ATRs Headed To Year-Long Positions and Danielson Ratings

The only thing that I think anyone can say right now about the ATR situation is that the NYC Department of Education is finally seeing the mess they have made.

And what a mess it is.

By the way, for all those readers who don't know me, I have been an advocate for employees of the Department for 14 years, and I am not an Attorney, but work with 4-5 attorneys as a paralegal. I fight for a person's lawfully given rights which, as we all know, are denied by the Department constantly. What I would like to make clear is that when I say an ATR is a "substitute", I do NOT mean anything degrading by this, so I apologize for any miscommunication. I'm at a loss at what title to call ATRs, who have been put into an impossible situation. I just want to make clear that any reference to a "substitute" for a person who is an ATR just means I am looking for a better title, but I'm on your side, always have been and always will be.

For many years, teachers who worked at a school that was closed, became "excessed", and became Absent Teacher Reservists (my name for ATRs), "absent" meaning not in a permanent position. This nomad status lent itself to a myriad of problems, especially in the area of evaluations. How does a "tenured substitute" teacher know the students well enough for anyone to say the students have learned something, if the substitute is in the classroom for a day, a week, a couple of weeks? Impossible. Yet, a peer validator, field supervisor or other agent of make-it-up evaluators come in, observe and rate as if there was a standard for S/U that applied to these tenured substitutes.

There is no contract to cover rating tenured substitutes. The UFT has a contract for Substitute teachers, but these are people who can be fired, not hired again, etc. That is their rating, if they are not good in the classroom or Guidance Office.

These tenured teachers, ATRs, cannot be fired suddenly and are not covered by the Collective Bargaining Agreement which covers Substitute Teachers, because although most of the excessed-by-school-closing-employees (not only teachers, but other staff such as Assistant Principals, Guidance Counselors, etc) and others with the title ATR are substitutes, they have tenure.

You'd think that the easy solution would be to create a contract that had appropriate evaluation and rating standards for "tenured glorified " substitutes -like, for example, you cannot rate the performance of a substitute tenured employee if they have not been teaching the class you want to observe for at least a month - or two.

However, there are only two limited options, a buyout and the 2017 ATR Agreement, both shockingly negotiated without an ATR Chapter or ATR Representatives in existence. I don't get it.

So, the NYC DOE are going to try to give year-long jobs left vacant after October 15 to ATRs. In my opinion, this will be a problem, when the only positions left open at that time are the ones that no  one wants. No one will be happy. At most, a small percentage may be, but certainly not when all the year-longs are given year-end ratings under the HEDI rating scale used in Danielson.

I betcha a tiny amount of ATRs - if any at all - will be rated Effective/Highly Effective.

Then the s___t will hit the fan.

Betsy Combier
betsy.combier@gmail.com
Editor, NYC Rubber Room Reporter
Editor, Parentadvocates.org
Editor, New York Court Corruption
Editor, National Public Voice
Editor, The NYC Public Voice

New York City plans more aggressive steps to move hundreds of unassigned teachers out of Absent Teacher Reserve

BY CHRISTINA VEIGA, MONICA DISARE 

Schools that still have vacancies by October will be sent staffers from the city’s Absent Teacher Reserve, a move that may shrink the costly pool but could also rankle principals.

The policy, first reported by the New York Daily News and confirmed by the education department Monday, marks the city’s latest attempt to reach its goal of cutting the pool in half from its current 822 teachers.

The Absent Teacher Reserve is a group of teachers collecting salaries and benefits without holding full-time positions. Teachers can be placed into the ATR either because their jobs were eliminated or for disciplinary reasons.

Under the new policy, principals have until around October 15 — six months from when hiring begins — to fill their vacancies. After that, city officials say they will make placements from the ATR, even potentially over principals’ objections.

“We will work to find the right fit, and hear and work through concerns that they might have,” education department spokesman Will Mantell said. “But ultimately, we do have discretion to place an educator in a vacancy that exists, and it kind of makes sense.”

