Ka-Ching! The Charter Lobby Buys into NYC’s Mayoral Race | Diane Ravitch's blog

Ka-Ching! The Charter Lobby Buys into NYC’s Mayoral Race | Diane Ravitch's blog

Ka-Ching! The Charter Lobby Buys into NYC’s Mayoral Race

In a crowded field of candidates in the Democratic primary, only two are opposed to expanding the number of charters in a city with hundreds of them: Scott Stringer and Maya Wiley.

The other candidates support more charters at a time when the national Democratic Party seems to realize that charters are a key component of the rightwing’s longtime goal of privatization of the public schools. Charter advocates started a PAC for Eric Adams. Andrew Yang supports charter schools and is advised by former Mayor Bloomberg’s advisor Bradley Tusk (Bloomberg was very pro-charter). Financier Ray McGuire’s campaign relies on Bloomberg’s chancellor Joel Klein for advice (his campaign manager is pro-charter).

Betsy DeVos loves charter schools, so does the anti-union Walton family and Charles Koch. Across the country, Republican legislators and governors are passing legislation to expand charters and vouchers, while Democrats put public schools first.

This article explains how deeply entangled one of the CONTINUE READING: Ka-Ching! The Charter Lobby Buys into NYC’s Mayoral Race | Diane Ravitch's blog

Probably No Early Retirement Incentive This Year | JD2718

Probably No Early Retirement Incentive This Year | JD2718

Probably No Early Retirement Incentive This Year

Today’s email from Mulgrew held out the smallest glimmer of hope, “We will continue to fight until the final hour.” But the final hour is just about here.

When the NY State legislature included in the state budget a provision that would allow the City to negotiate with unions for an early retirement incentive, some teachers got excited.

But the negotiations bogged down. The City made ridiculous proposals (for some teacher licenses, but not others) that they knew the UFT would never agree to. It does not look like the City is serious. They will probably just run out the clock.

What happened? Here’s my guess.

An incentive would save the City money today, but increase overall pension liability. And, with the COVID economy and scary budget this fall, the City was thinking about the incentive more seriously than in any recent year (An incentive gets raised every single year, but usually dies a quiet death. One assemblyman gets to score points at home for introducing it).

Bureaucracy moves slowly, and the City’s interest in the fall turned into serious legislative moves over the winter, and the adoption of the incentive with the State budget last month.

Bureaucracy moves slowly, but the world doesn’t.

While an incentive was working its way through votes and negotiations and back-room deals, the feds sent money – a huge infusion. But at least some of it is only one-year money. So now the City’s CONTINUE READING: Probably No Early Retirement Incentive This Year | JD2718

NYC Public School Parents: Call to Action! Keep the cap on charters!

NYC Public School Parents: Call to Action! Keep the cap on charters!

Call to Action! Keep the cap on charters!

The Education Council Consortium (ECC) invites all stakeholders to make a Charter Cap Call to Action. Please find more information in a letter from the ECC to the community, below: 

Dear fellow advocates of public education and concerned families,

We need your help. We advocated hard for a cap on the number of charter schools that could operate in New York City, and we won—but now, the charter school industry is lobbying hard to remove that cap. Even though they could easily open charter schools in other parts of the state, and even though NYC has over 80% of the state’s charters, they still want more in NYC. StudentsFirst, a pro-charter political lobbying organization formed by Michelle Rhee to pass state laws facilitating charter school expansion, has released results from their poll claiming NYC Democrats want more charters. Parent advocates don’t have lobbyists or market research firms to game the system, but we have our voices and our elected representatives. 

Phone Banking

Please reach out to 10 or more friends—SLT and PTA members, grandparents, really anyone you know, and ask them to call or write their state legislators. We are aiming to have 50 calls made in each community school district, surpassing 1,500 calls.

The Charter Committee will hold a virtual phone bank on TONIGHT, Thursday, May 27th at 7pm. Please register in advance for this event. 

Letter Writing 

You can also send a letter to your elected officials here. The letter writing site has a sample letter and it will look up your legislators, so that all you have to do is sign your name! Please do it today and share with others.

NYC Public School Parents: Call to Action! Keep the cap on charters!

