Carrie Prugh--Tomorrow is mayoral town hall 5 PM
UFT President Michael Mulgrew--Evaluation--Some superintendents and schools have been using attendance and time on Zoom as evaluation. That's not acceptable. There is a state law on evaluation. Governor made executive order last year, is not inclined to do so this year. DOE has done nothing to help, offered no PE. As far as we're concerned, this is about when student and teacher are in classroom. We will try to settle, but if not we will go before commissioner.
Important to have different type of appeal process. This is a very unique and odd teaching process. We can't have principals using attendance. Issues are over what schools did when students didn't engage. We have had some good process, but we're not done until we're done.
MOSL is something we'll have to start looking at. MOSL has worked well for us. We've had five different laws. The matrix with MOSL has been our friend. Student learning has protected teachers. There are hundreds of schools where maybe science exam is used for all in building. We will make sure we do a good job and no one is harmed for teaching in a pandemic.
Vaccine--We are more than halfway through our list. This week and next should be 16% increase in doses, and federal should help. There will be no cancellation of UFT appointments. If you find a match elsewhere you can remove yourself online. I'm not happy until everyone who wants it gets it but we're working on it.
Middle schools--Don't know yet, will discuss with mayor. It's all about testing. City positivity rate going down for last 9 days, now at 5.2. We'd have 227 schools closed today, but have been above 350. Still have issues getting test results back. Has to do with contracts. City using labs that aren't fast enough, will look at new ones. Randomness improving but not there.
CDC coming up with guidelines on how to open schools. Glad we have a president whose focus is pandemic, economy, and infrastructure to move whole economy. Would like to combine stimulus to open schools, but we are already open. There are big issues in Chicago. Union wants guaranteed testing. Only offering minimal accommodations, as opposed to those we have.
We did a lot of work in Albany last week. Frustrating when you hear people saying there's nothing we can do without federal stimulus. This is getting to be an old song. If we get a stimulus with city and state support budget could be good. State supplanted half, which we have to fight.
State may come up with revenue package. Will be unlikely they cover whole deficit.
Mayoral forum tomorrow. Special ed. town hall Wed., Union town hall Thursday. Hopefully by Thursday we will have news on evaluation.
Early retirement incentive part of all our conversations. I think it needs to get done in the budget if it is to get done this year.
Middle schools will open sooner or later if we get enough testing. High schools are opening as vaccination centers. We're only up to b group. C group is huge. We have to get significantly through B group in order to get to C. We need big buildings, Javits Center, high schools, to do thousands of vaccinations a day.
If they want schools open in September, they have to drive up vaccinations.
It looks like every time it snows we will work remotely. This is better, at least, than removing vacation days. There is basically no room. If city council wants us to work more, they would have to remove holidays.
We voted on a mayoral control position. We may want to revisit it. It was funny that PEP panel finally defied mayor, and someone had to "resign." This is why we oppose mayoral control. This is a kangaroo court.
Gifted and talented--Union position is we don't believe in a single test for anything, especially when students are four and five years old. We think these programs should be inside of every school in NYC, just as gifted children are.
Wishes us a happy remote day tomorrow. We are adjourned 6:23
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