The placements will be for one year, rather than a monthly rotation. Mantell said that would allow teachers to participate in training and receive guidance from principals. Teachers who score “Highly Effective” or “Effective” on the observation portion of their evaluation when there is a remaining vacancy will be permanently hired.

Schools Chancellor Carmen Fariña promised in 2014 that she would not endorse “forced placement of staff” as a strategy for shrinking the pool. Though the new policy may require principals to take on teachers, Mantell said it is not an example of forced placement because it only applied to vacancies and will not allow ATR teachers to bump existing teachers from their jobs.

Still, the change could prove unpopular with principals. Under former Mayor Michael Bloomberg, principals were given more power to run their schools and make hiring decisions. The de Blasio administration has, to a certain extent, reined in this power — which has drawn some criticism.

The ATR pool swelled under former Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who aggressively closed struggling schools, and cost the city an estimated $105 million in 2013. Current Mayor Bill de Blasio has pledged to shrink the pool in half.

Measuring the ATR pool can be tricky, since it represents only a snapshot in time and fluctuates throughout the year. Still, city officials argue that, in the aggregate, it has steadily decreased under de Blasio.

The city has undertaken a number of initiatives toward that end, including hiring the former principal of Brooklyn Technical High School to lead efforts to shrink the pool, offering $50,000 severance payments and subsidizing the salaries of teachers hired from the ATR.

Still, at the end of the 2016-17 school year, 822 teachers remained in the pool, according to numbers provided by the education department. This new policy will mark a more aggressive approach to reducing that number. In addition to the placements, teachers in the pool can now be hired across school district lines within their borough.

In an emailed statement, United Federation of Teachers President Michael Mulgrew praised the plan.

“These changes reflect the UFT’s conviction that members of the ATR pool provide needed services to schools and that their work should be respected,” Mulgrew said in an emailed statement.

But critics argue that if principals had wanted to hire these teachers, they would have already done so. The result, they say, will put poor quality teachers into New York’s neediest classrooms.

“It is shockingly irresponsible for the city to force place hundreds of teachers of dubious quality into the classrooms of our most vulnerable students,” said StudentsFirstNY Executive Director Jenny Sedlis in a statement. “There are reasons why no principal has chosen to hire them and this policy is bad for kids, plain and simple.”

NEW POST:

City schools will soon be stuck with lots of bad teachers

Selim Algar, NY POST, July 11, 2017

Some 400 unassigned — and in many cases bungling — teachers will be foisted on principals across the city under a controversial new plan by the Department of Education.

The move is designed to radically shrink the Absent Teacher Reserve — an expensive pool of roughly 800 instructors without permanent posts due to downsizings, incompetence or misconduct.

A department spokesman said Monday that they hope to place between 300 and 400 current ATR teachers in schools that still have job vacancies after Oct. 15.

Some principals, who in the past were able to fill all positions from the open market of available instructors throughout the school year, balked at the plan.

“In the end, you want to be the one making the personnel decisions for your school,” said one Staten Island principal.

If an ATR teacher earns either an effective or highly effective rating after one year at their new school, they will be rewarded with a permanent position, according to the DOE.

Randy Asher

DOE senior adviser Randy Asher, a former principal who was brought on to cull the ATR, said the “common-sense” approach would be to “reduce the number of educators in the ATR pool.”

Critics have blasted the costly ATR arrangement for years, arguing that it’s difficult to fire bad teachers and that many continue to draw paychecks without actually having to do much work.

“Students deserve teachers who are selected by their principals from a pool of qualified candidates, not ones who are forced onto schools unwillingly,” said Jenny Sedlis, executive director of the pro-charter advocacy group StudentsFirstNY.

But the DOE stressed that ATRs who are given new positions will be qualified.

“This new policy will put teachers back in classrooms, and by moving towards full-year rather than monthly rotations, schools will have time to evaluate teachers from the ATR pool and see if they’re the right fit,” said Robert Gentile, principal at the High School for Health Professions and Human Services, in a statement provided by the DOE.