Ed Notes Online: UFT Mayoral Endorsement: Sunday 7 PM Educators of NYC Zooms in on Endorsement Process; Monday, special Ex Bd and DA

Ed Notes Online: UFT Mayoral Endorsement: Sunday 7 PM Educators of NYC Zooms in on Endorsement Process; Monday, special Ex Bd and DA

UFT Mayoral Endorsement: Sunday 7 PM Educators of NYC Zooms in on Endorsement Process; Monday, special Ex Bd and DA

I wouldn't endorse any candidate who is for continuing mayoral control. But none of them want to give up that vast power over so much of the budget so I don't think it will every go away. Also the educational/industrial complex has a lot of money riding on continuing mayoral control which is a lynchpin of ed deform and undermining public schools. Like, given the performance of de Blasio, is there more or less support for public schools? Case closed.

Daniel Alicea of Educators of NYC has invited all caucuses to a zoom meeting tonight at 7PM to hold an open discussion regarding the process used in the UFT for the mayoral endorsement follies. Only room for 100 so sign up fast.

One of the ideas being floated is why endorse at all? MORE Caucus and friends is obviously backing Diane Morales, complained about why she was not included in final four but Yang was. A petition is being circulated calling for her to be interviewed Monday at the DA. I wonder if the UFT HAD picked Morales if we would be hearing complaints about process. 

But anyway, we know the process sucks no matter what because fundamentally, Mulgrew or his designee makes the choice and then the UFT figures out a process to ensure his choice gets the nomination. Most people think it will be Stringer and Wiley in some order since some top UFT officials are clearly backing Wiley.

• UFT Mayoral Election Update: Wiley/Strin...

We reported on the failure to endorse at the DA the other day -  

• UFT Leadership Shaken, Not Stirred: Electronic anonymous voting threat, Endorsement Chaos, Unity defections, is mayoral endorsement in trouble?

• UFT Delegates REJECT Endorsements, including Johnson for Comptroller, by 55% - Is there a crack in Unity

 In the meantime, the leadership has attempted to counter the critiques of the endorsement process with this: CONTINUE READING: Ed Notes Online: UFT Mayoral Endorsement: Sunday 7 PM Educators of NYC Zooms in on Endorsement Process; Monday, special Ex Bd and DA

Will the Teacher Union (UFT) “Select” the Next Mayor (and other electeds) in New York City? | Ed In The Apple

Will the Teacher Union (UFT) “Select” the Next Mayor (and other electeds) in New York City? | Ed In The Apple

Will the Teacher Union (UFT) “Select” the Next Mayor (and other electeds) in New York City?

On June 22 registered Democratic voters will go to the polls to select the Democratic candidates (and probably the November victor) for Mayor, Comptroller, Boro Presidents, District Attorneys and 37 of the 51 member City Council; a sweeping change in the governance of New York City.

You may be going the poll a week earlier (Early Voting) or cast your absentee ballot, and, you can “rank” up to five candidates (See a detailed explanation of the mechanics of the election here).

The teacher union, the United Federation of Teachers, is endorsing virtually every position on the ballot, and, has dramatically changed their endorsement process.

Rather than the union leadership choosing candidates local committees made up of school union leaders (“Chapter Leaders”) recommended candidates  (all endorsed) and the other offices Zoom interviews with thousands of teachers participating, and, casting preference on-line ballots.

On Monday, April 19th the UFT Delegate Assembly will endorse a mayoral CONTINUE READING: Will the Teacher Union (UFT) “Select” the Next Mayor (and other electeds) in New York City? | Ed In The Apple

NYC Public School Parents: Our testimony about why NYC kids will need smaller classes next year than ever before -- & the federal funding is available to achieve this

NYC Public School Parents: Our testimony about why NYC kids will need smaller classes next year than ever before -- & the federal funding is available to achieve this

Our testimony about why NYC kids will need smaller classes next year than ever before -- & the federal funding is available to achieve this

Council education budget hearings tomorrow start at 9:30 AM; public testimony starts at about noon.  You can watch and listen here, in Virtual Room 2.  

Our testimony advocating for a big chunk of the federal funds be used for smaller classes below for the sake of health, safety and to address the damage done by more than a year of remote learning.

NYC Public School Parents: Our testimony about why NYC kids will need smaller classes next year than ever before -- & the federal funding is available to achieve this

A School System Adrift: New York City Schools Search for Direction as the Political Landscape Evolves | Ed In The Apple

A School System Adrift: New York City Schools Search for Direction as the Political Landscape Evolves | Ed In The Apple

A School System Adrift: New York City Schools Search for Direction as the Political Landscape Evolves

The theory of action that describes the Board and the successor Department of Education are known as Newton’s First Laws of Motion … sometimes referred to as the law of inertia. An object at rest stays at rest and an object in motion stays in motion with the same speed and in the same direction.

