The Mask

There's nothing quite like coming to work every day with a mask on. I've tried a few now. At first, I was using the K95 masks from China. I was okay with them, but I read a lot about how you can't exactly trust the quality of things coming from China. 

There was also the breathing factor. One day I found it so hard to breathe I had to change into one of the blue and white masks we have lying around the school. They really are a lot easier, but I understand they don't provide you with much protection. My understanding is they function mostly to prevent you from infecting others. 

I switched to the KF94 from Korea. I bought a bunch of them last year. I've read their quality is more consistent and reliable than those coming from China. However, you have to be careful about them too. I found what appeared to be a great deal and ordered more of them, only to find that these were not actually Korean masks, but rather copies from China. I guess the MAGA hats aren't selling quite like they use to, and a factory's got to show a profit somehow.

At least one day I had to forgo the Korean mask and use a school one, you know, because just I needed to breathe, but since that day I've been okay with them. They kind of have a built-in air pocket, and you can adjust the little wire above your nose so that your glasses don't fog up at all. I'm not sure how much protection I actually need, but it's not only COVID but also flu season. Might as well be as safe as possible.

As a dean, I have to monitor the mask-wearing of students. Every now and then I have to tell a kid to pull the mask over the nose. I certainly understand the temptation to leave it below and breathe freely. But a mask below the nose is likely as good as no mask at all. Most of the kids seem to cooperate, in our building at least. 

What really surprises me is the number of adults not wearing masks properly. I guess I should expect that, given all the crap in the news and pseudo-news. You have politicians, the same ones who support the repeal of abortion rights, screaming bloody murder about the right to go unmasked. It's outrageous!

This is hard to talk about but when I was a child, my parents, without my consent, took away my god given freedom to die of polio.

— Daniel Kibblesmith (@kibblesmith) September 28, 2021

It's those goshdarn radical leftists forcing their idiotic notions about public health on us! Who the hell do they think they are? Didn't Tucker say just last night how awful that was? (Tucker, of course, has to either be vaccinated or take COVID tests DAILY, because that's the company policy over at Fox News. Evidently, they want a safe workplace no matter what their talking heads say.) 

So every time I see an adult with a mask hanging under a nose, I wonder if that person watches Tucker and is engaging in a not-at-all subtle act of rebellion. Of course, that's not a rebellion I particularly admire. Some people, in fact, are holding fast to their principles, refusing the vaccine, and going without a paycheck. 

Here's the thing, though. Over the years I've had nurses come into my classroom and say things like, "Maria, you need to be vaccinated or you can't come back to school." Honestly, I fail to see why we are so precious, why we are such delicate flowers that vaccine mandates can't apply to us. Vaccine mandates have been upheld by the Supreme Court as early as 1905, A new argument I'm hearing now is this isn't technically a vaccine since the science is different. Whatever it is, it prevents a whole lot of people from getting hospitalized and dying. Its widespread use is a public good. Most COVID is still spread by the unvaccinated, and that's why this has become more of a red state problem than it used to be.

Sorry, but if you can't wear a mask, if you can't roll up your sleeve and take the shot to help your community, you are not a hero. More likely you're a victim of the awful propaganda that we allow to pass as news in this country. And if that's the sort of thinking in which you indulge, I have to question your fitness to teach our children.

There's No Tired Like Pandemic Tired

For a while, I thought it was just me. I've been coming home every day after work feeling like I've just crawled the entire Gobi Desert. I sit down and I don't want to get up. In fairness, I get to work by 6:30 AM and I usually wake up around 4 AM. Because our school is so outlandishly overcrowded, we're on a 14 period day. Because I'm a dean, I report period zero to help get kids in when they come early.

I've been talking to teachers a lot younger than I am who have the same experience. It doesn't matter when they come in. Everyone I know is adjusting to a new experience--going to work. While we've worked through the pandemic, teaching online is not quite the immersive experience that teaching face to face is. For me, at least, when I taught online I had little idea what, if anything, my students were doing. If I'm in a classroom I walk around and check work of every person in the room. I'm really a lot more useful as a live teacher. 

We know, though, what makes us tired. It's lack of oxygen, and when we sleep we replenish it. When you're wearing a mask all day, though, you get just a little less of it. I don't know about you, but given the plague I don't think a cheap mask is sufficient. I've been favoring KF94 masks from Korea. They have a sort of air pocket and adjust so you don't fog your glasses. I hope, of course, that they help keep us from contracting the virus.

Nonetheless, I'm kind of catching up. Yesterday I had a lot more energy than any day previous, and I'm hoping today will be even better. I've even started doing things after work aside from sitting zonked out in front of a television. I'm not complaining about work, actually. I'm just getting used to it again. 

I suppose we all are. It's shocking not only to be back, but also to be back masked. I have a whole new group of students and I don't really know what any of them even look like. For me, at least, it makes learning names just that much more difficult, especially as students move their seats around to find the best place for them. I don't really mind that, since my classes aren't so large, but I've cut a bunch of manila folders into name plates. They help, so far, but I'm really hoping not to need them soon. 