Critics said the move will put teachers who were unable to retain their posts elsewhere back into the classroom.

“Putting hundreds of bad teachers back into classrooms they’ve been kicked out of rubber stamps one of the UFT’s highest priorities, leaving New York City’s children to suffer the consequences,” said charter backer Families for Excellent Schools.

MULGREW'S LATEST ATR EMAIL ON DOE POLICY CHANGES

NY State Supreme Court Judge Alice Schlesinger Grants Eileen Smith's Article 78 and Defines Verbal Abuse (2006)

SUPREME COURT OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK COUNTY OF NEW YORK: IAS PART 16 ------ X

EILEEN SMITH,

Petitioner,

- against -                                                        Index No. 118947/06

Motion Seq. No. 001

BOARD OF EDUCATION OF THE CITY SCHOOL DISTRICT

OF THE CITY OF NEW YORK and JOEL KLEIN, as the Chancellor

of City School District of the City of New York,

Respondents.

SCHLESINGER, J.:

On October 21, 2003, the first day of the implementation of a new policy at Far Rockaway High School where petitioner Eileen Smith was a tenured Social Studies teacher, an incident occurred which led to an unsatisfactory rating for Ms. Smith dated June 24, 2004, for the 2003-2004 school year. It is this rating that petitioner is challenging by way of this Article 78 proceeding.

The new policy consisted of periodic sweeps by the school administrators as a means of forcing students to get to their classrooms on time. One minute after the late bell had rung signaling that classes had changed, teachers were required to lock their classroom doors. The locked-out students would then have to report to an assigned place to get a special pass to be admitted to their classrooms. The students, not unexpectedly, were hostile to this new procedure, and in the petitioner's class, the ones locked out banged on her door to compel the teacher to let them in. Ms. Smith then attempted to leave the room to get help, but two students in the classroom barred her way by holding the door closed. She became desperate.^[1]

Ms. Smith sought help, which finally came when the Assistant Principal appeared. By that time, things had quieted down. However, at her hearing Ms. Smith acknowledged having used inappropriate language during the chaotic time. Her UFT adviser, who was present and represented her at her hearing, said that Ms. Smith had said: “This ‘fucking’ language has to stop. I do not want abusive or profane talk in the class." Ms. Smith had also reportedly said: “I will not continue until the stupids stop," and then presumably in an effort to clarify added: “I mean the stupid remarks. I am not calling anyone stupid.”

After the incident, an investigation was conducted by the principal, Cheryll Jones (later retired and thus unavailable to testify at the hearing). This investigation included a review of statements by members of the class, as well as a meeting with Ms. Smith. It was concluded by a November 12, 2003 letter to Ms. Smith from Principal Jones finding that petitioner had “committed acts which are prohibited by the Chancellor’s Regulation A-420 Corporal Punishment and Chancellor’s Regulation A-420 Verbal Abuse which constitutes unacceptable teacher deportment.” The letter concluded that the finding “may lead to disciplinary action, including an Unsatisfactory rating and termination.”

Petitioner filed a grievance challenging this letter, one at which she prevailed after a hearing held on December 7, 2005. The arbitrator, Martin F. Scheinman, Esq., ruled in a decision dated January 3, 2006, that:

The letter of November 12, 2003 shall be deleted from Eileen Smith’s file because it is unfair and inaccurate as these terms have been defined by the parties.

Mr. Scheinman, however, limited the effect of his ruling to the discrete issue before him, stating that:

This decision shall not be cited by either party as a determination of the underlying facts nor shall it preclude either party from relitigating the underlying facts.

Before this January 3, 2006, determination of the grievance challenging the November 2003 letter, Ms. Smith had been given a copy of the June 15, 2004 “Unsatisfactory" rating at issue herein. Ms. Smith had signed to acknowledge receipt of the "U-Rating” on June 24 and had immediately appealed it. However, she had also asked to postpone the appeal until she had received a final decision on her grievance challenging the letter. Thus, after Arbitrator Scheinman had ruled in Ms. Smith’s favor regarding the letter in January 2006, Ms. Smith’s union representative informed the Department’s Office of Appeals that she wished to expedite her appeal of the U-Rating.

