I left for work this morning. At 5:42 AM I lost control of my car and skidded into a lamp post. I'm not hurt, but schools should be closed today. Shame on
@DOEChancellor
for risking our lives.
Because I respect my students and colleagues, not to mention myself, I'll be wearing a mask at least until the end of this school year. Mayor Swagger can do as he wishes, but safety first.
My school had 300 cases yesterday, and 450 and counting this AM, according to the still selective testing. But
@NYCMayor
Eric Adams has swagger, and
@DOEChancellor
Banks is "soaring high" so everything is fine.
Great job,
@DOEChancellor
and
@NYCMayor
. You win the prize for lowest attendance ever. You made 44% of the city's children sit in auditoriums and play with their phones all day. They could have been safe at home.
Smaller class sizes have been the number one ask of parents on DOE surveys. They've been a goal of many for decades before the pandemic. Too bad no one told the education reporter at the
@NYTimes
.
Utterly bizarre. Here's how he describes the killing. As if he wasn't actually the perpetrator.
Absolutely crazy:
"I'm deeply saddened by the loss of life," Penny told the Post. "It's tragic what happened to him. Hopefully, we can change the system that's so desperately
It's one thing for
@DOEChancellor
Banks to offer office hours as a ten-day stopgap for kids with COVID. It's quite another to pretend it's the same thing as showing up. This is NOT remote learning.
Adios to
Jared Kushner
Ivanka Trump
Melania Trump
Donald Trump Jr.
Eric Trump
Melania Trump
Stephen Miller
William Barr
Mike Pompeo
Steven Mnuchin
Kayleigh McEnany
Kellyanne Conway
Mike Pence, and last but not least
Betsy Devos
Look at the mayor, holding Zoom meetings while the rest of us are risking our lives to come in today. Why can't a million students and staff be remote as well?
NYC, you have an amazing and coordinated team of public servants, from
@NYCSanitation
to
@NYCEmergencyMgt
to
@NYCSchools
and so many more, who are working around the clock on our winter weather response. Our focus is snow removal and safe commutes. Follow
@NotifyNYC
for updates.
If
@DOEChancellor
Banks and
@NYCMayor
Adams were genuinely concerned about kids who depended on schools for food (not to mention safety), they'd utilize the delayed opening and make it easier on everyone.
While
@DOEChancellor
talks about how bad it will make him feel to fire 9,000 teachers, he hires high-priced executives to sit around and do Whatever It Is they do at Tweed.
Due to the ongoing weather emergency, today's public bill hearing at City Hall is CANCELED.
If you were planning to travel, please stay inside and stay home.
Gee,
@ChalkbeatNY
, maybe it's because 65% of students choose to learn remotely. NYC teachers want to know: Why didn't any of your ace reporters figure that out?
1. I just emailed Governor Hochul.
Dear Governor Hochul:
I'd like to vote for you. I'm a lifelong Democrat. However, for me to vote for you, you will need to sign the class size bill for NYC. 34 students in a classroom is an abomination.
Dear
@NYCMayor
and
@DOEChancellor
: If you can rent space for charter schools, why can't you rent it for
@flhsnyc
and the other schools you've crowded at over 200% capacity?
Tonight at
@UFT
Executive Board we gave Mulgrew the authority to negotiate, and failing a successful resolution, to bring a strike authorization vote to the Delegate Assembly tomorrow.
Look at Fran Drescher fighting for her members. Then look at
@UFT
's Mike Mulgrew and his patronage-laden Unity caucus fighting for the city, our actual adversaries in negotiations.
#VoteTheBastardsOut
Dear
@NYCMayor
--Just heard our holiday assembly was cancelled, thankfully, but we're at 23 cases and your inept Situation Room is leaving 5,000 people at Francis Lewis High School to contract the virus. Please wake them up.
Looks like
@AndrewYang
is a voucher advocate. Unbelievable that progressive politicians like
@Grace4NY
could get behind that. You are either for public education, or you are against it.
In other news,
@DOEChancellor
Carranza is making teachers without accommodations teach remotely from school buildings, thus taking already short space and increasing the risk of COVID transmission.
Teaching is a calling. You don't do it for the money, you do it because you believe in the kids that come into your classrooms.
The largest school system in the country is only as strong as the teachers behind it.
Happy
#TeacherAppreciationWeek
to all our amazing NYC teachers!
Mayoral control will allow me to keep schools open under hazardous conditions, fail to provide COVID testing, close schools for good whenever I feel like it, hand them over to the charters that gave me tons of cash, and show more swagger than ever.
Mayoral control will allow us to best serve our schools and support our students as we emerge from the pandemic. This is a top priority for my administration, and we’d like to thank
@GovKathyHochul
for putting our students first.
I predict Mulgrew will come to an agreement on the 155 minutes and PT conferences, adjust the calendar, declare a grand victory, and hope like hell we forget about SUB-INFLATION RAISES and DIMINISHED HEALTH CARE, the real issues.
A bad week for Eric Adams is a bad week for
@UFT
leadership, but a good one for members and retirees. When are we going to elect leadership that works for US instead of the mayor?
Somehow our
@UFT
leadership, along with others, has gotten the City Council to vote on diminishing our health care. This is a disgrace. Leadership is supposed to represent US, not the Adams administration.
