I was told a story by an ATR teacher who was recently assigned to a school with a vacancy in his content specialty. He was covering for a recently hired "newbie" who had an altercation with a student and when the Principal wrote the teacher up, he quit on the spot or so goes the story. The ATR teacher is fast approaching retirement and has informed the Assistant Principal of his intentions of retiring at the end of the school year or next school year at the latest.
The Principal had asked the ATR teacher to provisionally cover the class for the rest of the semester and maybe for the year, if she cannot find a certified teacher (newbie) in January, for the second semester. The ATR teacher told the Principal of his intention of retiring by.June of 2018. at the latest, and that he has received "Satisfactory" or "effective"ratings since becoming an ATR, when his school closed down. Since the school has a relatively good student body and ample parking, the ATR teacher asked the Principal to permanently appoint him since she would save money and get an experienced teacher, with demonstrated classroom management and curriculum knowledge skills.
The ATR teacher pointed out the new ATR incentive plan that the school would get the ATR for free this year and half price next year and he would retire at the end of the 2017-18 school year. At first, the Principal acted like she didn't understand how the ATR incentive worked and claimed no knowledge of such an incentive. She eventually backtracked and said that she's aware of the ATR incentive but needed to explore it further.
A week later, the Assistant Principal told the ATR teacher he was happy what he saw in his informal observation and that he has excellent classroom management skills and the students really like him. However, he also told the ATR teacher the Principal wasn't going to permanently hire him for the position but would like to provisionally hire him instead. When the ATR teacher asked why, since he will retire in two years and helps her budget, the Assistant Principal shrugged his shoulders and said he didn't know.
On Monday, he asked to meet with the Principal and she met with him at the end of the day. He asked her why she wouldn't consider permanently hiring him? She claimed that if her enrollment went down, she would lose one of her best teachers because he would have seniority over her. When he correctly pointed out that the school is a desirable school and the danger of losing students are next to zero. She responded with the statement that things could change. She told the teacher that she doesn't trust the DOE when it came to the school's budget and what if you change your mind about retiring? The ATR teacher told the Principal that he has no intention of staying beyond two years but the Principal seemed unconvinced and claimed he could change his mind or the DOE could cut her budget and it would be difficult to remove him from the school's payroll if she permanently appointed him. The ATR teacher quickly realized that the discussion was going nowhere and thanked the Principal for her time.
The next day the Assistant Principal told the teacher that the Principal told him that she will be interviewing other ATRs for the vacancy to fill provisionally and expect to be rotated out. No provisional assignment, despite the obvious need for the students to have a certified teacher in the content specialty. Then again, for this Principal and many others, especially principals from the infamous "Leadership Academy" its Principal first and children last...Always!