That hearing was held on May 31, 2006 before the Chancellor’s designated Chairperson, Leila G. Zuckerman. Ms. Smith was accompanied by her union representative, Michael Gotlieb. Denise Hallett, the current principal of the Far Rockaway school, was there, and the Assistant Principal Jocelyn Badette appeared by telephone.

In the “Background Data” section of her decision, Chairperson Zuckerman stated that: “The basis of this ‘Unsatisfactory’ rating was a substantiated A-420." This remark had been taken directly from the U-Rating which Principal Jones had prepared where the comment appears under "Additional Remarks." The A-420 itself had been prepared by

Assistant Principal Badette. This document, which was used at the hearing over the

petitioner’s objection because she had not been given a copy of it until a few minutes

before the hearing, was largely relied upon by the Chairperson in sustaining the U-rating.

That,togetherwith Mr. Gotlieb’s acknowledgment that Ms. Smith had made the statements

quoted earlier, formed the basis for the decision denying Ms. Smith’s appeal. Specifically,

Chairperson Zuckerman made the following findings:

The Chairperson carefully considered the facts and various arguments presented by the Appellant and the Administration.

The documentation, although substantial in part, leaves many questions about the hostile environment which escalated into an incident. Ms. Smith called for help three times. When the A.P. arrived, she found the class to be quiet.

Unfortunately it has been clearly acknowledged that inappropriate language was used by the Appellant. This may also have motivated some of the hostility in the class. The A- 420 does acknowledge that inappropriate language constitutes verbal abuse.

It is recommended that the appeal be denied and rating of “Unsatisfactory" be sustained.

Discussion

Both sides here agree that teacher evaluations and appeals of Unsatisfactory Ratings must be conducted in compliance with the formal procedures promulgated pursuant to Section 102.2(o)(a) of the New York State Commission of Education Regulations. In the City of New York, those procedures are set forth primarily in two Handbooks prepared by the Division of Human Resources; namely, “Rating Pedagogical Staff Members” and “The Appeal Process." The “Rating” Handbook emphasizes the importance of completing evaluations based on documents in the teacher’s file. “The

Appeal Process” requires, among other things, that before the hearing, the teacher/appellant "be furnished with a complete set of the documentation used by the Rating Officer to support the reason(s) for the adverse rating" (Section A2).

In the case at bar, petitioner Smith asserts that the decision denying her appeal of the Unsatisfactory Rating was arbitrary and capricious and made in violation of lawful procedures. Specifically, petitioner asserts that Chairperson Zuckerman erred in relying on (1) various student statements which had been excluded from the file; and (2) the A-420 Report which had not been provided in advance. Had those documents been excluded as they should have been, no rational basis would exist for the decision, petitioner asserts. Respondent counters that Chairperson Zuckerman properly considered the A-420 and made a rational decision based on the evidence.

Turning first to the student statements, the record is clear that petitioner prevailed at her grievance challenging the November 12, 2003 letter from Principal Jones, and that Arbitrator Scheinman directed that the letter be deleted from Eileen Smith’s file as "unfair and inaccurate.” Chairperson Zuckerman properly sustained petitioner’s objection to the admission of the letter at the appeal of the U-Rating on this ground. Those student statements referred to in the letter and attached to it should also have been excluded. To the extent the Board offered additional student statements at the appeal which may not have been attached to the letter, those statements should have been excluded because they had not been shown to petitioner before the hearing as required by the above-quoted Section A2 of the Appeals Process.

The A-420 should have been excluded as well. The Chairperson erred in overruling petitioner’s objection to the inclusion of the A-420, stating that: "It’s not given to the teachers.” (Transcript, p. 5). Respondent contends that petitioner’s objection had no basis in the rules. However, as noted above, Section A2 of The Appeals Process Handbook expressly entitles the teacher to "a complete set of the used and expressly referred to the A-420 documentation used by the Rating Officer”, and the Rating Officer in this case (Principal Jones) in the U-Rating at issue. Neither the Chairperson, nor the Respondent Board, has pointed to any specific rule or regulation which would override Section A2 and entitle the Board to withhold the A-420 from petitioner while still relying on it at the hearing.

