A close-up look at NYC education policy, politics,and the people who have been, are now, or will be affected by these actions and programs. ATR CONNECT assists individuals who suddenly find themselves in the ATR ("Absent Teacher Reserve") pool and are the "new" rubber roomers, people who have been re-assigned from their life and career. A "Rubber Room" is not a place, but a process.
ELMHURST, Queens (WABC) -- A school in Queens will be closed for two weeks after two staff members tested positive for COVID-19, becoming the first school in New York City to close due to a potential outbreak.
The John F. Kennedy Jr School in Elmhurst will remain closed through October 13, according to a letter sent home to families on Wednesday.
"As always, the health and safety of our students and staff, and everyone in the DOE family across the city, is our top priority," the letter read. "As you know, our school building was closed for an initial 24 hours because two or more members of our school community tested positive for COVID-19. Today, we are writing to update you that the NYC Test + Trace Corps and the NYC Department of Health and Mental Hygiene have determined that at this time the main site building must remain closed for 14 days."
The Department of Education said the staff members were in different classrooms and are not linked. The incident meets the protocols of a 14-day switch to remote learning, which is what occurred.
All teaching and learning will continue remotely, and officials hope to reopen the building on Wednesday, October 14.
"It has 262 students in their blended learning program and 88 staff so that school as of today is shut down for two weeks," Mayor Bill de Blasio said. "That's the only one the entire time that has experienced that."
Anyone with a positive COVID-19 test will not return to the school until they are no longer infectious.
Close contacts of the persons who tested positive have been notified and will continue their 14-day quarantine period.
"If the safety comes first, there might be times when the school community has to flip the switch and go remote," United Federation of Teachers president Michael Mulgrew said, "We are not closing our schools. Are we live or are we remote? Those are the two new things that schools operate under."
If additional close contacts are identified, they will also be instructed to quarantine for 14 days.
Families are reminded to stay home if you feel sick, monitor your and your child's health, wear a mask and practice social distancing.
"Kids will get instruction remotely, then the school will be back up," de Blasio said. "Everyone who was quarantined will come right back, and will continue with the rest of the school year."
If Educators Can’t File Grievances, Do We Have a Union Contract?
Over the week of March 9, it became increasingly clear that schools needed to close in New York City. Schools were already closed or closing in many states and Greater New York, as the most densely populated metropolitan area in the country, was at a higher risk of rapid spread than anywhere else.
By the end of the week, the UFT leadership began its ‘fight’: vowing to file a labor complaint, considering a lawsuit against the DOE, and eventually claiming it would file an injunction with the Supreme Court (as if they would care more than De Blasio).
Meanwhile, rank and file UFT members were organizing to protect themselves and their students. Job actions such as sick outs, walk-ins, and walk outs were discussed and planned in many union chapters across the city. De facto sick outs among educators and families alike were already happening for the entire week prior, and it was obvious the time to shut the schools had already passed.
At this point, UFT leadership and rank-and-file members agreed on the problem, but not the solution.
On Sunday March 15, facing rock bottom student and teacher attendance the next day, Mayor De Blasio finally closed the schools. Analysis since then has come to the consensus that it was the militancy of rank and file members, not the abstract legalese of the UFT leadership, that forced the schools to close.
Nevertheless, from March 17-19, public educators were told to report to school in order to transition to remote learning for the foreseeable future. Why was it necessary to ask educators to travel across the city to meet physically to learn how to teach remotely? No one knows, and no one remembers any valuable training happening. Two months later, over 100 educators have died, 16% of students still do not have access to remote learning, and about 50% overall do not actively participate. It’s as obvious as ever that the DOE and UFT were unprepared and incompetent in this crisis.
Now, the UFT doesn’t have the backs of its members. In April, almost 300 rank-and-file members filed grievances against DOE administration, citing violations of contractual provisions related to health and safety, as the DOE clearly violated health advisories from federal, state, and its own city government in allowing schools to remain open during the weeks of March 9 and March 16. The grievants wanted paid sick days added for all members, both those who reported and those who stayed home in order to protect themselves.
