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Union fights for teaching fellows facing ax
Nov 6, 2008 3:18 PM
The UFT has filed a grievance on behalf of approximately 130 teaching fellows who face termination on Dec. 5 because they have no full-time teaching assignments.
The union-initiated grievance maintains that the teaching fellows hired in September are being improperly terminated in violation of the collective-bargaining agreement and that the DOE “contract” that teaching fellows were required to sign does not supercede the UFT contract.
Like the excessed educators in the Absent Teacher Reserve (ATR) pool, the unassigned fellows are serving in schools throughout the city as full-time substitutes.
The DOE hiring agreement specifies that the newly hired teaching fellows who are not selected by a school by August 28, 2008, will be assigned to the Teachers Reserve Pool and will receive the salary and benefits of a full-time substitute.
The DOE hiring agreement that new fellows were required to sign further states: “If you are unable to secure a regular, full-time position by December 5, 2008, your employment will be terminated as of that date.” The UFT contends in its grievance that such a move by the DOE would constitute a layoff, which is not allowed under the UFT/DOE collective-bargaining agreement unless the city declares an official financial emergency, which it has not.
The teaching fellows facing termination are part of the group of 1,500 aspiring teachers fresh out of colleges and universities or seeking career changes who were courted by the DOE for its alternative certification program. The fellows come from across the United States to teach in the city’s public schools. The DOE selected the 2008 fellows as the best qualified from among 19,012 applicants in a process they describe as “highly selective.”
Despite that encouraging recommendation from the DOE itself, some of the selected fellows are still scrambling for positions.
Even with the growing number of excessed teachers without permanent placements in the school system, the DOE continues to recruit new candidates for the 2009-2010 school year.