The Commissioner and the courts have held that a U-Rating cannot be sustained where, as here, the Chairperson improperly relies on documents which should have been excluded from consideration at the teacher’s appeal. Thus, for example, in The Appeal of

Naomi Dowrie, 45 Ed. Dept. Rep. ________ , Decision No. 15,506 (Dec. 22, 2006), the

Commissioner reversed the decision by the Chancellor’s designee to sustain a U-Rating because the decision relied on documents which had not been included in the teacher’s file and shown to the teacher in advance. Citing to various provisions in the “Rating" Handbook, the Chancellor’s designee emphasized the importance of including relevant documents in the file in advance of the hearing so the teacher could grieve them and seek their removal. If it fails to provide the teacher with that opportunity, the Board may not consider the documents at the appeal of the U-Rating.

Wholly unavailing is respondent's attempt to distinguish Dowrie on the ground that the excluded documents were the only documents relied upon by the Chancellor in that case. Respondent does not, and cannot, challenge the principle in Dowrie that a U-Rating cannot be sustained based pn documents which the Board failed to give the teacher in advance.

This same principle was recently applied by Justice Lewis Bart Stone in Mangone v. Board of Education, Index No. 117353/06, Aug. 3, 2007, (Sup. Ct., NY Co). In Mangone, the Court denied the Board’s motion to dismiss the teacher’s petition which challenged, among other things, an unsatisfactory rating. Citing to Dowrie, the court reiterated the rule that a U-Rating cannot be sustained based solely on documents which had not been provided to the teacher in advance of the hearing as part of the file.

Respondent nevertheless argues that the U-Rating was properly sustained based

on the A-420. As discussed above, this Court disagrees based on the requirement in “The

Appeals Process" Handbook that the teacher be shown all documents in advance of the

appeal hearing. But even if the A-420 were properly relied upon by Chairperson

Zuckerman at the hearing, it does not suffice to support the determination. The A-420 is

a pre-printed form with a box checked that merely indicates “The allegations were

substantiated.” The allegations are those in the November 12, 2003 letter from Principal

Jones and the various student statements, both of which were referenced and made a part

of the A-420.^[2] The A-420 also contains a typewritten "description of incident” which simply

paraphrases the student statements and reads as follows:

Student [name redacted] alleges that Ms. Smith grabbed a statement that student wrote complaining about the teacher, “pushed it into her pocket and then pushed her into the door”.

Another student [name redacted] alleges that Ms. Smith called the class "stupid” and said that the “fucking has to stop”. [Name redacted] also alleges that while she was trying to help [name redacted] Ms. Smith pushed her breaking her nail against the board.

Lastly, the A-420 contains the typewritten conclusion of the Assistant Principal which reads as follows:

The teacher committed acts which are prohibited by the Chancellor’s Regulation A-420 Corporal Punishment and Chancellor’s Regulation A-420 Verbal Abuse which constitutes unacceptable teacher deportment.

Significantly, as Chairperson Zuckerman indicated in her decision quoted above (at p. 4), when the Assistant Principal finally responded to Ms. Smith’s three calls for help, she found the room quiet. Therefore, the description of the incident and the conclusion stated in the A-420 are not based on any personal observation by any administrator; instead, they are based solely on the hearsay statements written by the students. Thus, the A-420, by itself, cannot support the U-Rating.

