, we do same thing every time. We vet what’s in the best interests of the union. We know that politics is emotional, more than ever – most of it anger. Hopefully one day we can pull out of this tailspin. Most of the people I speak to are very appreciative. Be respectful.

New Chancellor: M. Ramos. From looking at what’s going on, last year she left DOE – a lot of frustration, a credit to her as far as I’m concerned. Came back just recently, now chancellor. My conversations with her have been specifically about conversations we’re facing right now, been facing for a couple of years – very bad curriculum implementation. Next problem is special education. We’re under a corrective action plan. Then, the safety problem. How do we have respectful but appropriate discipline? Micromanagement, paperwork, etc other issues of course. Had those conversations with her, and she is definitely looking at it from the lens of what does the DOE do for schools, and that’s a different view. Most chancellors come in, give a speech, mayor hiring them gives a speech, then says bureaucracy biggest problem for school system. Then they go in, and next thing you know they’re giving speeches about their ‘vision.’ Hoping we get to ‘what makes things work.’

When you do your consultations, they took over 500 people working at central and sent to superintendent offices. Try to see what’s up with that.

Changes to City government. Daily toll that we have to keep. We laugh about it, make jokes about it, not good for our city. When you have an entire admin, almost entire admin under investigation, not good for our city.* We are the largest school system, have mayoral control, don’t agree – see legislative priorities. Chaos not good. We will continue to monitor, but not a good thing. Governor clearly monitoring situation, clearly said have to clean house, then we have a new chancellor comes in knowing new mayor might be here in a month, maybe to only be mayor for a few more months, etc, etc. Not good for us. Need stability. That’s what our students need.

Our issues:

Chapter leaders, are your consultation teams meeting yet? Happy for those of you who got it done. Added more voice to the chapter. As education changed, I was frustrated when I was a CL. Kept doing Article 24s, and union said who is this nut filing article 24s, then started using SBOs, but a lot of it could have been done if we could just meet with the principal. That’s what we’ve chosen to do with that strategy. Only rights on paper if you don’t have the apparatus to use them in the school. You’ll never organize an entire school to be activists. They have families, but those of you who have time, thank you. Should be talking about curriculum, class size, new teachers (real mentoring program), safety (culture of discipline in the schools).

Curriculum:

• Illustrative Math: Picked it without consulting us, just said it would transform children’s brains. Once you hear stuff like that, here we go. We recommended against it, but they rolled it out. Thankful I spent a few weeks at high schools talking about IM. Some teachers coming together to deal with new chancellor. Reality is – education has been pretty basic. Voice, how to modify for our students. No one should be writing pacing calendars. Gotta modify, which means assessment every week on computer that has to be done – could be a problem. IM, teachers have pointed out that a bunch of the prerequisites (word scaffolding gets lost on the press) are missing to teach curriculum. Therefore, starting 9^th grade Algebra with a curriculum that’s missing a lot of the prereqs needed. Design of curriculum gives you the first 14 lessons – all statistics, which students have had no involvement with previously. Teachers documenting all of this. First 14 lessons, no one can do them, no room for remediation because have to do as designed. Teachers actually doing this saying kids will hate math by October. Then, the Algebra regents – 5 missing components on Regents through this curriculum. That means passing rates will go down, and teachers will be blamed. Heavy duty conversation we’re having. They said what about if we start in 6^th grade? Then we’ll find earlier the prerequisites weren’t done. Most math teachers say they understand this curriculum, understand that it’s changing approach, and get it and think it’s a good idea, but can’t teach it, because students aren’t prepared for it, don’t have time for remediation, and students won’t do well on the Regents. Schools using this have had 15-20 percent drop. DOE response is drop is because teachers don’t like change and students new to it. Told that chancellor giving interview about it on NY1.
• Literacy and HMH: do we agree, we do agree, that when teachers could do their own thing, vendors were going around selling lots of different products. One took hold – balanced literacy. Certain places it worked, not many, that was that a student comes already literate and continues learning. Problem with BL was that it was a company that seemed had a lot of retired NYC administrators and started to go to school to school to sell it. Chancellor came to me….most students don’t come to school literate, failing by not teaching how to read, we agree with science of reading. We vetted some curriculums. None were perfect, but OK, we’re NYC. Were able to actually talk to teachers and have the conversations as taught – too many units, so recommended units. Weekly assessment on computers, said not a good idea – because spending too much time on assessments. So assessments at end of modules, produces report that teachers can use to modify instruction. This year, entire school system, a mess. All consultant based support. This year the buzz word is fidelity – teach with fidelity. That means follow the script and don’t diverge even if no one is grasping any of it. In our consultations, chancellor is saying teachers aren’t being told to do that, that they understand need to modify. But principals and superintendents say the opposite. Complete mess. Impossible to teach any curriculum in NYC with fidelity. D 24, many languages, different levels of formal education, SWDs, children trying to modify and break down. Nothing in the world written that NYC doesn’t have to modify quite a bit. My first consultation with the new chancellor is Monday. New CLs, if told have to file report on HMH data, file an operational complaint. Called redundancy. Don’t let principals get away with this. What’s in best interest of kids is you (principals) pulling your heads out of a**l spores and letting us get things done. Group of HMH teachers will be having conversations with DOE. Not hard to implement if you’re a human being with morality about children education.

