Letters From Joel Klein and Michael Mulgrew UPDATE

Did anyone else get these? It is amazing how their stories concerning the student start date in September are completely different.

This is the statement from Mulgrew concerning the day in Sept. It is different than the one posted below.

Good afternoon.

I’d like to point out a disturbing pattern.

When things go wrong in the schools, it’s never the administration’s fault.

Class sizes skyrocket — we’re told that principals have to make their own decisions about class size.

Kindergartens have waiting lists — people live in the wrong neighborhoods.

NAEP scores are flat — the state tests are the ones that count.

The court finds the DOE violated the law in closing schools — the judge is mistaken.

The school calendar is wrong — the UFT made us do it.

We need to set the record straight about the starting day of school next fall.

Parents should be outraged that Chancellor Klein has refused to exert the authority he has to properly manage the school calendar.

The Chancellor today blamed the union for his decision not to make Wednesday, Sept. 8 a professional development day. That decision means that, despite requests from some parents to delay the first school day for children until Monday, Sept. 13, the first school day for children will be Wednesday, Sept. 8.

The first day for teachers remains Tuesday, Sept. 7, and teachers will be in school on Wednesday whether students are present or not.

As you might have expected, Chancellor Klein’s letter to parents ignores the fact that the Chancellor does not need to get the union’s agreement to make Sept. 8 a professional development day. It also ignores the fact that a number of schools earlier this year sought to change their individual schedules to start school for children on Monday, Sept. 13 — and were denied by the Klein administration. If this was not a good idea then, how has it become one now?

The union has suggested calendar changes in recent months, involving both the last day of school this year and the first day of school for students next year. Most recently we suggested this in a meeting with the administration on May 12. As in previous such meetings, we were told that the calendar was unchangeable.

Our conversations with teachers and parents in the schools indicate that communities feel very differently about the possibility of changing the first day for students next fall. We have suggested to the Chancellor that he let each school make its own decision about whether or not to start on Monday, Sept. 13, as permitted under the school-based option in our contract.

The Chancellor’s letter claims that letting each school make its own decision would be “chaotic.” But for years the system operated with different school schedules for different boroughs, and schools across the system have been permitted to create professional development days at other points in the calendar. Previous managements have been up to the challenge of managing the logistics of transportation and food service. I’m sorry to hear that Chancellor Klein feels that his managers lack this competence in this instance.

The UFT has tried to ensure that the school calendar works for families and teachers, but the responsibility for that calendar is the administration’s alone.

Message edited 7/1/2010 9:20:26 PM.

Re: Letters From Joel Klein and Michael Mulgrew

Part of me thinks that a PD day on 9/8 (or whenever that Weds. date is) would be SO much better than a PD date in June.

However, I don't trust or believe Joel Klein at all. It disgusts me the way everything is pinned on the union.

Re: Letters From Joel Klein and Michael Mulgrew

Joel Klein's letter was sneaky and snarky. Mulgrew's letter *seemed* honest. I'm not saying I like his letter better b/c he sides with teachers, but b/c Klein's letter had a nasty a$$ tone to it. It's very passive aggressive.

Re: Letters From Joel Klein and Michael Mulgrew

can someone post the Klein letter?

Do you think that the Union really opposed changing it? What the DOE said that they offered seems to be what everyone wanted....swap Wednesday for Brooklyn/Queens day.

The NY media loves to make us teachers look like selfish, lazy people that only want vacation time!

Re: Letters From Joel Klein and Michael Mulgrew

Re: Letters From Joel Klein and Michael Mulgrew

Honestly I don't trust either. It's like two parents fighting and we are the kids caught in the middle.

Re: Letters From Joel Klein and Michael Mulgrew

From Mulgrew:

Dear colleagues,

I want to say thank you. From the opening day of school last September, the obstacles and opportunities came flying at us. And as always, UFT members came though with flying colors. Whenever we needed members to turn out, step up or speak out on behalf of students and school communities, you were there.