Not only admits he didn't go the safest way, but says "my" children. Those of us who have children treat them better than Adams treats those he considers his. For one thing, we value their safety above all.
CNN’s
@jaketapper
: “Wouldn’t mandated weekly testing for students, teachers, faculty be the safest way to keep the schools open?”
NYC Mayor Adams: “Because ideally that would be the safest way to do it … But I need my children in school.”
Steyer says his mom was a teacher. Pete's husband is a teacher. Biden's wife is a teacher. I'm not sure having a teacher in your family makes you have reasonable education policy.
#PublicEdForum
I don't know about you, but I'm encouraged to see the leader of the administrators union focused on safety, as opposed to, say, whether or not your bulletin board contained a rubric.
Two teachers can teach the exact same lesson and get completely different results. The variable? The teachers’ passion and creativity.
The power is not in the program. The power is in the magic the teacher brings.
#multiplyexcellence
I think we all need to get vaccinated before we go in. It's the very least we can do if we care about our kids at all. My column in today's Daily News.
Since Governor Cuomo has suspended APPR, I rate all
@UFT
and
@nysut
teachers SUPER highly effective. This is TEN TIMES MORE effective than highly effective.
There's nothing quite like a classroom with no heat and an open window on an 18-degree day. I'd like to see
@NYCMayor
Swagger and
@DOEChancellor
Soaring High work under these conditions.
More than 2 mths after
@Gothamist
wrote on NYC schools' ventilation, no action
I replicated analysis for 20-21, & also found
> COVID infection in windows only-vented schs
COVID's not going anywhere - can we get serious abt upgrading ventilation now?
I am sorely disappointed in
@DOEChancellor
Carranza for ignoring our petition and demanding 108,000 epidemiologists petition him. What I liked about this chancellor is he represented himself as a teacher supporter. Now he says we do not matter.
.
@DOEChancellor
Carranza told CBS "We are more strict than what anyone else has told us to be." That's a Trump-sized lie.
@UFT
demands universal Covid testing, and Carranza refuses
Conservative lawmakers in Iowa have introduced a bill that would require cameras to be installed in nearly every K-12 school classroom across the state, allowing parents to see livestreams.
I don't know about you, but I don't want to be part of an "experiment." I don't want my family to be part of it, and I don't want my students or their families to be part of it either.
Dr. Fauci tells teachers about reopening schools: "You're going to be part of the experiment of the learning curve of what we need to know." Notes that we currently don't know much about how the virus spreads with children.
#AFT20
You have to admire the subtle teacher and union bashing here. Those selfish teachers value their lives and safety, and selfishly decide not to risk it. Pit them against the students, again, even though they've dedicated their lives to helping them.
So much for any hope for in-person learning this academic year for the many NYC high school students whose classes have been 100% online since school "reopening" because not enough teachers are available.
Dear
@NYCMayor
and
@DOEChancellor
: Take a look at all these voices asking you delay your plans. Come on, guys. You have to know how unrealistic your plans are. The rest of the city does.
DOE Hack: Hey, I have an idea. Let's buy the crappiest, most overpriced, air filters we can get, and let's not bother with that HEPA stuff.
De Blasio: Good idea. Here's a blank check.
The answer? Here's why
@UFT
union leadership sells out members to save money for our adversary in negotiations. Because they value patronage jobs, which give them power. And they value power more than those they're paid to represent.
It's not surprising, given what appears to be a good relationship between Hochul and Adams so far. In 2019, de Blasio was able to win a three-year extension (which brings us to the expiration of mayoral control this year).
I just saw a doctor, used my Medicare card, and for the first time in 40 years, didn't have a copay. I hope Michael Mulgrew and his sycophants in
@UFT
keep their paws off Medicare. If they oppose corporate education, how can they support corporate health care for members?
Pressed for comment, the chancellor stated, "But we're determined to do this in the worst way possible, to assure it helps absolutely no one." OK, not really.
I’m in the park across from 80 Centre St. There are a whole bunch of retirees waiting to see whether or not this judge stands with us to save Medicare for those of us who’ve served the city.
Just put on my Eddie Bauer Boundary Pass parka to teach in my unheated classroom with an open window for ventilation. Thanks,
@NYCMayor
and
@DOEChancellor
for another typical day.
So, despite
@NYCMayor
Adams' contention that he was testing 20%, the good folks from wherever will only test 37 of our staff of 370. I guess, despite his ever-valuable lip service,
@UFT
is an afterthought for him.
Good thing
@NYCMayor
Eric Adams decided to stay swaggery instead of allowing schools to go remote. We're all so lucky to have all those extra people and vehicles out on the road.
#ThanksALot
I've never, ever seen a
@DOEChancellor
stand with, let alone march with
@UFT
before. But this one did, and the Puerto Rican Day Parade was a great occasion. If you weren't there, here's a photo-essay about it.
"A lot of work has been done to keep training the teachers," on remote teaching,
@NYCMayor
says. But the DOE hasn't given stats on how much training the teachers have received. I've spoken with teachers who have not received any.
Bernie staffer calls
@DianeRavitch
to elicit her views on education. This is the first significant move toward sanity from a Democratic candidate. I'm encouraged.