I was told by my APO that as of Feb 4, 2017 the school assigned to the rotating ATRs will be the school they will remain in for the rest of the school year. Apparently, the first tangible change Randy Asher has made in changing the ATR status is to eliminate the useless and demoralizing rotation of excessed teachers. It seems that Chancellor Carmen Farina has finally decided to reduce Principal autonomy in hiring teaching staff since few principals were hiring experienced teachers and especially ATRs, no matter how qualified they are and the incentives offered them.
According to the APO, ATRs will be placed in schools with vacancies in their subject area. Will that include the many hidden vacancies throughout the system? Can the school still hire outside the school system in the last two weeks of January? What penalties will the DOE impose on schools who refused to accept the ATR in their vacancy? What about uncertified teachers teaching in a subject area their not qualified to teach in? How will school budgets change (Fair Student Funding). What about the ATR field Supervisors?. These questions remain unanswered.
I have no doubt that the placing of ATRs in schools with vacancies in their subject area is because of the looming teacher shortage and the saving of $100 million dollars that it cost DOE Central annually. Moreover, the Chancellor and Mayor have finally realized its to their political advantage to move further away from the ideological Bloomberg/Klein policies that has alienated school staff and with a new election approaching, its time to go in a different direction. Finally, principals only have themselves to blame for this turn of events as they rather hire young, inexpensive "newbie" teachers rather than spend a few extra bucks on high quality talent as it was more about age and salary discrimination than about what's best for their students academic achievement.
Far too many principals believed the decade long DOE kool-ade that ATRs are "bad teachers" and even the ATR incentive wasn't enough to change their minds. The DOE did such a great job demonizing the ATRs over the decade that the principals have been brainwashed in believing this false narrative and now its up to the DOE to forcefully tell principals that it was all a lie and please hire them. The question is what's next? Stay tuned.