Mayor Bill de Blasio Ignores Homeless Teens, Just Like Mayor Bloomberg Did

Mayor Bill has turned his back on almost everything that he promised when he was running for Mayor. His dislike of the harm done to the poor and needy while Mayor Bloomberg was in office was not, indeed, a dislike at all. De Blasio is following in Mike Bloomberg's footsteps.

Shameful. Make de Blasio a one-term Mayor. Get people who honor their own promises to run.



Betsy Combier

NYC Mayor Bill de Blasio

Housing Homeless Youth Poses Challenge for Mayor de Blasio

By MIREYA NAVARRO, NY TIMES, MARCH 27, 2015

LINK

Lijuan Hartfield, 18, has been homeless for the past two months. He said shelters for youths always have a
waiting list.

Lijuan Hartfield often caught up on sleep on the subway, at friends’ apartments, sometimes at a 24-hour McDonald’s.

“Embarrassing,” he said. “And I have to buy something.”

Eighteen years old and until recently homeless, Mr. Hartfield said shelters for young people always had a waiting list, so he spent his days figuring out where he would spend his nights. Once, he said, he sought refuge in a drop-in center for homeless adult men with mental illnesses.

“I slept in a chair with other people sleeping in chairs,” he said. “Poverty will really take a toll on your mental health.”

During the mayoral campaign, Mayor Bill de Blasio said he would see to it that all homeless youths had beds. But after advocates for the homeless filed a federal lawsuit accusing the city of illegally denying young people shelter, just before he took office, the mayor has surprised them, they said, by fighting the case.
“It’s incredibly disheartening,” said Kimberly Forte, a supervising attorney with the Legal Aid Society, which filed the lawsuit in the waning days of Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg’s tenure in 2013. “We’re not seeing a new way of thinking about young people when it comes to homelessness from this administration.”



Tanzina Mosammat, 19, who has been at Covenant House since December, is getting help finding a job as a
store clerk or restaurant hostess.

Mr. Hartfield often hangs out at the Apple Store in the Meatpacking District where he checks email and social media.

                

Jonathan Diaz, 20, in his room within the transitional living program at Covenant House.

As the city wrestles with an overall homeless population of more than 60,000, young people pose a challenge not just in terms of providing shelter for them, but also in providing the right kind of shelter to lure them off the streets. And the question of how old is old enough for an adult setting has emerged as the issue blocking a settlement.

The federal class action lawsuit alleges that the city is violating state law by not having enough beds in youth shelters, which can collectively house fewer than 500 people a night.

Administration officials said that the mayor is not backing off the promise that he, as well as his Democratic opponents, made at a candidates’ forum in March 2013. But the administration argues that those between the ages of 18 to 20, a large age group among homeless young people, are not entitled to a youth-specific shelter and have the option of the much wider network of shelters for adults.

The administration said the problem was not necessarily financial. One issue, both city officials and shelter operators noted, is that youth shelters don’t have the space to quickly expand. Another is that young people move in and out of the streets and are hard to count.

“The administration is really committed to providing as many beds as needed,” said Lilliam Barrios-Paoli, the deputy mayor for health and human services.

Placing 18 to 20 year-olds in adult shelters, which already house hundreds of people in that age group, most of them single parents, eases the city’s burden of coming up with more youth beds. But social workers who deal with this population say it is not the place for them.

Some have been rejected by their families because how they identify sexually; some are escaping violence or drug use at home. Many feel preyed upon in adult shelters and have special needs for services youth shelters provide, like counseling and family intervention to get them back to school, work or a safe home as quickly as possible.

Without housing, some studies show, many wind up trading sex for a place to sleep.

“If you want to prevent cycles of homelessness, cycles of drug use, of transactional sex, you need to separate them from the adult population and put in the services to stabilize these kids,” said Dr. Mary McKernan McKay, director of the McSilver  Institute for Poverty Policy and Research at New York University.

Precise numbers for the homeless youth population are not known because young people are highly mobile and many couch-surf among relatives and friends, stay out on the streets or return home. But in New York, state figures show more than 5,000 people were turned away from youth shelters in 2012, the last year for which statistics are available, for lack of beds.