Without the various documents, the only evidence left is the undisputed fact that Ms. Smith made the above-quoted statements in the midst of an extremely difficult time in class. Presumably recognizing this point, Chairperson Zuckerman in her decision did not find that Ms. Smith had engaged in prohibited corporal punishment. Rather, she made a finding - somewhat reluctantly - of prohibited verbal abuse based on the statement by petitioner’s union representative that the language Ms. Smith used was "inappropriate”. The Chairperson’s reluctance is revealed by her finding that the evidence “leaves many questions," by her emphasis on Ms. Smith’s repeated calls for help, by her confirmation that the Assistant Principal found the room quiet when she finally responded, and by her statement that Ms. Smith “unfortunately" acknowledged using “inappropriate” language at the hearing.

But even an acknowledgment of “inappropriate” language does not support a finding of prohibited verbal abuse. The Chancellor’s Regulation A-421 defines verbal abuse as:

•                   Language that tends to cause fear or physical or mental distress;

•                  Language that includes words denoting racial, ethnic, religious, or sexual orientation which tends to cause fear or physical or mental distress;

•                   Language that tends to threaten physical harm; or

•                   Language that tends to belittle or subject students to ridicule.

Respondent cannot reasonably claim that the language falls into any of the first three categories since no evidence exists of any words which caused fear or threatened harm. At most, the Board can claim that the language “tends to belittle or subject students to ridicule." But when Ms. Smith’s words are examined in context, they fail to meet that standard. Clearly, Ms. Smith was attempting to gain control of the students in a chaotic situation and to compel them to stop using inappropriate language and making inappropriate remarks. She made clear that she herself was not cursing at the students or calling them stupid. Ultimately, Ms. Smith achieved her goal because the class was quiet when the Assistant Principal arrived. Thus, while it may well be that Ms. Smith could have achieved her goal by using different language, it cannot reasonably be said that the language she used qualifies as prohibited verbal abuse as defined in the Regulations sufficient to support an Unsatisfactory Rating.

Accordingly, it is hereby

ADJUDGED that the petition is granted, the denial of petitioner’s appeal of the Unsatisfactory Rating is annulled, and the Unsatisfactory Rating shall be removed from the file.

This constitutes the decision and judgment of this Court.   The facts related here are taken from the decision by Committee Chairperson Leila G. Zuckerman, which denied Ms. Smith’s appeal of the unsatisfactory rating after a hearing on May 31, 2006. The denial was upheld by the Chancellor on August 28, 2006. The petition timely challenges that denial. In the background data of Ms. Zuckemnan’s decision, she states (referring to Ms. Smith): “It was clear that she became desperate”.

^[2] As noted above, Chairperson Zuckerman properly excluded the letter, and the student statements were, or should have been, excluded as well.

Ruben Wills Goes On Trial

City Councilman Ruben Wills was indicted by the attorney general’s office in 2014 for pocketing
$33,000 in grant money

If you believe the newspapers, and think that the money that is unaccounted for or in the wrong place due to Councilman Ruben Wills is due to his "carelessness", then I have a bridge to sell you.

And, Mr. Wills gave alot of money to MS 226 Principal Rushell White. What is the full story there?

Betsy Combier
betsy.combier@gmail.com
Editor, NYC Rubber Room Reporter
Editor, Parentadvocates.org
Editor, New York Court Corruption
Editor, National Public Voice
Editor, The NYC Public Voice

Defense claims Queens Councilman Ruben Wills was not stealing government money — he was just 'careless'

A city councilman was careless with his bookkeeping - not stealing over $30,000 in taxpayer funds and grant money for two non-profits, according to his defense attorney.

"Carelessness is all this is - carelessness," said attorney Kevin O'Donnell during opening statements in Queens Supreme Court on Wednesday for Councilman Ruben Wills.

Wills was indicted by the attorney general's office in 2014 for pocketing $19,000 in grant money - approved by former state Senator Shirley Huntley in 2008 - from the state's Office of Children Family Services for his non-profit NY 4 Life.

A jury of five women and seven men will determine if Wills schemed to defraud the government, committed grand larceny and falsified business documents to hide the scheme.

Ohio pol suggests EMS stop responding to overdoses to save money

If convicted, Wills faces up to seven years in prison for the top charge.

