Mayor Bloomberg Is a Spiteful Little Man

[SoBronxSchool]

http://www.southbronxschool.com/2012/10/mayor-bloomber-is-spiteful-little-man.html

The Crack Team got the phone call today at around 3 PM. We had been monitoring Uncle Mike's news conference yet briefly called away when the Chinese food had arrived. On the other end of the phone was one of SBSB's news stringers. He called to share that the mayor had made a proclamation in concern to the remainder of the week about the schools.

The mayor, our stringer reported, had declared that not only were students not to report to school on Thursday and Friday of this week, but that all staff were to report to their schools at their regular times this Friday, November 2. This despite the fact that 200 of the 1,400 buildings operated by the NYC DOE have significant damage to be termed, "not operational."

According to Uncle Mike's sock puppet, Dennis Walcott who had sent out a mass email today at the behest of his lord and superior, the reason to we are to report to schools this Friday is to;

[NYC_SKP]

1. Where I live, being asked to report for school is a good thing.

Around Yosemite National Park, for example, schools have snow days and many schools throughout the state have furlough days.

In any event, being asked to NOT go to school means NOT being paid.

I will presume that in NYC there's a good chance that this means being paid, or not losing pay.

Not sure I see the down side.

[SoBronxSchool]

2. Noooo.....

We get paid.

[proud2BlibKansan]

3. I've never heard of that.

Teachers here are always paid, school in session or not. Teacher contracts divide yearly salary across 12 months. That is fairly standard in this business.

Employees who are not teachers - custodians, cafeteria workers, para professionals, etc - are the ones who don't get paid on days of inclement weather when school is not in session. But teachers get paid.

[NYC_SKP]

4. This is why, respectfully, this group isn't viable.

And I'm sick and tired of having to explain why, as much as I respect you and KR many of your posts.

And that's it.

[proud2BlibKansan]

7. You need to stop assuming your own personal experience is the norm for all. It's not.

That's the problem here. Not the group.

[Smarmie Doofus]

6. There are no kids to teach.

The general ( city) plan is to keep as many people as possible from traveling. Many subways and commuter trains are out, there are mammoth lines to board busses, which are still in short supply.

People who drive are being turned back before they can cross the bridges into Manhattan. Nonetheless, there are MASSIVE traffic jams because of trees, , no traffic lights, flooded tunnels, etc.

Again... the idea is to *reduce* the commuter crush. AND... remember, there ARE NO KIDS IN SCHOOL to teach on Friday.

[LWolf]

8. Our contracts

are paid, either across the 10 months we work, or, more usually, across the 12 months of the year. We're paid for working a certain # of days. Inclement weather days aren't docked, because the state provides waivers and funds the district for them. At least, until there are too many and the days have to be made up after the school year was supposed to end.

That's been true for all the districts and both states I've taught in. Even though I don't have to go to work on a snow day, I usually show up for at least part of the day, because it gives me the chance to catch up on paperwork. In my area, we don't close schools very often. Instead, we "delay." School starts two hours late when it's too icy for the busses to run. I slide to work on time anyway, and get that extra time to catch up.

In one place in CA that I taught, we were more likely to have school called for flash flooding than snow; snow days happened every few years, but flash flooding happened every year. I was once stuck with my kids on a campus, watching parents floating in their cars past school, unable to get into the parking lot. I wished they'd called school that day.

That's something the general public doesn't seem to understand, when they talk about all those summers off, etc.; we are paid by the day, for a set # of days. All the rest is unpaid.

School cancellations, though, are funded by the state, so don't affect our pay.

[Smarmie Doofus]

5. Interesting POV on this on an ED listserve:

>>>Yes, he is a vicious, spiteful and petty man, who no doubt had to be physically forced to close the schools by his more rational aides.

Can't you just picture him, foaming at the mouth, cursing - he's notorious for his foul mouth - and railing against the Weather Gods that have kept the production lines - for that's what he and his ilk see the public schools as, production lines leading to a tedious, authoritarian workplace - from running?

His spiteful call for teachers to go in on Friday is typical of that sub-set of the rich, who believe with all their heart that once they've employed you, they own you.

Needless to say, the UFT is nowhere to be found.

I'm going to be upstate, where there's power and heat. Everyone should stay home on Friday, just to reflect back the spite and contempt of this moral midget.>>>>>