I will say that just by starting this blog I have begun to educate myself about the  "excessed" and ATR,  and the more I read, the more I can appreciate a colleague like Patricia Tambakis.  You can check this out!

When she lists the teaching positions that are missing from this school, think about all the teachers in the "pool" who are left wandering the boroughs, looking for the school that they are assigned to that week.

It seems that there are some very basic blunders here. If you are paying us salaries to "sub", why can't we just simply be hired where there is an obvious need. I just don't see why 2+2 does not=4?  Overcrowded classrooms with empty rooms next door, qualified teachers sent to sit in the empty rooms:  how does all this make sense other than the thought that some other master is being served.



For the past six years I have been the computer teacher at my middle school; two other teachers ( math and history) were also running a computer lab. Now that I have been excessed, I can only assume that my 7th grade students will not have a lab.  In fact, during the last week of school, one of my colleagues (6th grade ELA) was moving his stuff into my lab.  Now, my lab was just created this past year.  I had 34 new computers with cameras loaded, a Smart Board, and plenty of room, (It took from September to December to get the equipment installed; before that we had "air" computers).  Now that computer lab will not be used, which is a complete waste of money unless, of course, Green Dot extends its hold on the building and that computer lab is given up to them as well.  In any case, it is my view that teaching essential computer skills is being sacrificed. For what-- because the school cannot afford a computer teacher (me)? The system can afford to keep paying me for not teaching computers, and would  rather I sit in the cafeteria, coverage slip in hand, waiting for 6th period so I can stand in a room of unfamiliar students with really no purpose other than to maintain order.