Tuesday, January 9, 2018

MORE/New Action High School Reps Send Letter to Chapter Leaders

The following letter was sent to all high school chapter leaders by the MORE/NA high school elected reps. If you are in a high school - or any school, print out a copy and share with your chapter leader. Last night, Kate Martin Bridge joined the Ex Bd as the 7th opposition rep but this was done before she was added. Read Arthur's minutes from last night's meeting here and look for his commentary coming very soon.

December 2017,

Chapter Leader,

As the elected UFT High School representatives on the UFT Executive Board, we would like to tell you a little about what we did last year, and talk with you about priorities for the current school year.

We belong to the New Action and MORE Caucuses. Together we successfully raised several critical issues on behalf of the UFT membership last year. In some cases our efforts led to significant victories; in others we forced the UFT’s Unity leadership to act on issues in front of us.

Abusive Administrators: 
We pushed the union to take a stand against abusive administrators. At Central Park East 1 the UFT Chapter Leader and Delegate were returned to the school and the abusive principal was removed. That victory took months of work and coordination with parents and members. We called for assistance to Townsend Harris, where an abusive principal was removed, and we pushed for consequences for the superintendent and deputy superintendent who created and exacerbated that mess; supported the Chapter Leader of Art and Design HS from an abusive administrator; supported Adult Education teachers who spoke at OACE hearings against their abusive administrator.

We called for the removal of abusive administrators with 2 unfavorable ratings.

We spoke on behalf of veteran teachers rated ineffective for speaking against curriculum writing, bulletin boards, and massive e-mails. We questioned why schools with abusive administrators were allowed to remain in PROSE. We called for investigations of superintendents who side with abusive principals; and we called for the UFT to publicize the names of schools with high teacher turnover rates.

ATRs
Our elected high school reps raised the issue of ATRs at every UFT Executive Board meeting. We criticized Mulgrew and Unity Caucus for signing an ATR agreement without any discussion at the Executive Board, DA, or with ATRs.

Support for immigrant students
We repeatedly called for an immigration liaison at every school; we called for a citywide day of action in support of immigrant students and called for intake screenings for immigrant families in every borough.

This was last year. Some of these must remain part of our focus for this school year.

Where should we focus this year? What are the issues that matter most to you as chapter leader, and to your members? What issues are not being addressed? Contact us – let us know.

Help us set the agenda to move our high schools in the right direction.

KJ Ahluwalia
Arthur Goldstein
Ashraya Gupta
Marcus MacArthur
Jonathan Halabi        
Michael Schirtzer

Contact
Jonathan (New Action) jd2718@gmail.com
or Mike (MORE)  mschir@gmail.com

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

If you are here illegally then you need to go period. This is the new mojo for immigration policy until we clean up this crap otherwise the US will become a third world hell hole with chain migration, open borders, free and easy immigration for the rest of the world to take advantage of the good nature of the US and its citizens. WHy is it that the rest of the world does nothing and the US seems to do everything? LIke the parent and the children, the US is the parent and the rest of the world are the children.