According to Uncle Mike's sock puppet, Dennis Walcott who had sent out a mass email today at the behest of his lord and superior, the reason we are to report to schools this Friday is that;
Staff will be expected to report on Friday to prepare for school opening on Monday.If this is not convoluted logic, I don't know what is. Prepare for what? We are never asked to report the last day of a vacation to get the school ready. We are not required to report a week early in August to set up classrooms for the upcoming year. Heck, even the teachers at the damaged schools are reporting to other sites. But why? Don't these teachers have to prepare for the schools opening on Monday?
But it is crystal clear. Staff are in school for one reason only. To prepare for Monday. This means, and it should be adhered to, that no professional development will be in place on Friday, and in the opinion of The Crack Team, if any administrators contradict Sock Puppet Dennis Walcott's edict, they should be brought up on insubordination.
This is just clearly a power grab by a mayor that is an angry little man that desperately needs to show he has the power. He does this only because he can, and he does time after time.
It does not matter that if a teacher is unable to get to work due to the mess that the subways are. Just look at the updated subway map of what lines are and not running. Nothing below 34th St in Manhattan, nothing in NW Brooklyn or SW Queens. As of tomorrow, Metro-North is running a weekend schedule only on the Harlem and New Haven lines. The Hudson line is still closed. Only the Port Jefferson and Ronkonkoma lines are running on the LIRR as of now.
I know of a teacher on Long Island that has had her house flooded, her car filled with raw sewage and no means to get to work.
But let's say you can drive in. The 4 East River crossings will be limited to cars with 3 or more occupants. What happens if you don't carpool? If you drive alone. According to Uncle Mike;
"hopes motorists will pick up strangers standing near bridges."Yeah, we can see female teachers doing this.
I know of other countless teachers that have had basements flooded, have no electricity, trees down, and also rely on public transportation.
What about those who are expecting their basements to be be pumped on Friday? Those teachers that expect the trees on top of their houses to be cut apart? Those teachers awaiting the insurance adjuster?
Not only that, but these teachers also have children in schools that are closed this week and must be supervised. Do they have enough time to make arrangements?
But not to fret teachers of NYC. Sock Puppet Walcott has decreed;
If mass transit services have not yet been restored in your neighborhood, and you have no other safe and feasible way to travel to work, then you should use your judgment and delay your arrival. There will be no penalties for transit-related lateness.OK, not bad. Does transit delays mean traffic delays as well? But it gets weirder from the sock puppet.
If you cannot come to work, you should use annual leave, personal leave/CAR time or compensatory time to stay home....For those who have no applicable leave balance, leave may be advanced for this purpose.Wow, what a guy. Tell me there won't be a principal that will hold a teacher taking Friday off against them.
Why aren't other school districts that have closed for the week having teachers come in on Friday? According to the Journal News;
All eight of Rockland County’s districts and Eastchester, Byram Hills, Blind Brook, Valhalla, Chappaqua, Ossining, Pelham, Mahopac, New Rochelle and Scarsdale became among the first districts Wednesday to concede that schools will be closed for at least this weekWhy? Because these school districts are not run by little spiteful men, or women, like our mayor. These districts celebrate their educators, take pride in their educators, and do not see educators as interchangeable parts.
We have 14 months left with this little Napoleon of a man that is mean spirited, and worst of all, angry. He needs to get his way, only his way, all of the time. No one in this country has done more to destroy the professionalism and respect of educators than this little man.
6 comments:
Stop wining. We should have gone back on Tuesday. The only reason we didn't was because they couldn't get enough mops for us to use. On Friday they will be delivered. 7 hours to mop and maybe some mopping per session. Life is good.
If you think that teachers should mop the floors,then you should also volunteer to do so. Teachers should be able to return to schools only if the conditions are safe and with their students as well. If they are trapped, then they shouldn't be able to come and schools should remain closed. This past week is an experience for both the teachers and the students. This should be made as an educational experience for everyone. Mayoral control has ruined the schools. When a person, as power hungry as the Mayor is, takes over, the results are nothing more than disasterous. Partnerships with teachers and all members of the community are essential for the schools to succeed. In this time of crisis, we need to band together as a community. Although I'm not a Bronx teacher, I think we should all band together to help the communities affected the most in the Rockaways and in Staten Island. The bottom line is we are a city and we are a community and we should take all the negative and turn it into a positive. @Anonymous. Sensitivity to the issues is very important at this time. There are teachers, as well as other members of the educational community who are trapped and relocated due to this storm. You need to be sensitive to their needs and the "wining" as you put it is unprofessional. We all need to "put ourselves in other people's shoes" and have some understanding. Only then we can understand. I, as a professional will take this and turn it into an educational opportunity for all students in my school and the kids will benefit from it deeply. To my fellow colleagues who are still struggling with their daily lives due to the storm KEEP THE FAITH!!!
You rip apart a perfectly normal boilerplate statement post hurricane from E4E, claiming they are attention whores, and then this is your vitriolic, attention-seeking response to being asked to come in Friday? Pot, meet kettle.
The sad thing is, you make some good points about the illogical nature of it, but your anger and hate betrays your irrationality and undermines your case for all but those who share your rage.
I don't get it. this isn't your vacation--you'll be paid for work and it's your job. why shouldn't teachers be asked to go back? I don't know anyone else who hasn't been called back to work by now. my husband commuted a couple hrs each way. if your house was flooded or you have other dire situations, the city has a method for you to request the time off, paid. otherwise, what's the issue?
I lived in the south, went to school in the south and was a student there when a major storm hit 20 years ago. We lost about 2 weeks of school. The storm was NOTHING like this one, but we were without power, gas was an issue, the water was contaminated, and there were buildings deemed unsafe. A few of us did volunteer to come in and help clean the debris from the schools once we were released to do so by inspectors. (Certain areas required trained people because of the safety.) It sounds like on Friday, the leaders of the school should report, survey the damages and then use the toll free conference call lines to hold virtual meetings with staff to give them the run down of what the damages are at the school and where they officially will report on Monday. Will we still have PD on Tuesday? I know schools are "off" but how "off" will we be? Are our trainings cancelled?
We did nothing of importance at my school today. I'll say it again - we did nothing of importance today at my school. I knew we would do nothing at my school as did the over 200 teachers I work with. It was a waste of time. Countless gallons of gasoline were wasted. Any important information that we did obtain today about Monday's scheduling could have easily been emailed to us. Did I say that we did nothing today but listen to information that could have easily been emailed?
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