Class size: Last year we got clarification on the language. NYC told we must have compliance with class size law. Had to send money directly; some got a lot, some got a little, but it was never gonna work, because schools were about to close up. This year that will be different. Large amounts of money will be sent to the schools. Tentative agreement to be sent to the schools. If you have the space, you’re missing staff. If all you need staff, just need funds for salaries. Our position is each school should have autonomy. DOE, UFT, CSA must come to agreement – it’s the law. If it works the way we think it’s going to work, each school should be able to submit a plan to lower class sizes for this year. Then DOE knows it has to send the money – will be recurring. Stays forever, doesn’t go away. Foundation aid grows from year to year unless we have a calamity. If you do that and submit it, we approve it, you’re gonna get the money. So the biggest challenge becomes finding the people. Now remember, some schools don’t have the space. Rule isn’t based on school, it’s based on number of classes. Getting tighter. Law does say classes can be granted a waiver if can’t be done at this time. So D9 won’t have the number of SPED teachers to lower sped classes. Other schools completely overcrowded. SCA told where annexes must be built, based on school’s needs. While done, granted a waiver.

Safety, how many times you been told almost impossible to suspend someone so don’t give me a report. De Blasio a lot good with 3k/prek, but bad with safety. The getting rid of suspensions was one of the agenda items for De Blasio, understand why some might want that, but understand that in a classroom you need some discipline in order to teach. Don’t want to sit around and if a child is not behaving, have to help that child, but also need to help the other 24 kids in the class. Always been the argument. Last year were more suspensions, but still have a lot of principals who aren’t getting this yet. Still an issue in the winter, as soon as it gets warm, a bigger issue. Piece we’re not using; when you say something happens and yelling I want a suspension, hard unless it’s a completely overt act. Public thinks kid telling someone to go *** yourself is an overt act. Last thing you want is that kid coming back with a cookie and glass of water. Don’t want to go back to Bloomberg where we were suspending everyone for everything. He has wrong – dead wrong. But we don’t want to get to the point where we have chaos and can’t teach. Gotta start using the student removal process. It’s not used by many of us. Fill out a form, submit it, principal may come and talk to you, require them to put in writing if they say no they won’t remove a kid, stays in system. Automatic appeal process if this happens – very few denials upheld, always overturned. CLs, delegates, start talking about how you want to use that in your school. Can’t have one person doing that by themselves. Some of the best schools I’ve ever been in have been in the roughest neighborhoods in the city and vice versa. You have a safety committee, how are you using it? Parents are so right on this issue – why is it when a student does something really bad to my child, MY child has to leave? Why is it that when a student is disrupting the class, no one talking about the 24 kids who aren’t learning as a result? So you have to start using the student removal process. Protection is there in our contract; please make it a part of consultation.

Consultation: Are you on the CL hub? We use your consultation notes – put them on CL hub. What isn’t resolved goes to District consultation and then to my consultation with chancellor. Never had a chancellor who liked when I bring something like this up at consultation. They don’t understand why not previously resolved when so black and white.

Calendar: Handled election day. Not easy, got it done. People at DOE will say 2 principals want people coming in. More than 50% already signed up for virtual PD. Stupid to have to drive to work to go on a virtual PD. Handled.