Instead of fighting for these members’ rights, UFT district representatives repeatedly told UFT rank and file members that grievances could not be filed. However, no written agreement between the UFT and DOE stipulates this. Further, there is a statute of limitations for filing grievances; if the DOE has not agreed to waive these limitations, the DOE could reject the grievances, as the time for filing those has already expired. Rather, the UFT was refusing to pursue these grievances, and by extension refusing to fight for the dignity of members who were put in harm’s way in March.
The UFT leadership has gone from an incompetent adversary of the DOE to a willing accessory in direct violations of educators’ health and safety. The message regarding grievances is that they are closed and indefinitely suspended.
Immediately, the UFT needs to do the following:
file all grievances for teachers remotely, the same way teachers are teaching remotely
negotiate a strong contract for online learning similar to that of the United Teachers of Los Angeles
establish a specific and thorough safety plan for re-opening schools
prepare rank-and-file for potential work actions in the fall, through political education and reorganization of the union to democratize it and maximize rank-and-file voice and action
During this time, more than ever, the UFT needs to be active, militant, and transparent to organize membership for fights ahead. This is no time to let the grievance process lapse. These actions towards members by the UFT leadership show bad faith in representation and a lack of basic solidarity. The time to show resolve and strength is now. We’re fighting, we’re watching what our union leadership does, and we’ll remember it.
by Derek Hafner, David Price, Caroline Sykora, Marian Swerdlow, and Andrew Worthington, all rank-and-file members of the United Federation of Teachers
Principal Alice Hom (left) and teacher Laura Lai start the school day remotely with
students at Yung Wing School P.S. 124.
The pandemic that hit the United States will forever be known here in New York City as the event that changed everything for kids, parents, and advocates in New York City's public schools.
New York City has been described as the most corrupt city with the largest public school system in the US. My perspective comes from my activities as a parent and education advocate who has 4 children who went through the NYC public schools. Discrimination, segregation,deceit and fraud are imbedded into the structure of the NYC Department of Education. Change happens rarely because the Courts and State legislature are bought by the same people who benefit from the inequality. Lawsuits are won on a case by case basis, not by touching the underlying foundation. Its like turning off the water but not fixing the pipe.
All public schools are not included in the pile of trash, and it can be said that NYC public schools have the best education programs in the world as well as the worst, only here money is distributed through a prism of implicit bias and racial segregation. It's the geography of the city that has made this happen. It's always about the money. Always. In general terms those with money have what they need to succeed; those without, don't and cannot get what they need unless they go to the "right" people who are not bought or co-opted out by nefarious people or other powerful forces.
Pat Romandetto
For years parents, teachers, and concerned others in Harlem and the South Bronx have cried out in vain that there are no good public schools in these neighborhoods. I witnessed blatant hypocrisy and segregation in Booker T. Washington MS 54 when I was PTA President (1999-2001), and I tried to equalize the resources and was attacked by white parents who did not want their kids to lose their privileged position in the Delta Honors Program. Delta had the third floor at the school, and the other 4 programs, whose rosters included community kids and special education students, occupied the second and first floors. Principal Larry Lynch made a mistake when he "borrowed" the check my PTA raised for more than $13,700 and told me that Superintendent Pat Romandetto had to "see" it. He then delivered a Comprehensive Education Plan to Pat that had a fraudulent signature page re-used from a prior year, in order to hide all data of MS 54's systemic misallocation of funds from the School Leadership Team, where I was a member.
I still remember a meeting I had as PTA President with Pat and Larry in the District 3 office where I heard Pat and Larry laughingly say how they obtained $1 million in Title 1 funding although Booker T. no longer qualified to get those funds. I reported this to the Special Commissioner and New York State Education Department.
Back to my missing PTA check.We needed the money for science equipment, so I spent a school year trying to get the money back while I was vilified by the white Delta parents and the District 3 Officer for Family Engagement, D.J. Sheppard. It was rough. Through the entire time I had a whistleblower parent who pretended she was part of the gang and gave me everything they emailed and or handed out. Staff in the main office at MS 54 secretly gave me documents, budgets, rosters, everything I needed. Thanks to them, I got through the bad stuff and learned how the DOE worked. I took notes and recorded conversations (legal in New York State, which is a one-party state).
