EMAILS From Francesco Portelos' Blog Are Eye-Openers To The Dictatorship of Principals In The School

Francesco Portelos

...and to the power and influence of "Legal" outside the school.

Betsy Combier

DOE Admin’s “Not So Confidential” Emails – Part 6 Union Busting

by Francesco Portelos on June 14, 2013 in Uncategorized




Continued from Admin’s “Not so Confidential” Emails segment.

“Union Busting is the latest fad.” Everyone is doing it.

There has been more union busting at our school than you can imagine. I have to admit, that they have been doing an excellent job of busting up our union, our rights and wiping our expired contract on their shoes.

Countless teachers have been called in to the principal’s office and asked questions like:

“What did you say at the [union] meeting last Friday?”

“Was ______ at your birthday party?” “Careful of who your friends are.”

“Why are you wearing blue?” In regard to staff wearing union blue.

“Stay away from the Teacher’s Lounge.”

You can also see my first two disciplinary letters that I received. One was about a private union meeting I had with former UFT Chapter Leader Rich Candia and former SLT Chairperson Susanne Abramowitz. The second about emailing the UFT members at the school about union business.

Now I found this beauty showing a directive from a DOE lawyer informing the principal that .

——————————————————–

From: Linda Hill

Date: Fri, Feb 10, 2012 at 1:02 PM <—see my previous post that took place around that time
Subject: UFT site on the Dreyfus email
To: Richard Candia
Cc: Michael Rossicone

Dr. Candia,
I have been advised by DOE lawyers to delete the UFT site on the Dreyfus website. Please be advised that I am doing so immediately.
Sincerely,
Principal Hill


–
Linda V. Hill
Principal, IS 49
tel. 718 727 6040
fax. 718 876 8207
welearnandgrowtogether.com
———————————————
*Note: I colored the red text above.
What was this site? It was a UFT site we had to increase communication. Why delete it? Good question. Which lawyer? Was it ethical? Violation?

That was over a year ago. Did things get better? Does the principal or DOE fear or union? No. In fact they continue to bust and even ignored an arbitration decision. Attempted to get involved in a chapter leader recall that failed.

This is replicated at many of the 1,800 schools.


Admin’s “Not So Confidential” Emails






I know this is bizarre, but what part of this saga isn’t? Principal Linda Hill, of Berta Dreyfus IS 49 used a site I owned and was the primary administrator of. I raised concerns, she and others retaliated against me and then directed me to shut down the site. Before she lost access to my site she used it to send and receive in excess of 12,000 emails in 2.5 years. Some are forwards from her professional DOE schools.nyc.gov account and therefore fell into my domain. It’s like a Morgan Stanley employee forwarding inappropriate AOL emails to their jdoe@morganstanley.com account and Morgan Stanley bosses reading and using these emails. They can as per the privacy policy.

I contacted Google Inc., who runs the site, in March 2012 and again last week, June 2013. I asked “Who owns all the data on dreyfus49.com?” The Google tech’s responds “You do Mr. Portelos.”

Now I have been attacked, removed from school for over 400 days and slated for termination. What recourse do I have? Play possum? I tried that. Now I have been slowly sharing my data with the world. I’m not going to share meaningless watercooler gossip, but rather emails I believe are of public concern:


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DOE Admin’s “Not So Confidential” Emails – Part 1 Integrity

DOE Admin’s “Not So Confidential” Emails – Part 2 – The Audit

DOE Admin’s “Not So Confidential” Emails – Part 3 – Equal Opportunity?

DOE Admin’s “Not So Confidential” Emails – Part 4 – Sick Day OT

DOE Admin’s “Not So Confidential” Emails – Part 5 Psychic?

DOE Admin’s “Not So Confidential” Emails – Part 6 Union Busting