I am so grateful to the UFT. In what other career do you lose your position but retain your salary and benefits and even get help in finding a new position?
I lost my position as a science teacher at Grover Cleveland HS after six years, all with satisfactory ratings. I was excessed in June 2012, along with six others because of a drop in student enrollment. Unfortunately, I relied on my principal’s assurance that she was going to take me back in September. Then I got the notification of my first Absent Teacher Reserve (ATR) assignment in late August of that year and realized I should have been looking for a permanent opening.
Bleak as that September was without my own classroom, I was grateful that I was still protected by a union contract that guaranteed me a salary and benefits.
For two years, I went from school to school to fulfill the six-week ATR assignments. Wherever I was sent, I was cooperative and did my work professionally, but it was a discouraging time. Often I was ignored and just told to sit over there or heard the rumor that this principal has vowed never to hire an ATR. In one school, I had to post a five-dollar bond for a key to the bathroom.
Fortunately, there were bright spots. One school asked me to stay for a second six-week rotation and assured me they would hire me if there were an opening.
I continued checking the Open Market Transfer Plan website and pestering people for word of openings. I did my best to stay positive, knowing I could reach out to the union for help if I had a problem at any of the schools I was temporarily assigned to.
Then, the tide turned. In 2014, I was interviewed for a yearlong opening to cover a member out on childcare leave at IS 25 in Flushing, Queens. That assignment has turned into a permanent science position at IS 25, where I feel respected and where I have been actively engaged in the union as a membership team ambassador in the lead-up to the Janus Supreme Court decision. I’m making a difference there. Even the quietest students in my large English as a New Language class were participating when I introduced some lesson plan ideas I picked up from my recent STEM training.
Throughout my ATR ordeal, the UFT protected all my contractual rights and benefits — salary, seniority, sick days, etc. —for which I am deeply thankful. I was also able to complete my master‘s degree through discounted UFT classes.
My experience proves just how important union membership is.
Lisa Sakol is a science teacher at IS 25 in Flushing, Queens.
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