Officials at Covenant House near Times Square, the largest youth shelter in New York City with about 200 shelter beds and another 140 spots for longer-term residential stays, say sexual predators prowl outside for young people who can’t be accommodated. The shelter serves those between 16 and 21 and turns away about 75 people a month.

Tanzina Mosammat, 19, who has been at Covenant House since December, is getting help finding a job as a store clerk or restaurant hostess. She said she left home because her Bangladeshi father was set on arranging her marriage to a cousin. She and her boyfriend stayed for two months in an adult shelter in Queens where they could hear the couple next door fight violently.

“We had to call security because the boyfriend put a rope around her neck,” she said.

Jonathan Diaz, 20, who said he slept at a girlfriend’s after leaving his Bronx home and later moved to Covenant House, said he avoided adult shelters because of what he’d heard other young people say.

“A bunch of drug addicts. The smells.” he said.

State funding for youth shelters has lagged over the last seven years, said state Senator Brad Hoylman, a Democrat from Manhattan who is among those leading a push in the legislature to include more than $4 million in the state budget this year for 1,000 more shelter beds for runaway and homeless youth.

“There’s a misconception that they leave willingly, so why should we be paying for this,” he said of the sentiment among some colleagues in Albany. “A lot of these kids are thrown out of their homes or leave because it’s dangerous.”

The legislators got a boost from the singer Miley Cyrus, who has brought attention to youth homelessness nationally and wrote to Governor Cuomo and legislative leaders this month in support of more money.

Advocates have praised the mayor for adding 100 youth shelter beds in his first year in office. It also provided money so the Ali Forney Center, a drop-in site for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender youth in Harlem stays open 24 hours.

But the mayor’s preliminary budget for 2015-16 does not add any more beds. That may change by the time the budget is finalized this spring, said Deputy Mayor Barrios-Paoli.

Mr. Hartfield, the 18-year-old, said he had lived with his grandmother on the Lower East Side but left home because of constant quarrels with her. As he traveled around the city, mostly on his feet, with calluses to show for it, he knew where to go for showers and meals. He checked email at Apple stores and kept documents and clothes at a friend’s. He went to stay this month with his father upstate, where he has gone in the past for a while before leaving again for the streets.

He said he was trying to find permanent housing so he could go back to finish high school and then on to college, he said, where he’d like to study music, art, astronomy and philosophy.

“As soon as I get a place to stay, my whole life is in front of me,” he said.

But his resolve sometimes wavered.

“Every time one good thing happens, three bad things happen,” he said.

Earlier this month, in a Facebook post, he wrote: “Who thought I’d amount to this?????”

Related Coverage                    

• 
  

  Uncertain Future for New York Housing Program That Helps Mentally Ill Homeless PeopleMARCH 24, 2015

• 
  

  Review of New York Shelter System Finds Hundreds of ViolationsMARCH 12, 2015

• 
  

  New York City Reaches Out to Homeless People Who Are Wary of Traditional SheltersFEB. 8, 2015

Zero Tolerance Loses Support Nationwide

My post on my blog National Public Voice

Zero Tolerance as a School Disciplinary Policy is Not Effective

The Opinion Pages | EDITORIAL

Backing Away From Zero Tolerance

By THE EDITORIAL BOARDMARCH 26, 2015

LINK

Students entering their Chicago high school

Schools across the country are rightly backing away from “zero tolerance” disciplinary policies under which children are suspended for minor misbehavior that once would have been dealt with by the principal and the child’s parents or with a modest punishment like detention. The schools are being pushed in this direction by studies showing: that suspensions do nothing to improve the school climate; that children who are thrown out are at greater risk of low achievement and becoming entangled with the juvenile justice system; and that minority children are disproportionately singled out for the harshest, most damaging disciplinary measures.

A new study of Chicago public schools by the University of Chicago Consortium on Chicago School Research shows that the trend is beginning to take hold there as well. Beginning in 2009, the district started using policies that were intended to cut down on suspensions and expulsions by solving garden-variety disciplinary problems within the school walls. Among these was the Culture of Calm initiative through which high schools stepped up counseling and introduced a peer-driven system for student juries to mediate disputes that might otherwise have led to fights and suspensions.

Judging from suspension data, the initiatives seem to be working. In the 2013-14 school year, for example, 16 percent of high school students received an out-of-school suspension, down from 23 percent in 2008-9. Over the same period, both high school students and high school teachers have reported in surveys that their schools felt much safer, less disruptive and more orderly.

