Deja-sue.
The teachers’ union, NAACP and others are planning to file a lawsuit today to halt the closure of 22 public schools at the end of the school year – including 15 that the groups successfully saved from the chopping block with a similar lawsuit last year.
The filing in Manhattan Supreme Court is also challenging the often contentious placement or expansion of 18 charter schools within buildings they share with traditional public schools.
The process for closing schools and co-locating charters was toughened in legislation that renewed mayoral control of schools in 2009 by adding a host of regulations and mandates for public input.
Last year’s court victory for the union and other groups was based largely on the Department of Education’s inability to abide by many of those regulations.
This year, the city has approved the phasing-out of 27 traditional public schools beginning this fall, so today’s lawsuit doesn’t address five of those closures.
The lawsuit is certain to widen what’s already a chasm in the relationship between the United Federation of Teachers and City Hall.
Teachers have been working without a contract since October 2009, and Bloomberg’s yearlong campaign to abolish seniority rights for teachers in the event of layoffs – one of the union’s sacred cows – has soured relations even further.
Although the UFT made vital agreements with the state that helped New York rake in nearly $700 million in federal dollars under the Race to the Top Competition last year, subsequent negotiations with the DOE to implement those programs have largely fallen flat on their face.
In the case of plans to turn around failing schools, the city had to forgo as much as $54 million in federal money when an agreement on 9 schools couldn’t be reached earlier this month.
With just six weeks remaining in the school year, the two sides have also failed to sign a deal on a pilot teacher evaluation program that was meant to start in 11 struggling schools last September. There’s $20 million in federal funds at stake in those talks.