Dear Colleagues,

Welcome to a new school year! It has been very, very busy for all of us but I wanted to take time to greet you and update you on some of the important issues. On behalf of the entire chapter, I want to extend a special welcome to our newest school secretaries and wish them the best of luck in their new careers.

First of all, our annual UFT/DOE Summer Institute was a huge success and the secretaries who attended participated in a wonderful learning experience. They received information and materials relevant to all aspects of their license as well as hands-on training in pupil accounting and payroll. I am extremely happy that we were able to expand this learning experience this year, and we hope to add hands-on procurement training next year. Our goal is to eliminate the DOE’s practice of placing secretaries in tremendously responsible positions without any training at all. We are getting there!

Upcoming professional development opportunities

Our chapter will hold several learning events throughout the school year. In January, our Winter Seminar will take place at UFT headquarters in Manhattan; it is a chance for DOE presenters to update you with current information and materials. Click here for the flyer. We will have a second Professional Day in early June at UFT headquarters, which will feature both UFT and DOE workshops. You will receive notices of the date, time and place for each of these events, so watch your e-mail!

Go to our Bulletin Board page to see all our upcoming meetings and events.

Get involved in your school and your union!

I encourage all school secretaries to work closely with the chapter leaders in their schools. Right now the UFT is gathering information to ensure that the rights of all of our members are upheld and that students receive the services they deserve. This is a good opportunity to let your chapter leader know who you are, alert them to the key provisions of your contract and let them know you are an active member of the UFT. It is also a good idea to seek a position on the UFT Consultation Committee and the School Leadership Team.

I know we are all busy, but we cannot take for granted that someone else will carry us along. We must be our own best advocates in our schools. E-mail me at mjeuft@aol.com with questions and concerns.

Peak load relief

Keep in mind that each school year, the school receives an allocation for peak load relief for the school secretaries in the school. Your contract, which you can read and print here, gives you information on the number of days you can hire a sub to help you during your busiest times or use the allocation to do the work yourself through per session time. In general, the per session time is shared by the secretaries equally in the school. No one secretary in the school has a right to all of the peak load. As professionals, you should meet with your colleagues as soon as possible and discuss how you will share the time and then let your principal know what you have discussed. You may need to use some of this time right now because the beginning of school is historically a peak load time. You have a contractual right to this peak load and if the principal has used the monies for some other activity then he or she has misappropriated the funds. Make the chapter leader in your school aware if this should happen and e-mail me immediately!

If you have been excessed and have not been able to secure a new position for this school year, I want you to e-mail me immediately. If the principal in your school has vacancies and has not declared them on the Open Market Transfer Plan, please let me know that as well. It is not always easy to get information from the DOE, so I am relying on you to get me the info ASAP. Please share my request with other secretaries who may not have read this letter. It is vitally important that we help each other and not isolate ourselves in our work because this gives our employer an excellent way to take advantage of us. Keep in mind that old union adage, “An injury to one is an injury to all.” Your job may be in jeopardy someday if we close our eyes to injustice to others now.

Enforcing our 2008 arbitration victory

Please read carefully the following information because it affects all of us. Once again, I am calling on you to give me the information in order to protect our jobs.

Our chapter won an arbitration in 2008 that states that the DOE must “cease and desist” from giving our job duties and responsibilities, as defined in Special Circular 31, to other titles. This was a huge success for our chapter — one that we had been striving for since the inception of our chapter. For example, this means that a school aide cannot register students or send out transcripts. A family worker cannot be in charge of student records. A business manager cannot do payroll or order supplies. You get the picture. Violations of our license were stopped in many schools after our win. (For more on the arbitration decision, go here.)

However, in some schools, principals lied to the DOE lawyers and said that there were no violations when, in fact, there were. This continues today. The UFT has gone to court to confirm the award so that we can assess penalties against these principals when we show there are violations in their schools. The court system works slowly and we are still waiting for the confirmation. In the meantime, the UFT is working to resolve these issues in individual schools and our chapter will devise a procedure for addressing violations that are brought to our attention at present. This is where I need your help. If you have first-hand knowledge of another title doing secretarial work, please e-mail the details of the violation to me. Your chapter leader can also e-mail me the information. The specific information I need you to include is:

1. * The name and title of the person doing the secretary’s work.
2. * A description of the work that he/she is doing (e.g. registering students, doing Ebank payroll, handling timecards, sending out transcripts, typing letters, making appointments for the principal, ordering supplies, etc.). It is not good enough to say the aide is doing pupil accounting or payroll.
3. * The school number, district and borough.
4. The name of the chapter leader and phone number of the school.
5. Your name and phone number so that I can verify the information.

* Must be reported

All information is kept strictly confidential. During the entire year and a half that we sat in arbitration hearings, no school secretary’s name was mentioned except mine. I will never divulge your identity or say whether you were the person who gave me the information. Please help me preserve the integrity of our school secretary license by reporting violations ASAP.

We have begun bargaining with the city for a new contract; the current contract expires on Oct. 31. Stayed tuned for more info.

Don’t forget — e-mail me if you have a question or concern. I will do everything that I can to help you.

Jackie Ervolina
Chairperson