While these data are promising, out-of-school-suspension rates in the district are still too high, particularly for at-risk students. For example, 24 percent of high school students with a disability and 27 percent of the lowest-performing high school students received out-of-school suspensions in 2013-14. Suspension rates for African-American boys were unacceptably high, with a third of them receiving at least one out-of-school suspension that year.

Principals and teachers are clearly doing a better job of resolving disciplinary problems without excluding children from school. But schools serving the highest-risk students clearly need more support services and training to help those children as well.

Behind the Scenes, Everyone Pays to Gag Wrong-doers

The tenure lawsuit is going forward.

Linda Hill

All you must remember that when the NYC Parent Union started, Mike Mulgrew, President of the UFT, gave $10,000 to Mona Davids, and then he was given an award? See my post below from the NYPOST November 10, 2011.

That's how it works, you do something that helps your organization or you remain quiet about illegal actions by the Department/school(s), and you are rewarded. Who can say that the UFT is still not assisting the NYC Parent Union or Campbell Brown succeed with ending tenure? Has the UFT stood up against the national forces that want to end tenure?

Michael Mulgrew

I certainly don't think so.

And then there is the commendation by Education Update to former Superintendent Erminia Claudia, who now works for CSA, and not only tried very hard to squash Francesco Portelos, but supported Principal Linda Hill. Ms. Hill is "retiring".

Mona Davids Attorneys Withdraw
http://nycrubberroomreporter.blogspot.com/2014/08/mona-davids-attorneys-withdraw-from.html


New parent group all $nug with UFT

By Carl Campanile

, November 10, 2011
LINK

It’s the new teacher’s pet.

A nonprofit touting itself as an “independent” parent advocacy group has quickly cozied up to the United Federation of Teachers — and to the union’s deep pockets, The Post has learned.

The New York City Parents Union, which supported the UFT’s legal battle against charter schools being housed in public buildings and which recently ripped the mayor’s handling of the schools system, has already received $10,000 from the teachers union since launching in April.

The relationship between the two groups will take center stage tonight when the Parents Union hosts its first annual awards benefit — honoring none other than UFT President Michael Mulgrew at the UFT’s downtown headquarters.

Also honored for community leadership will be the state’s NAACP chief, Hazel Dukes — who has railed repeatedly against charter schools — and Arthur Z. Schwartz, a longtime labor lawyer who represented the transit union during its unlawful 2005 strike, which crippled the city.

His new group, Advocates for Justice, filed a lawsuit last summer on behalf of the Parents Union that echoed the UFT’s losing legal bid to keep struggling schools from being shuttered.

A host of other unions were also donors to the event including the AFL-CIO, Teamsters Local 237, SEIU 32B and the Transit Workers Union.

School-choice advocates accused the new parents group of being an arm of the UFT.

“It was always clear that the UFT was behind this organization, but now they aren’t even trying to pretend there is any separation,” said Joe Williams, executive director of Democrats for Education Reform.

Parents Union founder Mona Davids insisted her group is not a union tool, saying it “welcomes and appreciates alliances with other individuals and organizations who share our interest in obtaining the highest-quality public education for all children in New York City.’’

Additional reporting by Yoav Gonen


Dreyfus Intermediate principal tells staff she plans to retire in June
LINK

STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- Embattled Dreyfus Intermediate School Principal Linda Hill has told her staff she plans to retire in June.

Ms. Hill, the subject of a probe by the city's Office of Special Investigations (OSI) for misappropriation of funds, received a letter of reprimand and was made to pay back $800 to the Department of Education that should not have been allocated to her. She has been principal of the Stapleton intermediate school for more than a decade.

She broke the news to her faculty Monday at the conclusion of a morning staff meeting, according to several faculty members there.

Ms. Hill told staff she is stepping down after a 40-year career with the school system as an educator and administrator, adding that she would stay on until the end of the school year.

If she retires before the end of June, in addition to her pension, union officials said she could be eligible for a one-time, lump-sum payout  -- perhaps as much as  $70,000 -- in retroactive wages under the contract agreement reached between the city and the Council of Supervisors and Administrators (CSA).

