ATRs and Right of Return
A UFT alert (an e-mail to Chapter Leaders and others, usually under the name of an officer of the union) went out today. This one was under Jeff Zahler’s name. Here’s the central part of what it said:
All pedagogues who have been excessed, including those who are presently ATRs, have the right to return to their school within one year should a vacancy emerge in their license area in the school from which they were excessed. To exercise their contractual right to return to their former school, they must express their desire to return in writing to their former principal within one year.
I wrote Jeff, asking if an ATR could write a letter now, and he answered:
They can write the letter now if they wish. It then puts the obligation on the DOE and school to notify the writer of a vacancy.
Chapter Leaders, you should eventually get this info from your DRs and Special Reps, but even before then, let any ATR members know about Jeff’s advice.
JD2718 
I don’t see this info on the UFT website yet.
Is it there?
If not, why isn’t it there?
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Thank you so much for this info.
I don’t know why they didn’t send each of us ATRs a personal letter by now giving us this information. I didn’t know it, and I have been fighting the battle all summer on the net. Chapter leaders frequently do not share info they get with the staff. http://www.underassault.blogspot.com
TAGNYC is also taking up this fight.
By the way, if you search “ATRs” on Edwize, you get to a post on the subject, but it’s not allowing comments. Great job they’re doing over there.
Edwize closes comment sections off a month after posting an item, automatically. It holds down junk advertising (which they seem to be having problems controlling)
I am not certain that UFT Central knows who all of our ATRs are (although they certainly have a better idea than a month ago).
One problem, maybe the key problem, is that our best pipeline for information flow – open lines from Chapter Leader to District Rep, and District Rep to Central – is not used regularly enough, and when we use it we find that it is damaged (non-functional chapters or chapter leaders). It seems easier to just get the info from the DoE, but that makes us dependent on our opponents
(there is obviously more wrong with that picture, but that explains why we don’t know as much as we should about ATRs)
I get alerts sent to me as chapter leader, each week, plus sometimes an extra when an issue is large. In addition, my District Rep filters through everything coming our way, and, on an as needed basis, sends lists of priority items (I have gotten everything from 2 item lists to over a dozen).
I do not know if these alerts normally are available, nor if it would make sense to post them… But I will ask.