Today's Message to Staff--One Day at a Time

It's pretty hard to take things one day at a time, actually. Yesterday Mayor de Blasio, in his infinite wisdom, withdrew the two previously agreed upon Christian/ Jewish holidays from us and our students. In return for having taken seven days from us, he placed four days in our CAR. Perhaps that makes sense in Common Core math, but on this astral plane it's ridiculous. Michael Mulgrew is outraged, and I know that because UFT twitter is posting angry tweets from outraged teachers and others. I have never seen that before. UFT will demand monetary compensation for us, and if we don't get it we will go to court. Of course, courts are not currently open, so that will have to wait I myself had some choice words for the mayor, and to this day I cannot get over his having closed Broadway while leaving the schools open. So much for the equity the DOE is always blathering on about. The chancellor wrote us an email, and I answered him too. While there were serious issues with Zoom, removing it from us with no notice whatsoever left many of us, yours truly included, up the creek without even a virtual paddle. I urge you to be strong. Even as the city pelts us with veritable garbage there are many worse off than we are. Stay strong. We will not let Mayor de Blasio forget this, his legacy of failure, insensitivity and indifference to not only UFT, but also to the 1.1 million children and their families, the people we serve. Best regards, Arthur