Then, of course, there's the stress of knowing we're in a pandemic. Against that landscape, we watch the mayor doing everything in his power to act like it's not happening. He wants all schools open and as little quarantining as possible. In a way, that's a good thing. However, it seems he's determined to do this with little or no regard to our safety or that of our students. As we all walk around knowing this, it's hard to feel energized.

As if that all isn't enough, we have people leaving the job rather than get the vaccine. While I am personally unlikely to miss people who make such a decision, it brings stress to those of us who remain. Some teachers may jump up and down at the opportunity to make more money teaching an extra class, but I'd argue it's not healthy to be stretched out so far. I never take an extra class. This job, under normal circumstances, is stressful and taxing, and no one ought to have to teach an extra class.

Clearly that doesn't concern Mayor de Blasio or any of the geniuses who inhabit Tweed. Not a single one of them will step off their pedestals and condescend to teach, or work as a security guard, or do any of the duties that will need doing as a result of the vaccine mandate. Make no mistake, I support the mandate, but I think there should've been thoughtful and extensive preparation for the inevitable parade of Tucker viewers out the door. In fact,  I think the mandate should be extended to all eligible students. However, I don't expect the mayor to go that way. While he's willing to piss off a few unionized school workers, he doesn't want to anger a much larger group of parents. His convictions extend just so far.

It's going to be a rough year. I wish every one of my colleagues around the city and state the best of luck.

We're certainly going to need it.

Boy Wonder Deals With Class Size

You always try to hope for the best, no matter what. These days especially, you hope for supervisors to be reasonable. After all, half the country is traumatized and terrorized, and the other half is deluded by demagogues on cable news. 

Given the tension everyone is feeling, you'd think some of Bloomberg's crazy supervisors would restrain their worst instincts.

Of course that won't happen. Their worst instincts are their only instincts, and hey, they used them to score the gig. If it worked this time, why wouldn't it make them principal? Superintendent? Chancellor? Dictator for life? Whatever works.

So I shouldn't be surprised to receive a story like this one in my email. But I was. You'd think, at my age, I wouldn't be so naive. But there it is:

Today my boy wonder AP comes in for a "walkthrough." Boy wonder AP takes note of the board, the bulletins, the lesson plan folder, and then says "It's very crowded in here. There's no social distancing right now."

"Yes, there's over 30 kids in here." I didn't say the second part, which is that it's hard to socially distance with 34 kids in a half-classroom.

Boy wonder AP frowns. "You can improve the spacing." I saw on his clipboard that "spacing" was one of the sticky notes he had written out.

"How? There's over 30 kids, two of whom are sitting at my desk because there's not enough desks."

Boy wonder AP furrows his eyebrows. Obviously, his clipboard full of sticky notes did not have an answer for this issue.

Finally, his eyes lit up. He had a solution! "If we move the teacher desks and bookshelves out of the room, then we can have another row of student desks."

It evidently doesn't occur to him that teacher's desk or no teacher's desk, it's impossible to have much "spacing" in a half-classroom with a roster of 34.

There's another science teacher teaching the same class. Her class only has 15 kids. I suggested moving some of my roster to hers to even out the rosters. Tada! We'd get the "spacing."

Boy wonder AP frowns again. "Miss ____ says she likes her classes small."

Well, don't we all.

Safety or Popcorn?

That's the dilemma we face at our school. On several occasions in years past, we complained about air-conditioners shorting out and dropping dead. The response we got, and I don't doubt the truth of it, is that the DOE will come in, march around the building, and say you have to get rid of that microwave, that refrigerator, that coffee machine, and a whole bunch of other stuff. 

This, of course, is a Catch-22 in one way. If you want the AC to work, you can't have any of these conveniences. So maybe you ignore an AC unit malfunctioning here and there. We never really pushed the issue. 

Now, though, we're facing a very different situation. I, for one, have three of the NYC non-HEPA air purifiers in my miserable little half classroom. None of them work for more than two minutes at a time. I don't know how good these things are, how well they work, or how essential they are. But my inclination, unlike the mayor's, is to err on the side of safety. I don't much care about whether or not I'm able to microwave popcorn after class.

Of course, I'm only speaking for myself. If you take an action that causes a lot of people to lose conveniences upon which they depend, they're likely to come kill you and stuff. So it's a risky move to advocate for the city to come in and deal with this, at least in the short term.

In the long run, the city ought not to hide behind formalities like this. Policy, evidently, is any school that complains is threatened. If they don't follow up, the city looks the other way. That's pretty convenient for Tweedies, who can sit around and do Whatever It Is they do, while schools like mine struggle to get by with 60-year-old electrical systems. Hey, a lot of things have happened since 1960. You don't see a whole lot of fuseboxes anymore, for example.

But that doesn't matter to Tweed. As long as they can save money to redecorate the Assistant Chancellor's office, or whatever it is they do with that bloated budge, they're golden. So what if a few thousand kids have to sit in sweltering miserable classrooms, or moldy broiling trailers? There are thumbs that need twiddling and video games that need playing. 