In September, thousands of you made calls and spread the word about John Liu and Bill de Blasio, helping them get elected in critical citywide races.

In October and November, you helped get Dial-a-Teacher off to a banner year and made our annual parent conference and Teacher Union Day events tremendously successful.

In December and January, you were there to mobilize parents, students and community allies as we mounted an unprecedented campaign against the DOE’s misguided plan to close schools. Your demonstrations and your passionate pleas at local meetings helped build momentum leading up to the pivotal PEP meeting, where we rallied in huge numbers. You were also there to back the union as we took our fight over class size to the courts, working to force the DOE to comply with class-size reduction mandates.

There were other major milestones — the agreement with the DOE to finally close the so-called “rubber rooms” and the agreement with the State Education Department to replace a broken, subjective evaluation system with one that uses objective multiple measures.

All year we fought the slurs and attacks by so-called education “reformers,” ideologues clamoring for an end to tenure, for more high-stakes testing, for unregulated growth in charter schools. We succeeded in winning real reforms in Albany that raised the charter school cap while including a ban on for-profit operators and a mandate that charters serve and retain our neediest students.

And then there are the battles over school funding and layoffs, which are still being waged. Your demonstrations at legislators’ offices, lobbying, letters, faxes, e-mails, not to mention the huge turnout at our massive City Hall rally, showed New Yorkers the strength of our great union. Together with community allies, we fended off the threat of 4,000 teacher layoffs, the threat to end student MetroCards and some of the worst cuts in services in the city budget.

And through it all, you were there every day in the schools, teaching and helping children, no matter what else was going on.

I cannot tell you how proud I am to represent you and how much easier you make my job by doing all that you do, inside and outside the classroom. I wish you all the very best over the summer.

Re: Letters From Joel Klein and Michael Mulgrew

From Klein:

Dear Parents and Members of the New York City Public School Community,

As you are no doubt aware, the current schedule for school to start in the fall has students returning to class on Wednesday, September 8, 2010.

But over the past few weeks, we heard directly from many parents and school communities concerned about the impact of Labor Day and the Jewish holidays on the first week of school. They asked us to consider moving the first day of school to Monday, September 13, 2010.

Recognizing the importance of not losing an instructional school day, the parents who wrote us further proposed that our teachers and staff use that Wednesday, September 8, 2010, as a professional development day, and instead use what is known as Brooklyn-Queens day—a professional development day that falls on Thursday, June 9, 2011 as an instructional school day.

Both the Mayor and I thought this proposal made sense for all involved and, in fact, would save parents the hassle of finding child-care for a one-day, mid-week holiday in June.

But in order to move forward with this plan, we needed the agreement of the United Federation of Teachers (UFT).

Unfortunately, the UFT refused our proposal and therefore we are left with no choice but to keep the calendar unchanged.

I also want to briefly address UFT’s statements in the press that we should allow different schools to start classes on different days. That idea is simply not feasible.

We cannot have a chaotic system where different schools start classes on different days, which would require different bus schedules as well as different food schedules. It would be confusing to parents, a further strain on our budget, and disruptive to the overall school calendar.

We understand and are sympathetic to the stress some families may feel because of the schedule during the first week of school, and regret that we were unable to make a change we saw as straightforward and fair to all.

But given our inability to reach an agreement with the UFT, we will proceed with starting school on Wednesday, September 8, 2010.

I wish you and your families an enjoyable, relaxing summer, and look forward to seeing everyone in the fall.

Sincerely,

Joel I. Klein
Chancellor

Re: Letters From Joel Klein and Michael Mulgrew

i love that everyhing is the union's fault. i was home the last day of school on maternity and the news anchors were alll talking about how it was so unfair for all the kids and families to have to go back on a Monday for a half day- and that it was the UFTs fault due to our contract- like any of us wanted to go back on a MOnday for a half day. its really a disgrace.

Re: Letters From Joel Klein and Michael Mulgrew UPDATE

Re: Letters From Joel Klein and Michael Mulgrew UPDATE