If you ask upper management in the Department why they’re following a particular policy the standard answer is, “That’s the way we’ve always done it,” Newton’s First Law of Motion –the law of inertia.

Meisha Porter begins her tenure on March 15th, the third chancellor to lead the Department of Education during de Blasio’s seven plus years in office.

Can she change the direction of the leviathan?

Education policy has become inexorably intertwined with mayoral politics.

On June 22nd voters will select the Democratic Party candidates for Mayor along with the Comptroller, 37 of the 51 members of the City Council and three out of CONTINUE READING: A School System Adrift: New York City Schools Search for Direction as the Political Landscape Evolves | Ed In The Apple

Farewell, Carranza | JD2718

Farewell, Carranza | JD2718

Farewell, Carranza

Yesterday was Richard Carranza’s last day. He won’t be missed.

Sadly.

Because he arrived with good intentions. He arrived with a good attitude. He seemed friendly towards teachers.

But he was probably not ready for New York City, and definitely not for the NYC Department of Education.

His hires were semi-qualified cronies, and insiders pushed on him by City Hall. Anything he attempted bogged down almost immediately. Moving through the DoE bureaucracy is like trying to walk through a river of molasses. And ham-fisted de Blasio was calling many of the (wrong) shots.

We expected much change on instruction for children whose first language is not English. And there was the issue of school segregation…

On ESL, a leader who gets it!  Ready to undo the lousy policies he inherited! (from the state, but also how the city coped with it). Where’s the progress? Where? Nowhere.

The integration initiatives were way overdue. He rolled out de Blasio’s specialized high school initiative about as clumsily as he could have. But that was de Blasio. They caught allies off guard. They angered CONTINUE READING: Farewell, Carranza | JD2718

NYC schools chancellor Carranza resigns, Meisha Ross Porter steps in

NYC schools chancellor Carranza resigns, Meisha Ross Porter steps in

Longtime NYC educator Meisha Ross Porter to be first Black woman leading nation's largest public school district

NEW YORK – Richard Carranza, the current New York City’s Schools Chancellor announced his resignation Friday and said Meisha Ross Porter will be taking the role.

Porter will be will become the first Black woman to lead the nation's largest school district. 

"This is the great privilege of my life at this moment," Porter said in a press conference.

"She eats, drinks, sleeps and thinks at all times about New York and the children of New York," Carranza said of his successor.

Porter takes the role after the schools' reopening amid the COVID-19 pandemic has largely been heralded as a success. Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, told NBC's "Meet the Press" on Sunday that New York City schools have done a "pretty good job in terms of showing the way" for the rest of the country's schools to reopen.

Carranza cited the need for time to grieve his eleven family members and close friends who died from COVID-19.

"I feel that I can take that time now because of the place that we are in and the work that we have done together," he said.

Carranza said the system reopened safely for children of essential workers, distributed over half a million electronic devices for remote learning, and delivered 80 millions meals to its students. CONTINUE READING: NYC schools chancellor Carranza resigns, Meisha Ross Porter steps in

Control Your Destiny, Schedule the Vaccination Yourself - SOUTH BRONX SCHOOL BLOG southbronxschool com

http://www.southbronxschool.com

Control Your Destiny, Schedule the Vaccination Yourself

I am appreciative of the UFT, NYSUT, and whatever other groups expedited teachers and educators into group 1B so we can get vaccinated. 

What I am not crazy about are the strings attached and what it appears to be that the only way
we can get vaccinated is through the DOE and/or the UFT. Why? Basically to control who gets it. 

Mulgrew and Chancellor Carranza said the same things differently. 

Mulgrew wrote...        

UFT members working in the schools right now will receive priority in our matching process, but we plan to move quickly to match all UFT members who wish to receive the vaccine with a provider.

Carranza wrote...

If you are working remotely right now, please wait for further guidance on when to schedule your vaccination. This will help to ensure that New Yorkers on the front line serving fellow New Yorkers in person in our school buildings will better be able to access the vaccine. 

Though I am not enthralled but what Mulgrew wrote, Carranza is coming across like he hopes plenty of CONTINUE READING: http://www.southbronxschool.com

NYC Educator: White Supremacy Is Everywhere--Even in UFT

NYC Educator: White Supremacy Is Everywhere--Even in UFT

White Supremacy Is Everywhere--Even in UFT

Like everyone I know, I'm totally freaked out by what happened in DC last week. I guess no one should be surprised, as it was telegraphed by the President, a whole bunch of House and Senate members, and Trump media outlets and devotees around the country. What was really shocking was the response, or lack thereof, of the police and/ or military. (Worse, the rioters absolutely expected the police to support them.)