The fact is, a modern school should handle modern workplace conditions. People in offices have to eat sometimes. I don't know anyone who brings Sterno cans to work and we shouldn't have to either. Personally, I'd be happy to give up coffee or popcorn or whatever. But even if I weren't, it's on the city to update our electricity to a modern standard. 

People who threaten you when you make requests about human comfort or safety are slime. Being slime, of course, might be the first thing you put on your resume if you want a Tweed gig. 

I hope the next mayor cleans out that place from top to bottom, fumigates, and hires a staff that's Not Insane. More likely, having taken millions from her PAC,  he'll just turn the whole place over to Eva Moskowitz.

Observations on Observations, and Forced Formality

I was pretty surprised to learn that teachers rated effective would need to have a formal observation this year. It wasn't how I remembered our agreement with the city, but I got several messages saying this was the way it was. 

I then got a whole bunch of inquiries asking me why that was, and I had no idea until yesterday. You may recall the year before last we were suddenly working from home, and that no one got ratings that year.

Evidently, under the scenario of no rating one year and an effective the next, you are in line for one informal and one formal observation. A lot of effective-rated teachers were upset by this. Why were they facing consequences for an apocalypse not of their making? That's a reasonable question. 

I would further argue that having another person in the room for an entire period lessens the possibility for distancing and increases the risk of COVID infection. Ideally, we'd have as few people as possible in a classroom at all times. There are likely a whole bunch of classrooms that can't handle even a single observer without violating protocol. 

Personally, I'm not terribly upset about being observed. However, that's only because my supervisor is Not Insane. I'm afraid that's not the case for many of my colleagues. A good number of supervisors were trained in the Bloomberg era to be hateful and critical for the sake of reflecting Bloomberg's education philosophy. Half-man, half predatory bird Joel Klein ran around kissing Eva Moskowitz's ass and vilifying those of us who woke up each morning to do the actual work.

Then there are those supervisors who took the extra coursework to "get out of the classroom." They never respected our job, couldn't wait to slither our of it, and now get to stand around issuing directives to those of us who actually do what they could not, or did not want to. Those are just a few reasons why so many NYC supervisors are out of their minds.

Given that, it's not surprising that many teachers want to spend as little time as possible with these supervisors. I knew one teacher who had a-fib episodes every time he got near his supervisor. I had to sit through many meetings with this supervisor, making pompous pronouncements about whatever crossed his feeble mind. I'd sit there thinking there are a lot of people smarter than I am, but this guy just isn't one of them. 

A formal observation can be helpful if you trust your supervisor has something of value to share. Sadly, with so many terrible supervisors, that's far from the norm here in Fun City. There is, however, also the advantage of planning a lesson together. If it doesn't work, you can always ask, then, just why the hell they asked you to do it. And it's better than a drive-by from a Boy Wonder supervisor who picks the half-day with 15-minute periods when fewer than half your students show up, just so he can write you up for not inspiring them to attend.

Ideally, it would be up to us to decide whether we wanted formal or not, That said, the current agreement is better than the previous one, with three, four, or 200, or however many observations it demanded.

Now you can tell from what I just wrote that I'm not an expert on this or any evaluation agreement we made. However, someone at 52 Broadway is. Furthermore, this was a predictable issue, and that expert ought to have not only anticipated it, but prepped for it. Said prep would entail going to the city, explaining that no one had anticipated a pandemic under which no one got a rating, and either substituting the previous year for that one, or working out something else reasonable under the circumstances.

In fact, it's not too late to work something out right now. If that mystery expert at 52 is reading this, it's time to wake up, call whoever you talk to at Tweed, and get something rolling. Maybe you could persuade Tweed. just for the hell of it, to let effective-rated teachers choose whether or not they would benefit from a formal observation. This would have the added benefit of pissing off the supervisors who escaped from the classroom. They'd be at our mercy if we wanted to drag them back in for full classes.

Heck, maybe those supervisors would learn something. Stranger things have happened. Still, anything that gives power to working teachers is worth pursuing.

Quarantines Are Out. It's Parades, Balloons, and Toxic Positivity

I've been to my first Executive Board meeting this year. I was pretty surprised to hear people speaking about how wonderful the first day was. It was a party! There were balloons and a parade! Everyone was so happy they just didn't know what to do next!

From my position, out here doing the work, I can agree with that up to a point. I'm happy to be coming to work and doing my job. I hated teaching from my computer (and I love my computer). However, these days I'm not precisely doing cartwheels down the hall, and I don't actually know anyone who is. We're all pretty nervous and frightened. Just look around. I'm wearing a big black mask as I write this. All my students are masked. This is not a party atmosphere. 

In fact, Mayor de Blasio has just decided quarantining is overrated.  If you don't actually test positive, who cares if someone in your classroom did? Just keep on coming and hope for the best. However, now our esteemed mayor will double his inadequate testing. He will now test 10% of anyone unvaccinated who feels like being tested every week, rather than every other week. If you don't want to be tested, that's fine. Just keep coming and hope you aren't an asymptomatic carrier. Perhaps, Mayor de Blasio wants to compete with Florida's governor to see which one can spread more COVID.