The DOE  could not confirm her pending retirement until paperwork had been filed and completed. A spokesman said she remains as the school's active principal.

The DOE began to inspect Ms. Hill's workplace time-sheets in early 2012, after a teacher at the school tipped off investigators that the longtime administrator may be abusing the per session or overtime system.

The whistle-blower, former Dreyfus science and technology teacher Francesco Portelos, alleged Ms. Hill was clocking overtime for supervising an after-school program, while she was actually attending monthly meetings of the School Leadership Team.

A lengthy OSI probe found Ms. Hill misallocated a total of $800 over the course of the 2009-2010 and 2010-2011 school years.

Payroll records show that Ms. Hill, who earned a salary of $146,713 last year, took home an average of more than $11,000 in per session (overtime) fees in 2010 and 2011, before the allegations of her double -dipping surfaced.

Ms. Hill admitted under oath that she double-dipped during a court deposition last October, but denied that it was done intentionally. She said she stopped double- billing the district after being informed that she was under investigation for the practice, according to court transcripts.

She was also under investigation for alleged procurement violations committed in 2010.

The allegations, which charged she skirted purchasing limits on her DOE-issued Procurement Card or P-Card, by splitting up payments made to the same vendor, were also brought to the DOE's attention by Portelos.

The former Dreyfus teacher, who now serves in the district's Absent Teacher Reserve pool, was removed from the classroom in 2012 and spent two years in a rubber room while under investigation for dozens of misconduct complaints initiated by Ms. Hill, that he claims were lodged in retaliation for reporting her financial improprieties.

Last year, an independent arbitrator found Portelos guilty on 11 of the 38 charges brought against him and recommended a $10,000 fine, but denied the DOE's request to terminate him and ruled that he could return to the classroom. He now serves as a substitute for absent teachers at schools across the borough.

Another Scandal Involving Carmen Farina and Her "Ignore and Hide" the Bad Stuff Leadership: "Easy-Pass" Grade Fixing at John Dewey High School

My opinion, from working with Carmen at PS6 in Manhattan as a parent while she was principal, is: if you curry her favor, say what she wants to hear and hurt people she doesn't like or believes are challenging her in any way, you can do anything you want. Just hide the bad stuff and threaten horrible consequences for squealing.

The latest event in the list for her legacy is John Dewey High School.

I posted this on my website Parentadvocates.org in 2005:

NYC Deputy Chancellor Rewards Gifted, Privileged Kids in NYC Public Schools by Raising
4 Years of AP Grades

Before Bill De Blasio appointed Carmen, many, many people urged him NOT to pick Carmen as Chancellor. Obviously, our opinion doesn't matter.

Betsy Combier

John Dewey HS

So-Called ‘Easy Pass’ Grade-Fixing Scandal Rocks John Dewey High School In Brooklyn

Schools Chancellor Carmen Farina Tells CBS2's Marcia Kramer: 'We're Investigating That'

March 23, 2015 6:24 PM

LINK

NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) — Teachers have blown the whistle on a massive grade-fixing scandal at a Brooklyn high school.

Hundreds of students who didn’t make the grade were allegedly given passing grades, and teachers told CBS2’s Marcia Kramer on Monday that administrators knew all about it.

“There’s like a senior house, where people get creditsjust for basically being in study hall. I know about that. Homework, eat food and they get credits for that,” John Dewey High School senior Jacob Pena said.

Charges include the principal and her administrators pressuring teachers to do all manner of things to pass failing students. The kids call it “easy pass.” It’s done to increase graduation rates, Kramer reported.

Former teacher Martin Haber told Kramer he retired last June because of it.

“They devised all kinds of crazy and innovative ways to pass them. If a student played a game in the computer room on the computer, that was a credit,” Haber said.

Both the city and Schools Chancellor Carmen Farina knew all about it, teachers told Kramer.

Kramer was told that city investigators came to the school on Dec. 3 and that 10 different teachers spoke to them. They gave them names of students whose grades were changed and other details of the so-called “credit recovery program,” but still nothing has been done.

Kramer spoke to one of the teachers who talked to the investigators, a person so afraid of being fired by Principal Kathleen Elvin, who educators said is the “easy pass” architect, CBS2 had to hide the teacher’s identity.

