The Union and the City has negotiated a new contract and once again the union leadership failed the ATRs. According to what is known, the only change is that schools cannot hire"newbie teachers"once the school year starts instead of October 15th. This change may allow some ATRs to snag a provisional position for the school year since some teachers may have taken another position in a better school at the last minute. The result is that these vacancies will be in the worst schools.
According to South Bronx Schools, the ATR salary will no longer affect a school's budget, if permanently hired, and a special program that will employ ATRs in running a small learning group for struggling students. However, I have not seen this identified. In my opinion these changes on the margin will not reduce or eliminate the ATR issue.
Regardless, the union leadership failed to get the DOE to eliminate the school based Fair Student Funding that incentivizes principals to hire the"cheapest and not the best teachers" for their school. Moreover, the union failed to get the DOE to change hiring procedures that would require schools to hire from the excessed teacher list in the District before hiring "newbies". Finally, the union agreed to the DOE's forced placement and useless rotation of ATRs,
We still remain second class citizens.