Different thing last time – we used calendar as leverage for contract. Also thought it was the right thing to do, so people have an idea of what the calendar is going to look. During conversations, it was 186, 187, 186 that were originally, got it down 180, 181, 181. Don’t have to worry about snow days because of virtual. Tuesday after Labor Day when starts and must end by June 26. Everything that falls in between, is what it is. Realized there were some things we’d have to deal with later, one of which is Dec. 23. Just because we’ve had Dec. 23 off many times doesn’t mean we’ve also not had it off. Real negotiation. Dec. 23, we’ve had some parents specifically started in D. 20 and students. We have the day, it gets to 180. What will attendance be? Traditionally, somewhere around 40%. Not good for the school or state level. Costs 110 million to open schools for one day. Gonna have more conversations; doing because it’s the right thing to do. Doing the three years was a good thing, because we used it as a way to get there. Now everyone wants their holiday recognized, but we have to get 180 instructional days or they’ll say we have to extend the school year.

Healthcare:

MSK – In contact with Anthem people. Will be talking to MSK leadership group. Picking the patience. Wasn’t in our plan always. Were able to negotiate. Told insurance we would RFP you if they don’t get MSK in. Went a step further; created a program that other unions have copied part of where we could get the service. On top of that, layered that with service in union, call cancer hotline we help do that work for you. Since Jan 1^st, 1500 of people on UFT healthcare plan have used that service. MSk didn’t have to tell anyone til Nov 1^st til there was a problem, but did it in August because wanted leverage. Told them we aren’t going to be used. Know they’re the best, but don’t tell us that because of that you need to be paid more than everyone else. MSK is educational and non for profit facility. Don’t want to hear about bonuses. Drives up cost. All about making sure that gets done. Settle this thing, make it happen. Everyone is making money, no one going out of business; can’t stand in way of care.

HSS – similar to MSK, some just want to check diagnosis. Hundreds have called in, some active patients. This is what we’ve gotta keep doing – using buying power to leverage folks. HSS number one orthopedic hospital, but not even close to most expensive. That’s why we want it – best care and not even close to most expensive. Other hospitals charge double HSS and good luck not getting an infection.

Right now no negotiations with city…

Point of order: It’s 5:30 when are we gonna move on with the agenda. Came here to discuss an agenda and the report has taken all the time.

Mulgrew: No, report is very long in October. If you’re going to be a member of this delegation, have to understand that sometimes the reports are short, sometimes they’re long. Know you might have one thing you want to talk about – but not what whole entire agenda is about. This is a democracy. We do it this way because it is a democracy. *Unity Applause. If you don’t like the way the agenda is going, maybe you shouldn’t come.

MOSL: Make sure you have those conversations with the City. IPCs by October 25^th, know members love them. Those things have to get done. So many choices – save your receipts. Every year, know what is budgeted – teachers choice, want it all spent.

Virtual meeting: had virtual meeting, doing work with DOE, want to bring back together. Massive increase in school utilization for virtual so thank you to high schools. Know someone – person who tried to dismantle 3k – has left. Some of the new ones. Strange things going on, Alford got wind of it, so if admin still asking you to take pictures of students with personal cellphones and then upload it as evidence – that is not recommended and not, as has been said in some places, mandated.

Last year had a bunch of people who were denied access to 6 hours of pro rata in adult ed – have won arbitration.

All CTE – Perkins disbursement, make sure it’s being used for certified CTE.

End of report.

Ends at 5:33

Leroy Barr: chapter leader training this weekend, completely sold out. Phone banks taking place – go to the website for dates. Want everyone to participate. Sign up for one or two of dates. Making strides – thank you for wearing pink today. Have been a major contributor over the years. Thanks to S. Silva. Will march on various dates and locations across the city. Please join. Teacher union day – based on first strike, Nov. 7, honor our own on that day, so that we can keep the tradition alive. Make sure you get out there and vote. None of that matters if you don’t vote.

Ends at 5:35

Question Period:

Mulgrew: reaching out to retirees affected by hurricanes.

Name missed: one of 300 proud retired delegates. Related to what you were saying before healthcare. Now that withdrawn support for MAP and given that courts have found in favor of facts as presented by NYC Retirees. Will you submit amicus brief in support, send resources to UFT, etc.