“Basically, just changing grades en masse. The principal is a scoundrel. She’s a fraud. She has allowed this to happen. She has encouraged it. She has set it down that if you don’t follow her rules she will crush you. She’s a horror,” the teacher said.

Kramer asked what the teacher and others told investigators.

“Students that I had who didn’t deserve to graduate were graduated,” the teacher said, adding when asked if names were provided, “Absolutely, they have names. Everything is documented, systematically documented.”

Schools Chancellor Farina was asked about the probe on Monday.

“We’re investigating that,” Farina said.

The chancellor, who was at a Queens high school on Monday, ducked out a back door to avoid answering further questions, Kramer reported.

Later Monday, Chancellor Farina’s office put out a statement saying the Department of Education is cooperating with the schools’ special prosecutor, and adding “any findings of wrongdoing are taken very seriously and those responsible held swiftly accountable.”

James Eterno, a Leave Replacement Teacher, Files a Complaint Against the UFT With the Federal Department of Labor

James Eterno writes about why he has filed a complaint against the UFT:

Sunday, March 22, 2015

UFT SNUBS ATRS AGAIN IN CHAPTER ELECTIONS; COMPLAINT HAS BEEN FILED WITH FEDERAL DEPARTMENT OF LABOR

One of the agenda items at the UFT Executive Board meeting for Monday, March 23 is a resolution to adopt a guide and bylaws for Chapter Elections (see below).  Chapter Leader and Delegate elections are scheduled this spring for the United Federation of Teachers.

In putting out its election guide, the UFT has once again given the cold shoulder to Absent Teacher Reserves and Leave Replacement Teachers, a huge group that includes way over a thousand teachers who belong to no UFT Chapter.  As a Leave Replacement Teacher, I am one of these teachers without a permanent home. We are being disenfranchised in reality, if not on paper, as the new procedures will allow ATR's to vote and run for office in the school they are assigned to in the first week of May (see below).  This is patently absurd.  We might not even be in that school when it holds its Chapter Election in May or June.  

Last month I filed a complaint with the Federal Department of Labor that the UFT is violating federal labor law by not allowing us a reasonable opportunity to serve in the highest policy making body of the union: the Delegate Assembly.  As I told the Department of Labor:

The Landrum Griffin federal regulations say this concerning eligibility to be candidates for union office:  "Every member in good standing is eligible to be a candidate and to hold office subject to reasonable qualifications in the union's constitution and bylaws that area uniformly imposed."  Why should being an ATR cause us to lose any chance of being elected to the UFT's highest policy making body: The Delegate Assembly?  Teachers who are filling in as Leave Replacements or those covering vacancies provisionally also belong to no Chapter and cannot run for Chapter Leader or Delegate.  This is unconscionable.

The union's response is to say that we can run for office in the school we are assigned to in the first week of May.  It would be as if a person took a business trip to Hawaii for a week, a month or a few months and was told she/he could vote in Hawaii's election and could run for Governor of Hawaii.  

It is so dumb to think that we could serve when most of us will not be in the schools we are at the first week in May come September.  Even if we were to be elected, as soon as we are no longer in a school, the UFT would be happy to take the leadership position away from any ATR who happened to win a vote.

I informed the union's leadership in an email sent last fall to Staff Director Leroy Barr, with copies to the UFT President, the President of New York State United Teachers and the American Federation of Teachers that the process used in the last Chapter Elections in 2012 was entirely illegal.  I stated in part:

 

Absent Teacher Reserves (ATRs) have no representation at the UFT Delegate Assembly and we have no elected Chapter Leader.  The official UFT Calendar refers to the Delegate Assembly as the highest policy making body in the United Federation of Teachers.  Since both Chapter Leaders and Delegates make up the Delegate Assembly, ATRs should be able to vote for who will represent us. Federal labor regulations say the following concerning policymaking authority within a union: "In addition, any person who has executive or policymaking authority or responsibility must be elected even though he may not occupy a position identified as an officer position under the union's constitution and bylaws." UFT Delegates and Chapter Leaders clearly have a policymaking role and therefore the law requires that they are elected.

 

The Landrum Griffin Law says in SEC. 101 (a)(1) concerning equal rights: " Every member of alabor organization shall have equal rights and privileges within such organization to nominate candidates, to vote in elections or referendums of the labor organization..."  Many ATRs are being denied these basic union rights under the present UFT Chapter Election structure. 