"No one will say $33,000 of services weren't given for New York 4 Life. Not everyone looks at their accountant's work ... if you can't find receipts that's not a crime, it's not a crime to be careless," said O'Donnell.

NY 4 Life was created in 2006 to provide services for single parent homes in Southeast Queens. O'Donnell argued that Wills didn't receive the grant until 2010 and the organization still conducted breakfasts, luncheons and anti-childhood obesity campaigns.

"They aren't free," said O'Donnell.

Assistant Attorney General Travis Hill said he intends to prove that Wills not only spent the funds at department stores Macy's, Toys 'R Us, Century 21 and Nordstrom, he paid a campaign worker with the grant money.

"Michelle Davis will testify that she was paid by checks from New York 4 Life's bank account. Ruben Wills used checks for New York 4 Life and in the memo wrote it was for data entry for an obesity campaign. Davis will testify she didn't know what New York 4 Life even was," said Hill during opening statements.

Prosecutors called three witnesses from Macy's, Nordstrom's and Home Depot to comb through the receipts allegedly associated with Wills' purchases.

Purchases made at Macy's didn't detail the purchase for $749.51. Wills's Nordstrom bill, meanwhile, was for a men's dress shirt, cufflinks, two women's and boy's shirt.

Wills is also accused of taking $19,000 of the $30,000 in grant money and $11,500 in campaign matching funds during his first City Council race in 2009 for services with Micro Targeting, for translating and distributing campaign literature.

Prosecutors charge that Wills had an associate redirect the funds for Micro Targeting to NY 4 Life.

“Elected office doesn’t give anyone license to break the law, or avoid the consequences. With trust in government falling, it's all the more vital to send a clear message: public corruption will not be tolerated in New York,” said Amy Spitalnick, a spokeswoman for the state Attorney General’s Office.

MS 226 Principal Rushell White Key Words: Checks From Ruben Wills

Under the business model for education, Rushell White, Principal of MS 226, can take all the money she wants from Ruben Wills, and do whatever she wants with it.

There is no Board of Directors to oversee what happens right, or wrong. That is the mistake that has changed the face of education in America, and certainly New York City.

Principals have too much unchecked power. The Principal's Union, CSA, defends the rights of their members to have total power over their school.

When I reported the $225,000 missing grant money at PS 6 (Carmen Farina was Principal) from the Annenberg Challenge For the Arts,  to Annenberg in or about 2001, their final conclusion after all the grants had been assessed, was that the money should not have been given to principals without safeguards for its' use. Without safeguards in place, too many principals did not use the money correctly, as the grant required.

That's the problem.  Principals have unilateral power. And, without the necessary safeguards for using money within the school, the possibility that nefarious actions may occur is unsurprisingly high.

In 2004, I published the letters from the UFT on the Special Education Mess, with children not getting the services they needed. Special education remains a mess, and I keep publishing the missing services and money on my blogs and website Parentadvocates.org. I still represent children and their parents at Impartial Hearings. No one at the DOE is fixing anything, and special education teachers are getting hit with 3020-a. Alot of them.

Ruben Wills and Rushell White

The job of a principal in New York City is to be a CEO, a Chief Executive Officer. Unfortunately, there is no Board of Directors to oversee what happens right, or wrong. That is the mistake that has changed the face of education in America, and certainly New York City.

Principals have too much unchecked power. The Principal's Union, CSA, defends the rights of their members to have total power over their school.

When I reported the $225,000 missing grant money at PS 6 (Carmen Farina was Principal) from the Annenberg Challenge For the Arts,  to Annenberg in or about 2001, their final conclusion after all the grants had been assessed, was that the money should not have been given to principals without safeguards for its' use. Without safeguards in place, too many principals did not use the money correctly, as the grant required.

That's the problem.  Principals have unilateral power. And, without the necessary safeguards for using money within the school, the possibility that nefarious actions may occur is unsurprisingly high.

In 2004, I published the letters from the UFT on the Special Education Mess, with children not getting the services they needed. Special education remains a mess, and I keep publishing the missing services and money on my blogs and website Parentadvocates.org. I still represent children and their parents at Impartial Hearings. No one at the DOE is fixing anything, and special education teachers are getting hit with 3020-a. Alot of them.