We all wonder, particularly considering the mayor's outlandish notions about testing and quarantines, when the next shoe will drop. We've already had positive cases in our building, and both students and staff members have had to quarantine. So it's hard to sit around singing Everything is Beautiful in its own way. Masks are necessary, but not especially beautiful. COVID is neither necessary nor beautiful, and like many thinking teachers, I wonder whether our being here prolongs the pandemic. 

I had two of those fabulous non-HEPA machines that the geniuses at Tweed saw fit to buy in my tiny classroom. We have a proud tradition of placing ESL classes in the crappiest facilities in the building, and for many years I volunteered to be in the trailers rather than these crappy rooms. Anyway, in my crappy room, neither of the crappy machines worked at all. They'd turn off in two minutes. Today someone generously placed a third one, which didn't work any better. It turns out the electricity in our 60-year-old building is not what you'd call modern, so none of them will work.  So I guess you dump the ELLs in that room and hope for the best. How much are we risking our health by not having an air purifier? Who knows? Who cares?

Today a colleague became violently ill and needed to leave the building. We eventually had to call an ambulance, and I'm still unsure what's going to happen. Last I heard, my colleague was in a waiting room with 200 other people, contemplating whether to call an Uber and go to urgent care. My advice was to wait, as the folks from urgent care would simply call another ambulance. Now I can't say for sure the less than festive back to school atmosphere contributed to this, but I can't say for sure it didn't, either.

I have another colleague who's weighing the pluses and minuses of resignation. I tried to say that was a bad idea, and that there were various leave options. I recommended a Restoration of Health Sabbatical, and suggested that resignation was not the way. I don't know how that's going to go, but I know this person was grappling with working in an overcrowded building during a pandemic. There's so much we don't know, and even the CDC seems to jump back and forth. Do we need a booster shot? How likely are breakthrough infections? Will there be a new variant that just makes your head explode or something?

The homecoming balloons on day 1 of school made me want to 🤢. By day 3 they were deflated & hanging limply off the gate because no one had come to throw them out yet. Perfect metaphor.

— Jennifer J (@TakeFlight747) September 20, 2021

I have a student so terrified she will barely speak to me. I'm not entirely sure that's due to the pandemic. It could be who this kid is. But until and unless she opens up, I'll never know. 

Now I know we are very fortunate. We weathered this apocalypse better than many. I have friends who work as musicians who simply lost all their income for over a year. We were further lucky to get accommodations to work from home last year. Our friends doing custodial work, for example, just came in each and every day whether or not students were in attendance. 

But as good as we have it, things are not perfect. Mayor de Blasio has not done jack squat to combat rampant overcrowding. While we've extended our day to 14 periods, passing is still face to face, elbow to elbow, and no social distancing whatsoever. We're masked, but that's not a panacea. None of us know whether we can sustain this, and we're all walking on tenterhooks. 

So hey, it's great if some school wants to put out balloons and have a tea party. But this is a scary place. I think we'd be better off acknowledging it than pretending otherwise. Everyone knows how things really are anyway.

Back to School, and COVID's Not the Only Issue

I'm really in a state of semi-shock at being back at work. While some are overjoyed, and others are horrified, I fall somewhere in the middle. Honestly, with COVID hanging over our heads, I'm mystified at the relentless optimism some people display. This notwithstanding, I'm thrilled to be back doing my real job, and now that I'm a dean, I'm kind of fascinated by my new one.

Being a dean was really great for the first few days. I spent most of my time orienting and helping kids find their way around our huge overcrowded building. This kind of work is great for me. Also I kind of like walking, so running around the building like a lunatic fits right into my personal lunacy. 

My classes are great. The students are mostly new, and sometimes very nervous. Because my classes are small, I've been able to really focus on some of my more frightened and/ or needy students. When they had problems, I was able to go right up to them and walk them through. I'm trying to put all my handouts and things online, and I really don't think that the city's remote instruction, synchronous,  asynchronous or otherwise, will be any issue at all. 

Of course, not everything is perfect. I've now gotten to see NYC's non-HEPA air filters up close, and they suck beyond belief. I turned one on, and within five minutes it turned itself off. I thought that was odd, so I tried the other one, and had the same result. I briefly considered tossing them out the window, but all the windows were closed. I was not sure that tossing machines out windows was the precise impression I wanted to leave my students the first week, but what do you do with garbage if not toss it out?

On the bright side, the room is air-conditioned. This was particularly helpful last week. I have colleagues who are not so fortunate. Of course they are in full classrooms, while I'm in one of the quasi-closets in which newcomers from my school have been dumped forever. This is not too bad now, but if we get a lot of over the counter students, it will be a disaster. I'd actually asked for a trailer. Since almost no one wants them, and for good reason, they're usually easy to get. Though the trailers are awful, they are full sized and you can give tests in which cheating is not akin to the national pastime. 