In 2001 after 9-11, the late former Chancellor Harold Levy moved into the conference room right outside of Principal Stanley Teitel's office at Stuyvesant High School. As I was on the PA Executive Board as Editor of the PA Bulletin, the newspaper, Stan asked me to keep Harold company. So I did. I told him all about Booker T. and what I saw. He told me to talk with his buddy Deputy Chancellor Burt Sacks, so I did, and Burt told me that all principals take money. I wrote it all up for the new Chancellor Joel Klein and handed it to him personally as he was about to start a meeting at Tweed. He fired Burt Sacks on the spot, and Randi Weingarten hired him as a Special Representative/Assistant to her, within a few weeks or days, I do not remember. He later went to CUNY. Larry Lynch was removed from the school and I heard that he was hired by New York University. Pat Romandetto was replaced and sued for racial discrimination. I went to her trial. While she was on the witness stand the lighting in the Courtroom put Pat and her fur coat in such a light that she looked exactly like Cruella De Vil ("Devil"). It was warm in the Courtroom, but she kept that fur coat on, just like Cruella.
The reason I have spent a little time on some background is to back up what I am about to say. This is an important time in the history of public schools in NYC, and not only for the students, but for parents and educators.
Without students attending classes inside the Department of Education buildings, theft of federal and state funding is going to have to change. What will "proof of attendance" look like? How are schools going to get money for "seat time"?
With remote teaching the 3020-a arbitration panel for incompetence and/or misconduct charges will have to be re-designed or put on hold, long-term. How are teachers going to be evaluated? Chancellor Carranza said this past week that no one will be, and he hopes that everyone can work together. I'm all for that. Is the Danielson rubric over, done, trash? I hope so.
With no teachers or Guidance Counselors in a school, no corporal punishment charges can be proven. Notice I am not saying that charges wont be brought, because we all know that anyone can accuse anyone of anything and have the person terminated in a 3020-a hearing (if the Respondent does not have a good rep. fighting for him/her). Proving there was no information of intent or harm is what I do. Show me the facts, the doctors' reports, police complaints, dispositions. Otherwise, stop talking and withdraw the charges.
Without grades for K-8, and systemic false data posted into school VADIR or NYSED data, how will private schools and higher education/colleges/universities look at students from NYC for potential placement?
What about 1:1 paraprofessionals and therapists? How can they do their work remotely? How are they going to be evaluated?
The list goes on and on.
So, new techniques of assessment and accountability must be created. We need new security measures and ways to monitor data and people. We are not seeing this yet.
I have to tell ya, COVID-19, you have really been a gold digger for the corruption police. Everything false, misleading and not valid is bubbling up to the top.
I'm excited to see what happens next with the new normal NYC Department of Education and it's thorns and scorns.
The city boasts that 89 percent of school kids are engaging in “daily interactions” with their teachers during coronavirus-sparked remote learning. But educators dismiss the statistics as smoke and mirrors.
“A student can literally text or email ‘F–k you’ — and that counts as a meaningful interaction,” an elementary school teacher told The Post.
Interactions do not mean class attendance or completed assignments.
“All a student needs to do is hit ‘turn in’ on Google Classroom without doing the assignment and that counts,” the teacher said.
Contact with parents can also be tallied, but it does not necessarily indicate learning. “A text from a parent saying ‘My child isn’t doing the work’ counts as a daily interaction,” the teacher added.
The DOE leaves it up to each school to define interactions, but says they may include a submitted assignment, joining an online discussion, a student’s or parent’s phone call or email or response to a message, or “other evidence of participation as determined by the principal.”
At some schools, teachers report students simply signing in — but then disappearing for the day and turning in no work — is defined as an “interaction.”
According to a DOE press release Wednesday, the agency tallied an average 88.6 percent of students in Pre-K through grade 12 had “daily interactions” from May 18-22.
An impressive total, but even if true it leaves some 128,500 kids a day who did not even check-in. The DOE has nearly 1.1 million students enrolled.
