Voluntary Transfer Update

RTA and the RCSD agreed that, for this year, the cap on the number of transfer applications that any teacher may file has been lifted. Thus, elementary teachers have until Friday, March 5, 2010 and secondary teachers have until Friday March 12, 2010 to file additional and unlimited Voluntary Transfer Requests.

The district and the union also agreed that the following positions be exempted from the Voluntary Transfer process:


• Wilson Commencement and Wilson Foundation Academies:
mathematics, social studies, English, foreign language and science because these are subject areas that require specialized training in the International Baccalaureate (IB) program. Special Education and Computer Science are also exempt from the voluntary transfer process. Therefore, we expect that there will be a separate application process for those teaching positions at both Wilson schools.


• For similar reasons, the Montessori School (#53) is also exempted.


• Finally, approved Autonomous Contract Schools will be exempted, too. The list of approved schools should be available soon.

Please post or distribute this information. Call the RTA (546-2681) if we can clarify or answer any questions. Thank you.

Retirement Information

Recent Poll of City Residents Shows Lack of Support for Mayoral Control

To view the poll results and additional information, click the links below:

• Mayoral Control Survey Tabulations
• Selected Weighted Results by Ethnicity/Race
• Study methodology for survey of parents of students in the RCSD schools

City Council Makes Suggestions to Governor

On February 3, 2010 the Rochester City Council sent a letter to Governor Paterson outlining their vision of Mayoral Control. The letter is available for download here.

Duffy Seeking Mayoral Control of RCSD

There have been many stories recently in the local media regarding this issue, but please take time to read William Cala's editorial from City Newspaper available here.

RTA Members may comment by going to the RTA Facebook group.

Duffy To Seek Control of City Schools, Eliminate Board

RTA Responds to Race To The Top Grant Application

The Rochester Teachers Association believes that the best ways to strengthen our schools are to lower class sizes, ensure greater parental involvement, increase school safety and student discipline, support professionalization of teaching, and improve our students’ readiness for learning by providing them the support and services that they need and deserve. But that is not at all the thrust of the New York State’s Race to the Top Grant Application. After careful examination of the current proposal, we find the following provisions troubling and potentially harmful to our schools and to our students:

• Ill-advised and punitive school improvement models. The RTTT application imposes unpromising and unproven approaches to fixing struggling schools. Turning them into charter schools is not the answer. Nor is it to simply oust and replace the teachers. The best ways to improve schools is to allow the professionals the needed time, resources and authority to adopt proven and promising pedagogical approaches and school structures. This is precisely the opposite of blame-fixing, punishment, and deficit-based approaches proposed in the current RTTT grant application.
• Unlimited expansion of Charter Schools. Lifting the cap on charter schools would further drain the limited resources now available to our schools. The application calls for that and for even more money for charter schools – as well as expansion of their reach to new areas, such as pre-K education and BOCES services. The grant application even calls for authorizing the Commissioner of Education to order struggling schools to become charter schools. All this may be good for charter school proponents but very hurtful for the students left behind in our public schools.
• Lowering of teaching standards. The grant application calls for accepting teachers certified by “non-profit organizations and others” and for also accepting teachers with Masters Degrees form “non-collegiate organizations.” It proposes unknown ways to use student data for the evaluation of teachers, granting of teacher tenure, and perhaps for teacher compensation linked to test scores. Furthermore, the grant application seeks unspecified ways to “streamline” the statutory due process (3020A) for disciplining and dismissing teachers.
• Undermining local control of public education. The New York State RTTT grant application would authorize education management organizations to directly manage schools and would give the Board of Regents the authority to appoint “Education Oversight Boards.” All this, we believe, could lead to the weakening of local control of public schools and to undermining of public education.

The RTTT funding, even if awarded, would be only available for three years and would then be discontinued - leaving our schools and our students stranded. But the larger issue is that of principles, and our principles are not for sale. For all the reasons cited above, therefore, the Rochester Teachers Association will not sign off on the New York State’s Race to the Top Grant Proposal as now formulated.

Deadlines, Announcements & Information