Wednesday I deaned the second and third floors of our school. One of our school's policies is to close student bathrooms for the first and last ten minutes of each period. I think, actually, that this is a fair policy. It means, for one thing, that we don't have students taking the pass at the beginning of the period and returning at the end. It also theoretically means the bathrooms are not likely to be all-day hangouts for students looking to avoid the whole class thing, or run illicit businesses, or whatever may happen in there. 

I soon learned, however, that none of our bathroom doors naturally close. So if I lock a door, pull it shut, and a student is inside, the student exits and the door remains ajar. This, essentially, means locking and unlocking the bathroom doors is a complete waste of time. Not only that, but I recall this coming up at a UFT consultation years ago. This means the doors have  been that way for years.

In fact, after having locked a girls' room door, I returned back to it to hear a girl banging on the door, stuck inside, and unable to get out. I unlocked it and gave it a brutal shove to open it. It is unbelievable and unconscionable that no one has repaired these doors in years. Someone should make it uncomfortable for the doors to be left that way, and I've got a number of ideas about how to make that happen. 

It's not really just about kids being trapped in bathrooms. I was about to lock a boys' bathroom, and given the girl being locked in, I asked whether anyone was inside. (I don't know about you, but I'm not walking into a student bathroom. Anyone could accuse you of anything,) A number of boys walked out, One, upon seeing I was going to close and lock the door, said, "Wait. Let me get my stuff." He emerged with a large skateboard and a backpack. 

Now I have no idea what was in the backpack, but the boy had evidently planned to return to the bathroom later, or he wouldn't have left his things there. I also noticed him looking very carefully under a radiator as I walked him downstairs and toward the cafeteria. I doubled back, but found nothing there. But who knows what showed up there later?

It's absolutely insane that we can spend years with faulty doors, enabling not only trapped students, but also opportunities for students to do virtually anything in those bathrooms. I would not feel safe sending a kid into one of those rooms, yet as a teacher, it's actually my job to do so. I don't really like turning over rocks and seeing what's underneath. I hope not to learn a lot of things like this one.

But holy crap, I have to be far from the first person to notice this. I hope I'm not the only one determined not to look the other way and let this situation fester. 

I'll soon find out.

UFT Executive Board September 13, 2021--The Good, the Bad, and the DOE

VP Karen Alford--Saw incredible energy in schools, though teachers had angst, none showed in schools she saw today. Saw bands and pom poms, love grace and energy. Felt like a homecoming. Hope you had same. Our teachers are the best.

VP Janella Hinds--Also saw lots of energy at her school. Different this year was number of parents standing outside watching teenage kids go in. Were tears, hugs, haven't seen this much parental turnout before. Students welcomed with music and balloons.

VP Rich Mantel--Was great. Same energy, enthusiasm. Didn't see as many parents. Folks were happy to be with kids. Hope you all also had great day.  

Mike Schirtzer--Great first day, kids super excited to be back. Concern with lack of testing. All should be tested. With 3 year old at home unvaccinated would like all eligible students vaccinated. Would like remote options for those who need it.

UFT President Michael Mulgrew--Thanks us. Echoes what officers reported. Didn't think this would be the smoothest school opening. Many people volunteered and were trained in safety, social-emotional things. Today everyone in this union should be very proud of membership and how hard we worked. Things were very smooth. We don't have final attendance, but was north of 800K. 

I thought entry app would crash but MS moved quickly and gave more broadband. Teachers seemed to say we got this, and saw this over and over. Saw balloons, bands, red carpets, happy parents. They were just as anxious as we've been but this was a great day, the smoothest opening ever. City lucky to have folks in this union. You saw how important it was to do their jobs.

Now we can talk a little more freely about some things. We have not been happy about last-minute decisions. We had to do things on fly--safety protocols. There will be big air filters in cafeterias. Schools are clean. We have safety hot line set up. 

Vaccine mandate--We knew majority of our members were vaccinated. We have highest % of city workers. There is convo about challenging it. Five unions mandated, not just us. There may be more. I knew because of 9/27 deadline lawsuit would take too long, so we moved into impact bargaining. Otherwise city could have dumped people off payroll, and that was their position. They wanted to do that, so we went immediately to PERB. We also had to go to court, as they wanted to recognize exemptions and remove people from payroll.

We tried mediation for three days, and moved to arbitration. We needed to move forward. Exemptions and accommodations had to be honored. We can't have medical conditions used to take people off payroll. We heard a lot from membership, about, for example, pregnancy. All doctors took position if you're pregnant you should be vaccinated. We didn't want people giving birth to lose medical coverage, so we put that on the table, and looked for ways for people to do meaningful work. 

We made a much stronger case than city. Toward end, mayor spoke publicly about arbitration. Not supposed to do that. He said city of course would recognize exemptions and keep them on payroll. Mayor said he was always going to do this but that was never the case. Thursday we pushed because we needed a decision. Medical accommodations were being denied. Was very ugly. Denying vaccinated people with no immune system. Doctors said you can't be inside of schools, and some can't leave homes. 

Things got ugly. On Friday we said we needed a ruling. Thanks members, staff, and some people volunteered to go on TV if necessary. We did press conference with people being denied. This changed, I believe, final outcome, as people saw conditions and what they suggested. Friday evening we finally got arbitration even as city denied having denied people. City apologized, called denied members and apologized to them. 

