The just released drastic cuts in the City budget by Mayor Bill de Blasio includes a hiring freeze of educators except schools can hire ATRs for their vacancies. Since each year the New York City public schools needs to hire between 4 to 5 thousand teachers and there are one thousand ATRs, it would seem that, except for Art, Music, and Gym teachers the rest of the ATRs should be placed. Here is what UFT President Michael Mulgrew told the New York Post.
That means that there still will be a reduction in teachers and more overcrowded classrooms unless the Mayor rescinds the hiring freeze. I expect the union leadership will be unhappy since less teachers means less dues. Moreover, by placing the ATRs in vacancies the union no longer will be getting double dues. Finally, there are some principals who will refuse to hire ATRw in the mistaken belief that the ATRs are inferior teachers and will either try to seek a waiver from the hiring freeze or steal another school's teacher. We will see if the Mayor and Chancellor will keep the hiring freeze ironclad.
The Mayor's proposed budget can be found on James Eterno's ICEUFT blog.
The latest update (Friday) of the covid-19 count can be found below.
Region........Infected............Deaths.........Percentage
Global........2,193,673.........147,384.............6.7%
Nation..........672,931.........34,385...............5.2%.
State...........222,284..........14,636...............6.6%
NYC.............123,146..........11,477...............9.3%
UFT.................?...................44