It seems many admins have been caught doing this with little or no consequences. However, what happened to Maria Colon is horrible. This is why I contend that certain issues should be handled by the DRs instead of teachers on the school level. Instead, we are made the pawns. DRs have authority, clout and protection and therefore should take up these causes on behalf of the chapter thereby protecting teachers and strengthening our union at the same time.
BTW, your first link really got me by surprise.
I have to disagree with Schoolgal this time.
Unless my memory is failing me, they got Maria after she stepped down as Chapter Leader. Certainly none of the people I know from Kennedy have said that they thought the Union put her in harms way.
That Davis got a free ride is galling. Absolutely no consequences>?
I am not talking about CCs or the union. I am talking about what happens when teachers or CCs stand up for themselves. When a teacher goes after the admin for violations, there are consequences. Therefore the complaint should go directly to the DR and they should file the paperwork. I am sure Maria does not feel she is in a good place right now. I know my life changed when I decided not to continue as CC. My admins started getting even because I was a strong advocate and usually won.
Last year something happened to me because I told the admins that under the new contract they cannot tell me how to set up my room. I could have ended up in some rubber room too, but I got a LIF instead--my first after 27 years in the system.
It's stories like this that make teachers afraid to grieve and in turn make our union weak. Maybe Jonathan needs to see what goes on in other schools. Even my neighbor, who is also a teacher, got her first letter (her first) when she questioned why a student of hers wasn't being serviced.
The consequence for Davis, as far as I can see, is a promotion. According to the story, Colon does not seem to have stepped down as CC by the time this happened. She speaks of being quoted as chapter leader at the time of the incident.
Whether or not she was CC, what happened to her is no less outrageous, particularly in view of what happened to Davis.
Jonathan:
Where is our union in showing how an administration which changed grades (one girl had three failing grades in history changed to passing) and recieved not even a LIF? Instead one of them became a principal of one of those small schools. I guess is graduation rate will be 100%, just change the failing grades to passing.
More important where is the accountability by DOE that allows administrator abuse and even rewards them?
Meanwhile a teacher sits in the rubber room. Her crime? She used the school's fax machine to expose the administration abuse. Whether the DR should have taken charge is not the point. We teachers should not be subject to retaliation for protection our rights.
I believe Rashid Davis is also being awarded a Medal of Freedom for his great service to Mayor Moneybags, er, I mean this country.
What happened to the chapter leader is beyond belief. I don't understand what it is our union does for us besides collect money from our paychecks and build steel towers for itself.
Is the leadership of our union too afraid to stand up to the administration or too callous to care?
"Whether the DR should have taken charge is not the point."
But that's exactly what I was trying to discuss with schoolgal. She raises important issues about which problems should be handled at which level, and further about retaliation against individual teachers and even chapter leaders.
sg,
Certainly you know I agree with you about the CL handling more grievances for the chapter (where appropriate).
But with the DR stuff, the problem with what you say is that you take the issue out of the schools, away from the members who's interests are at stake. I'm not comfortable with advocating acting out of fear.
If you don't mind me asking, was your letter under this new contract?
Strike that last question, I see it was under the new contract. Did you try grieving it as a violation of 21A6 (the no bulletin board, etc, clause)? I heard that some people had tried, but haven't learned if it really happened, or what the result was.
Yes, my letter was under the new contract. (and so was my neighbor's--her first letter also) And I don't give a F if an issue goes out of the school if it will protect teachers from retribution.
Having a DR do the work will aleviate the fear and rectify the situation without any harm coming to the teachers.
As for me, I learned to keep my mouth shut this year and just go with the violations because of people like you who don't give a crap about the rest of us.
My understanding is we gave up the right to grieve file letters under the new contract. I believe Leo Casey said it was a good thing since we lost so many grievances anyway.
I'm still confused why even Unity would boast of its own ineptitude, but I suppose they needed to do what they needed to do to fool enough people to vote for this contract.
Maria exposed the admin after 2 years of standing up to them in the role of chapter leader but she had announced she was going to step down because they had been going after her and she felt she wasn't getting enough support from the union. The exposure of the grading scandal was in the spring of 2005. They removed her from the school the first day of school in Sept. '05. It was clear retaliation for the role she played as chapter leader even if she was no longer CL and served as a message to anyone who followed. Her removal should have resulted in a press conference by the union and a picket line at Tweed and at Kennedy.
Did the union put her in harm's way? Of course. The lack of action to protect chapter leaders for so many years, especially ignoring calls to put something in the contract, is what put her and many other chapter leaders in harm's way.
And the outrageous revision from satisfactory in June to unsatisfactory in October is clear evidence of the vindictive nature of the administration.
The fact that she's not yet off the hook is remarkable.
"Records for one Kennedy student showed that after she passed the state’s global history Regents exam in January 2005, she was retroactively awarded credit for three semesters of global history that she had failed."
The principal of my school started doing the same thing in June. Kids that passed the math A regents were back credited with up to 4 terms of math. Many of the kids took the same subjects in day school and night school (different course codes, of course) so they could graduate and he could win school improvement awards.
No Jonathan,
They did not get me for the b-boards but went after me in a most vile way,
and my own DR never got back to me as she promised leaving me and my CC to float in the wind.
Something similar happened to Ms. Dennis, but she was lucky to find someone at the Region to help her when her own union wouldn't. I wasn't so lucky.
Jonathan:
I believe in this case you are wrong! The union should have went hard against the administrators and DOE as Norm said. This should have been a top priority case, like the Brooklyn Tech issue.
How does it look that a teacher, doing her job to expose corrupt practices by the administration is sent to the "rubber room", while the administrators are rewarded with either a whitewash or a promotion.
This is the reason (besides the contract) that many of us are sick of Randi & gang not protecting the classroom teacher's rights.
As for the opposition, this should be one of the cases they should bring up in their election campaign about how Unity is not protecting teacher rights. I certainly would.
You mean "he couldn't BEAR"
(But B+ for content 
)
Thanks, Elizabeth. Just fixed it.
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