Don't usually agree with Post, but their headline was de Blasio loses to UFT. These members have to be protected and will be. 

Issue now with members who don't want to take vaccine. Anyone who's applied for exemption, we don't believe city will be done by Sept. 27. Decision will wait on appeals process. This will be done by neutral party, not city. People who don't want to take vaccine, without exemption, will be put on involuntary leave, but will have medical benefits until November 30. Up to Oct. 29 severance package is available. Can use sick days one for one and will keep medical coverage for rest of year. Will not lose license, and can return. Can also opt for voluntary leave until next September and keep medical coverage. On September 5 are automatically resigning. If you do nothing, on Dec. 1, city will file disciplinary charges and go after license.

Unions are challenging court case.We say city can't grant exemptiomns and remove people simultaneously, Only our members are covered under arbitration, but it will be used as evidence in court case. So far, this is working. Many people helped. Agreements are just for one year. All of these are subject to operational complaints, except salary. 

Cafe big concern for us now. If not possible to use, we think there can be lunch and learn, and teachers will receive coverage for every day it's done. DOE agreed to all provisions from last year. 

Mike Sill--Everything in memo, time off for vaccine, for side effects, COVID symptoms, if been told to quarantine, days won't come out of CAR. These are limited. More time for leave at 2/3 pay, up to 12 weeks. Last year didn't apply to health care workers, this year they do.

Mulgrew--Mask policy--We now have one to deal with what happens if there is an issue. Took long time, but said of course we want to involve child, but it's safety issue.

Home schooling--Chancellor and mayor said medically fragile children would be part of it. Didn't make sense at first. We were able to say they could be taught on 15-1 ratio remotely. We can perhaps expand it. 

More to come. We have special ed. issues. Will get info out as we have agreements.

Today was really good day. We will have tough days and things will go wrong. We have to help members. Worth it to keep constantly pushing. We saw political games in other cities. We want more testing. City says it's doing more than last year, but we have 3X as many people. What we will need is more testing teams. We need about 20 more. Has to start at elementary schools on weekly basis. Can't predict future, but hope we will get it. We have the most, but NYC doesn't have remote option like LA and Chicago. Was not free for all. Was criteria around it. We'll have to see attendance over next few weeks. 

If parents decide there's no way, can city just say they get no education for the year? We won't stand by for that. In that case, we will need a real remote option. First priority now should be monitoring, and pushing for weekly testing. Believe we'll have 75% of over 12 vaccinated this week. Today was relatively good because we were out there. 

Next week this board will be in person. You need to show proof of vaccine to enter. Will try next week. 

Spring break negotiation first arbitration we filed. On 27th we will find out when it's scheduled. 

Questions/ answers

Member quarantined but now unvaccinated can file for medical exemption on SOLAS. Questions can be directed to Mike Sill.

Where will staff go who has accommodations?

Most will go to non-classroom DOE facilities. Some will not be able to. Doctors will decide.

How is med. accommodation different from traditional?

Sill--City said there would be none. We said they didn't have authority to do blanket denials and exceptions. We asserted you have to offer reasonable and medically warranted exemptions.

Mulgrew--Not all leaves are the same. We're talking about COVID leaves, and hope we never need one again, but you'll have up to a year, and your job and benefits will be reserved. 

Last year, nurses weren't included. Will they be included this year?

Yes they will. This is for all UFT members. Accommodations will be limited to severely immunocompromised. 

Appears DOE changed pre-COVID policy demanding one formal and one informal observation. 

DOE cannot do that. Can only use what we have in contract for observations. We have no agreement otherwise this year. Contact us if this happens.

Will r and f be in contract negotiations?

Hopefully school gets organized quickly. We've extended reorganization to November 5. After we get through that we will put this together, and of course it will be rank and file. DOE didn't want to do digital agreement with us. Claimed they had right to mandate it. Digital work will be big part of negotiation.

Hearing that vaccinated members who test positive with no symptoms are expected to report and not quarantined. (See update at end of post, please.)

True, unless they show symptoms. Vaccinated people have less chance of getting sick. We agree with protocols in terms of quarantining right now. We know how to get through this. We get people vaccinated. As a union, we have done our job. That's a testament to the work that happened here. Ask that people respect one another. Some people are upset about whatever the city does. We will have debate about vaccine mandate and will try to take care of all members, vaccinated and unvaccinated. 

Upsetting when people attack their own union. Same people who paid for Janus are trying to get people to quit union. That's a line you don't cross. We could've jumped around and screamed, filed to go to court, and if we took those actions, everyone would have been put out on September 27 with nothing. Impact bargaining was the way to go. Some people have gone to other side, are not unionists, and work to hurt unions.

Thank you. What you did today was wonderful. Being reported everywhere. 

What's our position on mandated vaccines for 12 and over?

We don't have official position right now. As long as new strains come in, more actions will be taken. Like what Biden did. If I have to use money or legislation to push vaccination, I will do it. Of course some will disagree. We already have five mandated vaccines for school age children,. Mississippi has eight, but complains about COVID requirement. It is a state issue, and requires state approval. Hoping that third vaccine clarification comes soon.