We saw a much different approach to BLM demonstrations. There were a few of those in my town, Freeport NY, and the neighboring town, Merrick. I'm constantly walking my dog on the canal here and I was pretty shocked to see a contingent of police, mounted and otherwise near a local bar. The cops told me they were there to prevent violence. There wasn't any, so they mostly sat in a parking lot talking to one another. But they were prepared. 

In Merrick, a much whiter town, there wasn't any violence either, but there were a whole lot of stupid white people shooting off their mouths about how BLM didn't have the right to assemble. There was a video up on Facebook that I'm not gonna search for. There wasn't any violence beyond the verbal sort. It was shocking, though, to see those people publicly announcing their essentially white supremacist positions. This openness is a by-product of the Trump presidency. I guess cancel culture is when you tell these folks to keep their filthy ideas to themselves.

Of course other parts of the country were worse. There was violence against BLM protestors all around these United States, despite the fact that most such demonstrations were peaceful. The contrast in the way BLM was treated in the Capitol with the way the Trump riot was handled is stark indeed. Anyone who doesn't believe in white privilege today has CONTINUE READING: NYC Educator: White Supremacy Is Everywhere--Even in UFT

New York State is currently a rising COVID outlier in the United States | JD2718

New York State is currently a rising COVID outlier in the United States | JD2718

New York State is currently a rising COVID outlier in the United States

COVID-19 case rates rose across the country this fall. And, in most cases, those rates peaked. In some states the peak was in mid-November. In others it was late November In others it was early December. In others it was mid-December.

But in New York State the case rate continues to rise.

Right before Thanksgiving Andrew Cuomo held a press conference. He went on and on about how well New York was doing. The big problems, he claimed, were in North Dakota and Wyoming. He said Wyoming three, four, five times. He dragged out the “O” to make it a four syllable word. To make it sound strange. He enjoyed making fun of other people.

At that moment Wyoming had a case rate of about 130 per 100,000, while New York’s was about 25 per 100,000. Now, 25 is not good. NPR has a Coronavirus by the numbers page, and draws data from Johns Hopkins and Harvard. I went to that page, and looked at the heatmap, where they indicate that 25+ indicates unchecked community spread.

It’s a good map, right? But there is a difference between 25 and 130. I made my own map, which I CONTINUE READING: New York State is currently a rising COVID outlier in the United States | JD2718

NYC Public School Parents: Letter to NY State Commissioner: please allow Hasidic youths to have a chance at a better education

NYC Public School Parents: Letter to NY State Commissioner: please allow Hasidic youths to have a chance at a better education

Letter to NY State Commissioner: please allow Hasidic youths to have a chance at a better education

This moving letter, reprinted with the permission of its author who asked for his name to be removed, was sent to NY Commissioner of Education Betty Rosa and top NYSED officials.  It was sent shortly after he had participated in a online group discussion of volunteers, solicited to give feedback on the state regulations to enforce the NY state Substantial Equivalency law.  The message points out how the lack of a basic secular education threatens not only the life chances of Hasidic youths, but also the health and safety of their communities. 

For more on this issue, see recent opeds by Naftuli Moster of Yaffed in the Washington Post and Gotham Gazette, the latter entitled What Happens in Williamsburg Doesn't Stay in Williamsburg.

Dear Commissioner Rosa, Deputy Commissioner D’Agati, Assistant Commissioner Coughlin, and members of the Board of Regents,

I also want to thank you for addressing this important issue as well as echo and elaborate on many of the points made by others.

I was raised in the Hasidic, Jewish community in Williamsburg, Brooklyn and attended a Hasidic yeshiva until the age of 15. In my Hasidic elementary and middle school (cheider), after an intense day of religious studies, we had only an hour-and-a-half of very rudimentary English and arithmetic. In Hasidic high school, during my thirteen hours in yeshiva daily, we exclusively studied religious texts such as the Talmud and Torah and no secular studies whatsoever.

Throughout all my years in a Hasidic school, I was never taught any science, history, geography, government, art, literature, computers, health or any math beyond arithmetic.