Leroy Barr responded to my email by setting up a meeting with me that he scheduled for after the November Delegate Assembly, not in his office, but in the giant hall where the DA is held.  I had to go downstairs from the visitor's section on the 19th floor to the second floor auditorium to talk with Barr, Assistant Secretary Emil Pietromonaco and Lawyer Adam Ross. (Thanks to John Antush for being my witness.)

I suggested we need a Functional Chapter for ATR's and they rejected the notion rather emphatically. Functional Chapters are for UFT members who are not part of the regular teaching staff but serve other functions in the school system.  That would certainly describe ATR's.  An example of teachers in this category would be teachers assigned to district offices and the new Peer Validators.  They are part of a Chapter called Teachers Assigned.

I also proposed a possible compromise where we could remain as part of our old Chapters, including keeping closed school Chapters alive, until we are permanently in a new school, retire, resign are terminated or die.  They said they would consider this and assured me they understand the issue and are working on it.  I sent a follow up email that was never answered.  

I waited for three months for a reply as I always hold out some tiny hope that our union's leaders will do the right thing but I should know better by now.  By February, I had waited long enough and filed the complaint with the Federal Department of Labor. 

The issue comes down to the question of whether or not the UFT has set up reasonable qualifications that are uniformly imposed.  I do not believe they are reasonable in any way shape or form.

A rule that says we can run but we really can't serve in office unless we are made permanent teachers in a school, which for many of us is highly unlikely due to salary considerations or status as a teacher who once was up on state law 3020A (disciplinary) charges but were not terminated, is so clearly a method to just look good on paper but disenfranchise ATRs in reality.

As a Leave Replacement Teacher, I am 100% certain that whether we prevail with the Department of Labor or not, ATRs have been abandoned by our union's leadership yet again. It follows the proliferation of ATRs after the horrific 2005 contract ended preferred placement when a school closed, the 2011 agreement where ATRs were forced to rotate weekly and the 2014 contract where ATRs were imbedded into the contract including a clause stating that we have resigned if we miss two bogus interviews that we may have not even known about. Our tenure means nothing.

Mulgrew, Barr, etc... don't care about us at all and are trying a slick little maneuver to say they are in compliance with federal labor law on ATR voting and serving in Chapter positions. It won't be easy for the ATR's to win this but we can say a prayer (that's for you believers) the Department of Labor will see the UFT ploy for what it is.

ELECTION GUIDE AND BY-LAWSChapter Election Procedures

Election of chapter leader, other chapter officers and delegates to the Delegate Assembly shall be conducted by secret ballot under the supervision of an election committee.

 

The Election Committee may be designated by the chapter leader with the approval of the chapter, or may be elected by the chapter.  Candidates for chapter leader and DA delegate may not serve on the Election Committee.  If the chapter conducts an election, there must be clear notice of the process posted or discussed at a union meeting.

The duties of the Election Committee shall be:

 

 1.  To choose the chair of the Election Committee.

 

 2. To prepare a Notice of Election. This notice shall contain:

 

 a. A list of the positions to be filled.  In addition to the chapter leader, the notice shall state how many delegates are to be elected: one per 60 teacher members or major fraction thereof. The school printout provides the number of DA delegates. The chapter may include other chapter positions exclusive to the school.

 

 b. A procedure for nominations.

 

 c. An election calendar.

 

 d. A procedure for appeal.

 

 3. Preparing the ballots and the ballot box and determining eligible voters on the basis of UFT-  established rules.

 

 4.   Conducting the actual election.

 

 5.   Counting the ballots.

 

 6.   Certifying the election to the UFT Membership Department on the appropriate form.

 

 7.  Keeping the ballots and the ballot box in a safe place for at least one month, in case of a challenge to the results.

 

A copy of the Notice of Election with the Election Calendar must be distributed to each chapter member through the school mailboxes, including those in annexes and school sites, and shall be posted on the UFT bulletin board at least three (3) school days prior to the date of nominations in each site and annex.

 

The Election Calendar must include the following information:

·       Date of Nominations  This date must be at least 3 school days after the distribution of the Notice of Election.