Thanks again for all your work through August. See you 27th in person. 

UPDATE: I've received clarification from a UFT source: Vaccinated teachers EXPOSED to the virus but showing no symptoms do not have to quarantine. Vaccinated teachers who test positive DO have to quarantine.

NYC Is Moving Backward

It's bizarre to be back, actually. We get updates from Tweed, whenever they feel the urge, but they're less than consoling, to me at least. They're doing a terrible job, and the mayor's testing program is woefully inadequate, I read somewhere that the chancellor says they can change it on the fly, but I don't believe it. Everything DOE does is poorly planned and thus an arduous process. 

In our school we've miraculously found a way to enable 3-foot distancing, for whatever that's worth. We took our ten period day and extended it to 14. Periods are somewhat shortened, so late and early days won't be all that terrible and extreme. There will be issues, but they will be better issues than the ones we'd have if we were at full capacity. 

We've also closed up our lunchroom, for the most part. That's not to say that students can't eat. They can go whenever they like, but it's a grab and go thing. I thought that was a good idea too until I heard the fine details. Evidently, because students no longer have lunch periods, they will eat in classes. So much for masking and protection. The idea is that they'll just eat for a few minutes, so we'll spread disease for a short time rather than a long one. I suppose we're supposed to take solace in that.

It was easy to tell that whoever made this particular plan was not doing so from the viewpoint of a teacher, or at the very least hadn't been in the classroom for a while. There's always a difficult and recalcitrant student in a class. This, of course, will be compounded by the anti-mask MAGA lunatics telling their children what Tucker told them last night. As far as this issue, the difficult student number will likely be compounded.

Now if I were a teenager, and I didn't want to wear a mask, I'd bring a lunch tray to the class and eat ever so slowly. That way I could tell the teacher I was entitled to eat in class, and if the teacher were to give me a hard time I'd call out my rights were being violated. It's not my fault I'm a slow eater, and how dare you criticize my eating habits. I always got a full period for lunch before, and you're violating my rights. You don't need to be a genius to know this will happen over and over, and I'm frankly glad I stepped down as chapter leader. I don't want to sit through 200 disciplinary meetings hearing about how people are in trouble because of insane policies.

While we're on the topic of insane policies, I'm hearing that if you are vaccinated, infected, and not showing symptoms that you have no need to quarantine. I don't really know whether that's true or not, as I've yet to see it in print in any policy statement. This notwithstanding, people keep telling me they've heard it. You know, just because you're asymptomatic, it doesn't necessarily mean you aren't contagious. If this is, in fact, a policy, it will result in the spread of COVID,  just as our curious lunch policy will. 

In LA, they not only have a better testing policy than we do, but they've also made the very sensible move to mandate vaccines for eligible students.  I feel like we, in the city that never sleeps, are living in something akin to the dark ages. While that might seem extreme, I'm 100% sure we aren't doing the best we can for our students, let alone ourselves. 

This system will not and cannot sustain itself.

I've seen teachers crying in the hall. While I, being the macho man I am, have not actually cried, I fully understand their apprehensions. At this point, it's tough for me to differentiate Mayor de Blasio from some of his MAGA counterparts. He's not as bad as the lunatics running Florida or Texas.

But he's no bargain either.

Remote MOA--The Good, the Bad, and the Probable

Like a lot of people, I got to see the UFT-DOE MOA the day before it was released. Perhaps some genius at the DOE leaked it. There's a lot to process there. I've seen a lot of commentary on the agreement. It's forced overtime, rank and file should have voted on it, it's not enough money, and so forth. 

Personally, I'm happy to take $225 to set up a digital classroom. It's not very time-consuming, for me at least, and in the long run it will save me quite a bit more time. For example, with the exception of tests, I'm not making class sets of copies anymore. My classroom will be almost entirely digital. Look at it on your laptop, your iPad, or print it out yourself. 

Also, I don't expect to do a whole lot in terms of asynchronous instruction. All of my homework assignments will be online, and as far as asynchronous instruction, it will be another homework assignment. I don't really expect my students to accomplish online what we do in a live class, and anyone who does is laboring under a misconception.

As for the one or two weekly office hours, there are options. You can work them out as you wish. Do you want those extra hours? Then do them. I don't, so I'll place them sometime during my prep periods if I can. As for overtime, the fact is it only kicks in after 40 hours, and we don't work 40 hours. If that's not enough, I've never heard of a teacher being paid overtime, and I've never been forced to work beyond my hours. I doubt that will happen this year either. This agreement is something you can tailor to your schedule and inclinations. I'm gonna make the best of it.

I think all the people parsing the details of this agreement are missing the big picture, though. The issue is not how the world is going to end if we work a few extra hours a week during a worldwide emergency. This agreement, though, seems to anticipate the potential shitshow of continuing COVID infection. If this many people quarantine, do this. If that many quarantine, do that. If you quarantine, do this. 

