Brooklyn Chapter Leaders Meeting (2/25/2021)

UFT Solidarity Council Members attended the Chapter Leaders meeting this afternoon. 

The meeting was led by Jason Goldberg, Bill Kalogeras and James Duncan.  It was a long meeting so I’m just hitting on some points I thought were significant.  High schools are expected to open in four to eight weeks.  There is not expected to be any more separate cohorts for blended learning.  They also don’t an option for remote student to switch from remote to on-site instruction.  This seems to be a strong rule but who knows?  Goldberg emphasized that CLs are expected to start consulting with principals about what is the school’s plan for instruction.  James Duncan said the MOAs are still in effect.

There are still a lot of teachers who have not been vaccinated.  The city announced 30K, according to the daily press.  The UFT handled 8K which was 85 percent of those who completed the survey. The recommend going straight to https://vax4nyc.nyc.gov/patient/s/ or #turbovax on Twitter.
 Teachers with medical accommodations who would like to be in person again must write a letter to their principal expressing such.  According to the MOA not more than 20 percent who have no in-building assignments can be called back in if they wish to remain remote.

There are nine different bills in the NYS Assembly for early retirement.  Bill Kalogeras said we’ll hear about what happened on April 1 when the budget is due.  Any law that passes won’t go into effect until July 1.

There will be no waiver for teacher evaluations from the Government like last year.  The DOE submitted a plan for evaluations on February 1.  The State Education Department has not yet approved it.  (This is interesting because it seems to indicate that the negotiations between the UFT and DOE were over in January.  Why didn’t we hear anything about what had been negotiated?)  There will be a joint training for principals and chapter leaders once the plan is approved.

Chapter elections will be run by the AAA and no date has been set.  They said in schools with less than 250 members the voting will be done by phone.  Schools with 250+ will have mail-in ballots.  There will be training for the election committees.