·       Date of Election

 

The actual elections must take place on one day. This date must be at least 5 school days following the distribution of the Notice of Election.

 

·       Time and place of voting

 

This schedule must be suited to the school so as to give all UFT members an opportunity to vote.  The schedule must make provision for all school sites and annexes.

·

      An election calendar

Sample election calendar:  Thursday, May 7th:  Notice of election distributed; Thursday, May 14th: Nominations close at the end of the school day; Thursday, May 21st: voting.

 

Every school is entitled to elect a para-professional representative and the vote may take place at the same time as the chapter election. Only paraprofessionals may nominate, run and vote for paraprofessional representatives.

 

The UFT Constitution does not provide for co-chapter leaders. If a chapter chooses to have a co-chapter leader, it may only be on an informal basis. Only one name may be submitted as chapter leader of record.

 

Nominations

The chair of the Election Committee must verify that all nominees accept their nominations.

Provision will be made for members who are not on the school’s table of organization but eligible to participate in the chapter’s election to nominate and be nominated.

 

Conducting the Election

The ballot box must be secure and monitored at all times by the Election Committee.

 

Provision will be made for members who are out on official school business—e.g., a class trip or conference—or who are not on the school’s table of organization, but eligible to participate to cast ballots before the close of balloting.

Members must vote in person; no absentee ballots may be cast.

 

Voting must take place by secret ballot on the date announced in the Election Calendar.

 

In cases where positions are not contested (only one candidate has been nominated for a particular role), those candidates can be confirmed without a formal vote.

 

Time and Place for Counting Ballots

The count shall take place on the day of voting, and provision must be made to include the vote 
of all school sites and annexes with the school count.

 

A supervised ballot box must be provided at a specific location. A membership roster must be available, and is to be initialed by the voter at the time the ballot is cast. Each chapter leader will have a membership printout and a chapter certification form. The printouts should be checked immediately by the Election Committee for errors or omissions.

 

Members who were not on the school’s table of organization but were assigned to the school on the first Monday in May will be added to the roster.

 

An individual whose name is not on the printout, but who claims membership and can display evidence of UFT membership—such as a NYSUT membership card or check stub with proper dues code (“-U”)—should be allowed to vote.

 

The ballot, however, is subject to challenge and must be sequestered. 

 

Ballots shall be counted at the time and place announced in the Election Calendar. Candidates or their observers may be present at the count.  Election shall be determined by the highest number of votes.  Challenged ballots shall be set aside and, if their number could affect the outcome of the election.

 

The Election Committee shall place an announcement of the results on the UFT bulletin board immediately after the election.

 

All ballots and election materials shall be retained by the Election Committee for at least one month to allow for review of results.

 

As soon as results have been certified by the Election Committee, the Committee Chair must complete the Chapter Certification Data Form and send it to the UFT Membership Department, 52 Broadway, New York, NY 10004, 11th floor.

 

Procedures for appeals

Appeals of elections must be made in writing to the UFT borough representative, with written notice to the chapter within five (5) school days following the election. In the event that a challenge to the election is successful, the borough representative shall establish an expedited election procedure.

 Eligibility

Any full-time member may nominate, run for a position and vote in a school’s election if he or she is on the school’s permanent table of organization or assigned to the school on the first Monday in May of an election year.

     

Only teachers are eligible to nominate, run for and vote for school DA delegate, provided that they have signed the union card at least 60 days prior to the election. 

 

Secretaries, guidance counselors, paraprofessionals and other functional chapter members are represented in the Delegate Assembly through their functional chapters and may stand for election as delegate from their functional chapters. 

 

District 75 and District 79 members nominate and are nominated for chapter leader in their District 75 or 79 school.  District 75 or 79 members and others who are permanently housed in the school building may vote in that chapter leader election.

 

Agency fee payers may not nominate, run or vote in chapter elections.

 

Schools with Multiple Sites: To facilitate communications and service, schools with multiple sites often have liaisons at these sites. These liaisons are not chapter leaders nor are they DA delegates unless they specifically run for those positions in the school’s election.

 

Persons on split assignment shall vote in their payroll school. Like others, these members must vote in person; no absentee ballots may be cast.  F-status substitutes (those with regularly scheduled part-time assignments) may vote in their school election.