The school I attended and its disregard for a secular education is not in any way an isolated case. It is the universal norm among Hasidic boys schools in New York. (The girls CONTINUE READING: NYC Public School Parents: Letter to NY State Commissioner: please allow Hasidic youths to have a chance at a better education

NYC Public School Parents: Please give so we can continue our work for education equity, smaller classes & student privacy in 2021

NYC Public School Parents: Please give so we can continue our work for education equity, smaller classes & student privacy in 2021

Please give so we can continue our work for education equity, smaller classes & student privacy in 2021

And a recap of a difficult, extraordinary year...

Dear friend --- 

2020 was a difficult year for Class Size Matters as it was for many non-profits. If you support our mission of smaller classes, so that all students no matter what their background can receive the help and feedback from teachers they need for an equitable opportunity to learn, please make a tax-deductible donation now. We were unable to hold our usual annual fundraiser in the spring because of the pandemic, so we really would value your contributions at this time.

Some highlights of our efforts this year: In February, standing-room only hearings were held at City Hall on the necessity to lower class size in the public schools. We used that opportunity to urge the City Council to allocate specific funding for that end. Parents, educators, students and top officials, including Kathleen Cashin, Board of Regents member, testified that this would provide the transformational change that NYC students need and deserve, especially as class sizes are out of control in many neighborhood schools and remain 15-30% larger on average than in the rest of the state.

And then the pandemic hit in March, causing a plunge in city tax revenues and proposals by the city to slash the education budget.

Our efforts quickly pivoted to trying to prevent damaging cuts to critical programs and drawing attention to wasteful DOE spending. We were the first advocates to blow the whistle on the DOE’s plan to fully fund school bus companies to the tune of $1.1 billion per year – even as buses had been sitting idle for months in parking lots and garages across the city.  Because of the consequent uproar, the city renegotiated these contracts, leading to savings of at least $200 million.

We also brought attention to the huge class sizes that students were subjected to while engaged in online learning, as well as the risk to their privacy.   DOE has encouraged schools to use hundreds of commercially-prepared ed tech programs, with no evidence they complied with the provisions of the NY state student privacy law that we had pushed for and that had come into full force in January 2020.

If you would like us to continue to advocate for students to receive the full academic and emotional support next year that they will need more than ever before, rather than double down on online learning, as the Chancellor has proposed, and that DOE should cease spending millions on wasteful contracts and unnecessary programs, please show your support by donating here, or by sending a check to Class Size Matters, 124 Waverly Pl., New York NY 10011.

Hoping you and your families have a safe and happy New Year, Leonie

P.S. You can check out last week's “Talk out of School” podcast interview with parent activist Shino Tanikawa about the changed middle and high school admissions policies for next year and what they will and won’t accomplish. Please listen if you can, and let me know what you think. You can also subscribe to the podcast at that link or at Apple iTunes, Google, or Spotify.

NYC Public School Parents: Please give so we can continue our work for education equity, smaller classes & student privacy in 2021

NYC Educator: After the Toughest Year Ever, We Get a Break

NYC Educator: After the Toughest Year Ever, We Get a Break

After the Toughest Year Ever, We Get a Break

This has been the most stressful year in my memory for all of us working in schools. We've been through all sorts of indignities and inconvenience, but there's been nothing like 2020. Let's hope there's nothing like it ever again.

We're on a roller coaster of opening and closing. As Broadway went dark, as Long Island schools closed, pig-headed Bill de Blasio spent weeks dithering over what to do. He labors under the misconception that by keeping schools open, he can somehow rehabilitate his reputation. His rep is long past having swirled the bowl, but such is the drive of a tinhorn politician.

COVID is exploding around the country, worse than ever, but de Blasio manages to keep elementary schools open, at least the ones where they haven't yet detected the disease. While there hasn't been a huge outbreak in a school this year, De Blasio doesn't seem to understand that people who work in schools are human, and therefore averse to clear and present danger. 

While the use of masks and social distancing largely ameliorates a hazardous situation, it doesn't change how people feel. So there is a palpable terror among a lot of people working in schools. NY Times "reporters" can lecture us all they like, but the fact is public schools don't look like NY Times offices. I don't recall the last time I set foot in a clean school building, and children don't behave like college-educated professional reporters.