It’s unclear if the absent kids are playing virtual hooky, lack an iPad, laptop and Internet access, or can’t take part because of personal or family hardships.
All three reasons are possible, teachers say.
“A big part of the job has been playing ‘phone number detective,’” a Brooklyn high-school teacher said, describing efforts to track down missing kids.
“Some students who were doing excellent in class have fallen off the face of the earth,” the humanities teacher said.
A couple of his students are homeless and living in shelters where they don’t have a place to sit and learn, or parents who can support them. Other no-shows are Spanish-speaking immigrants.
Another reason for their disappearance: “They’ve got jobs,” the teacher said. One teen, whose mother died when she was young, is working in a supermarket.
School staffers spend hours every day trying to contact no-shows.
“We call, we text, we email to get students to sign on for live instruction. It’s extremely frustrating,” a Harlem special-ed teacher said. ”Some kids go MIA for days at a time.”
Last week, the teacher contacted every parent of kids in her class with the message, “Your child needs to attend Google Meet at 11 a.m. for live math instruction.”
“No one showed up. No one,” she said.
All her students have iPads or laptops, but some parents say they run into Internet problems or can’t help their kids because they’re working. Babysitters or grandparents may not speak English.
The most students who have attended her live classes was about 50 percent, she said. Students who do log on are so “desperate” to catch up with friends the teacher gives them 10 minutes or so to chat.
A City Council hearing on remote instruction last week left City Councilman Mark Treyger, education committee chairman, frustrated, he told The Post.
“The DOE did not know how many students have never logged on, or don’t log on regularly. The DOE did not know how many students are receiving live instruction. The DOE did not know how many students received wellness-check calls, and how often those calls are made.”
Chief Academic Officer Linda Chen could not answer Treyger’s questions.
The DOE could not answer Treyger’s questions, but insisted that absenteeism is no greater for online classes.
“On any given day during in-person schooling, nearly 10 percent of students may be absent, and our current interaction data is comparable,” said spokeswoman Danielle Filson.
“We are checking in with students and families everyday, and we intensify our outreach when students are chronically absent. We’re going above and beyond to keep kids on track and make sure they’re okay during this pandemic.”
The city Department of Education doesn’t know how many of its students are actually being live taught at home during the coronavirus lockdown, officials conceded Wednesday.
Asked if they were keeping track of live lesson provision in the wake of the closure of schools in March, a top DOE official had no answers at a City Council meeting Wednesday.
“We don’t have exact data on how many students are receiving it or for how long,” said chief academic officer Linda Chen.
Those parents said they were provided worksheets via email and ended up providing more instruction to their kids than DOE staffers.
While many city teachers have gamely managed to retain live teaching through video apps, many have opted out of the practice.
Instructors have relayed a raft of challenges associated with remote teaching, from uneven tech resources among students and cybersecurity concerns to haphazard administrative direction and shoddy training.
Teachers union chief Michael Mulgrew called remote learning a “success” overall Wednesday and said many teachers have embraced live teaching under extreme duress.
Citing the variety of hurdles teachers face to recreate their classrooms from afar, the United Federation of Teachers has told members they are not obligated to practice it even if administrators demand it.
“Every teacher in every school community and administrative staff in New York City had to learn how to go to remote learning,” Mulgrew said Wednesday. “There was no plan in place, there was no support system in place, there was no training in place. Every school had to figure it out on their own.”
While he voiced concerns over the uneven provision of live teaching, Councilman Mark Treyger urged city residents to empathize with the position city educators have been placed in.
“I remind folks that educators are also human beings, they have experienced loss of colleagues, they have experienced loss in their families,” he said. “They are in many cases the primary caretakers for families at home.”
The DOE stressed that it tracks daily remote involvement of city kids to monitor “attendance” – although each school has a different threshold for what it considers engagement.
“There is no one-size fits all approach, and teachers are structuring their day to best meet the needs of their students and families,” said DOE spokeswoman Danielle Filson. “Teachers have been using tools and techniques to engage students, mixing live and self-paced instruction to accommodate other responsibilities faced by students and employees during these times.”
Filson said live teaching has “value” and that the DOE was facilitating it “when possible.”
