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Sunday, September 25, 2011

UFT Gives In: Schedules Mass ATR Meetings; Scheduling SNAFUs

The United Federation of Teachers (UFT) has conceded to demands for Absent Teacher Reserve (ATR) teachers to have more voice.
However, some developments suggest that the UFT is dampening potential groundswell factors.
First, the meeting was to be a single one (see this flyer at Ed Notes), at the Brooklyn Marriott building offices of the Brooklyn UFT. But a single site could see too much agitation for Unity to manage. (Classroom management anyone?)
The UFT split the meetings into successive nights: October 3 in the Bronx, October 4 in Brooklyn, October 5 in Staten Island, October 6 in Queens and October 11 in Manhattan.
(See the poster at the UFT website.)
Should the UFT reconsider siting important meetings at its Bronx offices? That site is close to major highways, but otherwise it is difficult to access: it is only near the 6 train and the buses that go to Westchester Square, Bx 4, 4A, 8, 21, 31, 40, 42.
And most important of all, when were the meeting schedulers last teachers themselves? Have they forgotten that the first Mondays of the month are routinely the days of faculty conferences? ATRs leaving after the school bell on Monday, October 3 could get written up for missing the faculty conference. Besides, won't teachers already tired from the faculty conference be a little too burned out to attend another meeting?

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