Any UFT member who receives an APPR end-of-year rating which is not correct or does not reflect his/her performance accurately, must, in my opinion, file for an Appeal. You may lose this Appeal, but this step is an important part of the process you must take to clear your record and/or name. The UFT owns this part of the Appeals process.
The UFT website has the information you need to appeal. READ AND FILE!!
Betsy Combier
Process for teachers
to appeal an Ineffective rating for 2014-15 school year
PUBLISHED SEPTEMBER
1, 2015
Two kinds of appeals
There are two different types of appeals in the new evaluation
system: chancellor’s appeals and panel appeals. All teachers are entitled to a
chancellor’s appeal. After talking to you and reviewing your forms and
supporting documentation, the UFT will
determine whether your case may be appropriate for a panel appeal.
Chancellor’s appeals
A hearing officer from the DOE’s Office of Appeals and Review,
the same office that hears U rating appeals, will hear your case. Unlike the U
rating appeals process, which can drag on for months, the DOE hearing officer
has 30 days to issue a decision in a chancellor’s appeal.
Panel appeals
The union can identify up to 13 percent of all Ineffective
ratings each year to challenge on grounds of harassment or reasons not related
to job performance.
These cases will be heard by a three-member panel comprised of a
person selected by the DOE, a person selected by the UFT, and a neutral arbitrator.
Cases that the UFT selects for panel appeals may require a
follow-up meeting with a UFTadvisor.
All returning teachers covered by the new evaluation system
should receive their year-end rating for the 2014–15 school year via Department
of Education email. Hard copies of ratings will be provided when they
return to school on Sept. 8, according to the DOE.
For those who receive a rating of Ineffective, there is a
process in place to appeal the rating. Regardless of the reason you may feel
the rating is unfair, the first steps you should take are the same.Call your UFT borough
office to make an appointment to file your appeal. At that time, aUFT representative
will guide you through the steps you need to take prior to the appointment.
To prepare for your appointment and your appeal, you need to be
proactive and organized. You must submit the specific, detailed reasons for
your appeal as well as all of the documents you plan to use to support your
arguments. The UFT has posted online a checklist of materials that you should gather in preparation for your appeal. These
include your Overall Rating Report, Observation Reports, Learning Measure
results, documents related to your Teacher Improvement Plan (TIP), if
applicable, and any other documents that you feel are pertinent.
In addition to the documents, you must provide the reasons your
rating should be overturned. In order to help you, we have created forms that
the borough office will email you when you contact them to make an appointment.
The borough office will also provide you with an email address to which you can
send the completed forms. Before your appointment, fill out all the forms
you receive electronically and save them on your computer. Attach the
forms to an email and send them to the email address provided by your borough
office when you made the appointment. Include any supporting documentation
that you are able to send electronically, such as your rating sheet
and observations.
Bring hard copies of your completed forms and all your
documentation with you to your appointment.
At your appointment, your intake advisor will review your forms
and documentation for completeness, objectivity and clarity. The intake advisor
will let you know if you are missing any documents or if you need to flesh out
information on your form.
The UFT must submit electronically to the DOE the
forms and accompanying documentation for all teachers filing appeals. This means
that in order to ensure your case is filed, you must complete and submit your appeal
package to the UFT by Monday, Oct. 26. We cannot guarantee that members who contact
us after that date will have their cases appealed.
The DOE will begin holding its appeals hearings in late December
or early January.
If you receive an Ineffective rating for the 2014–15 school
year, you will be given a Teacher Improvement Plan this school year designed to
pinpoint weaknesses and support you in addressing them. (Teachers rated
Developing may also be given a Teacher Improvement Plan.) A trained Peer Validator, who is a fellow New York City
public school teacher, will also observe you three times over the course of the
year and review the fairness of your rating.