Mulgrew: back and forth with various retirees. We will not submit for one simple reason – there are some allegations that are blatantly false, did send a letter, turned down on technicality, but don’t support going through with plan. So much misinformation out there…Gonna stop…Weighing words, trying to be nice. Issue is allegation that we would have agreed to certain things is just false. If you read contract, our plan did not have a lot of what is in other MAP plans. That is why we will NOT submit an amicus. Still only one issue that has officially withdrawn support. Can shake your head all you want. No, this is not a dialogue – you ask the question, I answer. Court case, no matter what outcome is, we aren’t supporting. That’s where we’re at. We do the work of the UFT. We do the work of our members and we will continue to always do that. This is an election season; so this is the shenanigan and highjinks season. Having respectful dialogue is more important than ever. People think we have a right to yell at each other. If you disagree with me, show me, but I’m not gonna sit here…Majority of delegation wants the report, if we get to it (the rest). If court tries to overturn and say the City can do this, we will fight. I will tell you that there are some issues with what the court has done going into the future, but the City is not negotiating anything, retiree, in service, nothing – and you can imagine why that is.

Y. Michelle (FDR): Couple of questions about one thing. Concerned about schools that are packed to the brim. Regarding the wavers, is there a specified length of time that these waivers will stay in place, if they will require a renewal, and what will be done to make sure that all schools get benefits of law.

Mulgrew: Waiver – 5 years. Need to prove that school is completely overcrowded, kicks in requirement to the City to come up with a plan that must be completed within five years, might be annex to building, may be building on top of building, otherwise SCA could just ignore your building. We had to fight for this. We might be going to your school. Would recommend we do that. This will be part of our school system forever. Will we have 100% compliance in every school every year? No, because might have influxes in different timeframes. Always must be a plan to fix it.

CL: What we do say to a principal who wants to cap classes to lower level?

Mulgrew: No, that would require capping entire school, position is no. No eliminating programs. Gotta be about – we don’t want schools capped. Have promised parents – in crowded school districts…

CL from D24: Shortage of paraprofessionals. Is there any plan about the hiring freeze?

Mulgrew: Sorry, sent this out but didn’t report. Yesterday, we sent an official notification to the commissioner, DOE, mayor – under corrective action plan for almost – can’t count COVID – roughly four years. Four years it’s gotten worse, not better. They’ll talk about two things that have gotten better – 1, more of the evaluations, especially for outside referrals, other thing is gonna tout that they’ve started increasing NEST programs. But now have more out of compliance. Not fighting with them. Thousands of children – OTPT chapter went out and collected data, 7,000 not getting OT/PT services. Number of paraprofessionals – their official answer is they have no idea how many are needed. Problem with that is that every mandated paraprofessional is in the SEISIS system, but they don’t want to know. Spoke to commissioner Rosa to have real discussion. Recently FOILED for their corrective action plan. Don’t send money for consultants or for DOE to have meetings about meetings. Get data, have SPED committees.

Motion Period (5:53)

Victoria Lee (TRS): Resolution for this month’s agenda. Put more money into pockets of members – more equitable cost of living adjustment for UFT retirees. (Basically calls for an advocacy campaign). This month’s agenda.

Norm Scott: Speaks against. We need time to study this – what is this rush? Give us time to think of amendments. Shouldn’t be calling on leadership during only time when only chance for everyone else.

Motion passes (miss phone count; in room: 217 yes, 118 no, 77%(

Michael Shulman: One of 300 proud newly elected; point of procedure, propose put forward 10 minutes, to take care of business of the house.

Yeses: 644, nos 207; mis rom count…. 74%)

Elizabeth Perez: disagree with Norm Scott, want to move to position of number 1, think there is an urgency so retirees can finally get COLA raises.

Passes.

Victoria Lee: Purpose of COLA to safeguard retirees….

M. Swerdlow: Call the question.

Mulgrew: under the rules, that can be done. People will start quoting Robert’s rules. Acceptable, however, I would prefer that we give a chance to speak for and against.

M. Swerdlow: Call the question.

653 – 95; 299 – 63.

Mulgrew: we have now passed the resolution – oh wait. Vote on resolution.

Passes : 707-46; 311-34; 93%.

Mulgrew: we will form a coalition whether unions want to or not.