It's hard for me to see the value of sending children, especially young children, into masked and socially distanced classrooms. The entire notion seems terrifying, It's exacerbated by the nervousness, even terror of many teachers and school workers. Our fault, in general, is being too close to students, not avoiding them. If you're teaching in a building, you're restricted from doing what you signed up to do each and every day. Your ability to interact with CONTINUE READING: NYC Educator: After the Toughest Year Ever, We Get a Break

Will Ranked Choice Voting (RCV) Change the Political Power Structure in New York City? Should We Use RCV in State and Congressional Elections? | Ed In The Apple

Will Ranked Choice Voting (RCV) Change the Political Power Structure in New York City? Should We Use RCV in State and Congressional Elections? | Ed In The Apple

Will Ranked Choice Voting (RCV) Change the Political Power Structure in New York City? Should We Use RCV in State and Congressional Elections?

The ballots in New York City elections commonly ask voters to vote on “ballot proposals” as  well as candidates, in 2019, an off year, no one was running for citywide or state office, the ballot contained four proposals, one of the proposals changed the method of voting in city elections: Ranked Choice Voting.

What is Ranked Choice Voting? How does it Work?

  Ranked-choice, or instant-runoff voting, allows voters to choose multiple candidates and rank them by order of preference. In New York City, primary and special-election voters will have the choice to rank up to five … You don’t have to rank all five – in fact, you can just choose one candidate. But the option is there for you to voice your support for multiple candidates. For the voter, that’s basically all they have to think about when going to the ballot box – which candidates to choose and how to rank them.

Ranked Choice Voting (RCV) replaces run-offs for citywide elections. If a candidate did not reach 40% of the vote in a primary or general election for Mayor, Comptroller or Public Advocate the two leading candidates formerly would contest in a run-off election.

Run-offs were not required in City Council elections, three, four, five or more CONTINUE READING: Will Ranked Choice Voting (RCV) Change the Political Power Structure in New York City? Should We Use RCV in State and Congressional Elections? | Ed In The Apple

NYC Educator: More Brilliance from the Chancellor

NYC Educator: More Brilliance from the Chancellor

More Brilliance from the Chancellor

Dear Colleagues,
 
This has been a year of new challenges and difficult choices, for you at least. I myself have to choose every day whether to sit at the desk in my home office or stay in bed and watch videos. With no guidance whatsoever from me or any of my six-figure flunkies, you’ve had to reinvent the wheel, or more likely, drive a car on which we failed to provide wheels.
 
Today I am writing with an update on another fundamental pillar of our system: how to make our students believe we’re offering everyone an elite education when we are, in fact, not doing any such thing. This notwithstanding, I certainly hope this takes your mind off the raging pandemic and my pig-headed insistence on opening schools as positivity numbers explode everywhere.
 
We’ve been clear from the start we would ignore the impact of the pandemic as much as we possibly could. Otherwise, why would we be closing restaurants and opening schools at the same time?, We’ve decided to rationalize doing so by suggesting doing otherwise CONTINUE READING: NYC Educator: More Brilliance from the Chancellor

NYC Educator: UFT Delegate Assembly December 16, 2020--With Vaccine Coming, What's in the Future?

NYC Educator: UFT Delegate Assembly December 16, 2020--With Vaccine Coming, What's in the Future?

UFT Delegate Assembly December 16, 2020--With Vaccine Coming, What's in the Future?

UFT President Michael Mulgrew--Welcome to last DA of 2020. People on this call are the leadership of the union. We understand how much people lean on leaders during normal times. During these times, dealing with shutdown, fear and anxiety, people look to you. What you have done in terms of moving schools to remote, opening safely, and COVID response teams has been phenomenal. Recognize what you've done. None of our work matters unless it works at the building where people go to work. 

Our number one priority in mayoral race will be that DOE be completely revamped, in that their responsibility will be to support school buildings, not themselves. We remember what happened in March April and May and now it's happening all over the country. You've protected the school system.

Snow--City has given notice that tomorrow is an instructional day. Last year they forced us to report during spring break. We had a ruling that remote is instructional and when we're out of COVID our first act will be to seek compensation. We agreed that two snow days in our calendar were instructional days. We need to meet minimal mandate or state can tell us to cancel holidays, and in that case we wouldn't have agreement. This agreement is only for this year. We will look at things we want to see and things we don't. Our calendar now has more holidays than any system in US. Most snow days we could ever have would be two. Don't want to see days from Spring break canceled. 

There's no substitute for in-person instruction, but there are some things that are valuable in remote, as well as some that are definitely not.

NYC--State plan for COVID, geographically based. City has right to modify plan if it meets minimum NYC requirements. Our position was they have a right, but we stress testing, social distancing, ventilation, and CONTINUE READING: NYC Educator: UFT Delegate Assembly December 16, 2020--With Vaccine Coming, What's in the Future?