How on earth are we going to populate schools with students, most of whom do not even qualify for the vaccine, and not massively spread the infection? I can't begin to imagine. The only good thing Mayor de Blasio has going for him is his ridiculous testing policy. If we only test 10% of the unvaccinated, and only test those who've given permission to be tested, we've got a hole so big you could drive a Mac truck through it.  

So it's possible, given the preposterous system we have, that we won't catch the COVID wave until it's too late. While de Blasio may think that buys him time, and congratulate himself on how clever he is, the fact is when the shit hits the fan there will be massive closings. They will, in fact, be far worse than they would if he'd initiated a robust and sensible testing system. 

How long will this take? I can't say. But I see teachers on Facebook betting we'll be entirely remote by Thanksgiving. That doesn't sound unreasonable to me. 

Brace yourself, everyone. The city has decided, with almost everyone in attendance, that it only needs a fraction of the testing it did when it only had a fraction of the students. If you can't see what that spells, you may just be hard of reading.

Anti-Vaxxers Get Us Nowhere

It's a funny year we have coming up. I made a last minute decision not to retire just yet and I'm going back. But this year looks almost as strange as last year, and it's hard to make sense of what's coming. 

I remain amazed that the right wing has managed to make fundamental safety a political football. In Florida, the MAGA governor doesn't want mask requirements. One unvaccinated teacher removed a mask to read a story and managed to infect half the students. Of course they brought the infections home to their families. Thankfully, they all recovered. 

Despite that, the ICUs are still full or close to capacity down there, even as infections decrease, for now at least. That, evidently, is due to higher vaccination rates. I wonder whether the offending teacher is among those opting for vaccination. 

Here in NY, things may be different, given the mandate for vaccinations. From a recent Times article:

About 75 percent of teachers who live in New York City have received at least one dose of a vaccine. By contrast, only about 43 percent of Police Department employees have been vaccinated.

Mr. Mulgrew has estimated that 70 or even 80 percent of his members are vaccinated, regardless of where they live, but his union also lacks definitive numbers.

I'd conjecture that Mulgrew is right, but of course conjecture is all it is. I'm in a Facebook teacher chat group in which I regularly post on this topic, and those opposed to the mandate are pretty vehement about it. Some say they'll leave their jobs rather than get vaccinated. We shall soon see. It also appears that fewer than half of the Trump supporting NYPD are vaccinated. It's a freedom thing, you know, even though Trump himself is vaccinated, as are all governors, even in Florida and Texas. 

Then there's the argument that you can get infected even if you are vaccinated. So why bother? I saw someone write the only effect the vaccine has is saving your own life. How selfish, to save your own life. A truly bold person, evidently, would risk dropping dead on a ventilator for no good reason. And some have. One Texas anti-mask proponent, battling "Covid-19 tyranny," first took Ivermectin and then ended up dying after a month in the hospital. A Georgia sheriff pushing Ivermectin, just joined the ranks of the dead. An anti-vax lawyer for the capital rioters is on a ventilator.

Here on earth, we look to the CDC for guidance. While some still oppose vaccines mandated as useless, CDC says that most people who get COVID are unvaccinated. They add the following:

• The best way to slow the spread of COVID-19 and to prevent infection by Delta or other variants is to get vaccinated.
• For people who are vaccinated and still get infected (i.e., “breakthrough infections”), there is a risk of transmission to others.
• That is why, if you are vaccinated or unvaccinated and live or work in an area with substantial or high transmission of COVID-19, you – as well as your family and community – will be better protected if you wear a mask when you are in indoor public places.

So it's hard for me to understand why people hang onto this stuff. I actually heard Trump say somewhere that he was vaccinated, and that it wasn't a bad idea. Of course, he couldn't say this without blabbering about freedom, and how it's your own decision. 

Every year nurses come into my classroom and announce to various students that they need to be vaccinated or they can't return to class. I see no reason why we ought to be exempt from mandates for students. In fact, I see no reason why students ought to be exempt from mandates for teachers. If I were the mayor, I'd mandate that every student over 12 needs to be vaccinated.

Of course I'm not the mayor. The mayor has other concerns. Likely his overriding concern is getting all NYC schoolchildren back into buildings. The mayor, in his infinite wisdom, has determined there will be no remote instruction this year. After having provided it for over a year, I can't stand remote instruction, This notwithstanding, it's better than dying from COVID, and it's likely that a lot of parents of younger students won't want to send their kids in. 

Mayor de Blasio will enact remote instruction at the last moment, at least for younger unvaccinated students, when he has no other alternative. Because of that, the planning will be, at best, minimal, and the results will be predictable. The lack of a remote option, though, certainly endangers the mask mandate. What if I tell a kid to put a mask on, and the kid refuses? Last year, that kid would be placed into remote classes. This year, what will happen? 

No one knows. That's typical of Mayor de Blasio's planning, which is essentially no planning at all. If I were this unprepared to teach my classes I'd get written up, and eventually removed for incompetence. Mayor de Blasio, on the other hand, will probably run for governor. I'm inclined to predict he'll fail, but if Donald Trump can be President, anything can happen.