See NYC UFT Gives an Overview of the 'Special Education Mess'

The Checks

A picture is worth a thousand words.

When you enter MS 226, you quickly see huge pictures of checks on the wall. The checks -  the representations of checks - are from District #28 City Council Member Ruben Wills, to MS 226 (the school is in District 27). The checks add up to $500,000, but the real amount given last year was more than $1 million.

NYC Admins: Hide What Cannot Be Changed, Deny What You Did Change

The current administration of NYC, and I mean the Mayor, Deputy Mayors, Chancellor of the NYC Department of Education, and all other agencies,  work under the umbrella policy of secrecy - i.e. hide everything you can't change and deny everything you did change - lie, destroy and undermine. ...stomp on anyone who gets in your way, they say, because you may have an arbitrator/judge/big media publisher who is paid to believe you rather than any tenured teacher/Guidance Counselor/other.

Kind of frightening when you work on finding out what is really going on, as I do at 3020-a Arbitration. At 3020-a, the Department of Education Attorneys argue that no one can argue WHY the charges were filed or HOW the charges were processed, or WHAT the investigator did not do right. All these issues are "not relevant". Of course we argue for transparency and factual evidence (which 3020-a hearings severely lack) because everything we - the lawyers I work with and myself - bring up is put onto the record for the case before the arbitrator as well as any Appeal or lawsuit brought later to State or Federal Court. We always try to cover all future actions, should they be necessary.

And the Respondent is always informed about everything, including getting all the transcripts the minute they are available on TEACH, the electronic filing system for all 3020-a cases.

I dislike people who lie to harm someone else but at least the people who come in and lie at 3020-a to save their jobs are not very good at lying. If you read the entire testimony of a person who lies, you can see such extreme inconsistencies that the person made under oath which, when pointed out in closing argument, should persuade the arbitrator to find the person not credible.

This is important, because no Court will vacate a determination of credibility unless there are extra-ordinary circumstances.

Betsy Combier
betsy.combier@gmail.com
Editor, NYC Rubber Room Reporter
Editor, Parentadvocates.org
Editor, New York Court Corruption
Editor, National Public Voice
Editor, NYC Public Voice
Editor, Inside 3020-a Teacher Trials

De Blasio’s real homeless policy: Hide the bad news

By Post Editorial Board

, July 5, 2017

With its belated posting of the grim results of this year’s street-homelessness census, City Hall just exposed Mayor de Blasio’s real homelessness policy: Hide the bad news.

The count was done back in February, but didn’t get posted until Wednesday — after Politico had published it.

It’s obvious why Team de Blasio didn’t want you to see the numbers: They show 3,892 people living on the streets, up 40 percent from last year and the highest rate since 2005.

The mayor’s minions were quick to note how misleading that may be: The night of the count was unseasonably warm, so fewer folks felt compelled to find shelter, and so were easier for census-takers to find.

Then again, the shelter homeless population is also at a high under de Blasio, having crossed the 60,000 mark last October.

Plus, the mayor himself once made a big deal of the street-census figures — during the summer of 2015, when he was citing them as “proof” that The Post’s reporting on soaring homelessness simply wasn’t true.

And never mind the photographic evidence, or the metastasizing encampments that the NYPD was belatedly taking down nearly as fast as The Post was pointing them out.

It wasn’t ’til that fall that de Blasio finally began admitting the truth, and months later that the public learned City Hall had been holding emergency meetings on the homeless crisis all year.

Eventually, the mayor announced “new” policies that amounted to more of the same: more spending on services, more plans to build new shelters, more promises to bring the homeless population down . . . eventually.

The only change has been to put lifelong activist Steven Banks officially in charge of homeless policy, though he’d plainly been calling the shots from the start.

Clearly, though, the overall de Blasio strategy is still to keep the public in the dark.

Number of homeless people in city up by 39% in just one year