The massacre in Uvalde, Texas, was horrific. I can't imagine what the parents of the children are going through. I am sick of the gun culture in this country and sick of this phallic desperate need for guns. I have no problem with anyone owning a firearm. But there have to be background checks and more regulation
for owners and sellers. Why does anyone need an AR-15 other than making up for some Freudian physical shortcoming?

I was in my fourth year of teaching when Columbine occurred. It was shocking at the time. Twenty four years later and too many mass school shootings later as well I am now completely numb. I've gone from, "How can this happen?" to "I'm not surprised it has happened again." But as long as the ammosexuals are appeased and the fear of the NRA continues to pervade, it's going to happen again. And again. And again. 

But guess who is getting blamed. Teachers! Anyone surprised? From yesterday's Washington Post Texas Department of Public Safety Director Steven McCraw blabbered...

...video surveillance shows a teacher propping open an exterior door at 11:27 a.m. May 24. That was right around the time Ramos had crashed a truck into a nearby ditch, and then emerged shooting at bystanders. The teacher then went to their classroom to retrieve a cellphone and at 11:30, though it’s not clear from where, they called 911. Within two minutes, Ramos was firing at the school building, and a school police officer had arrived on the scene. McCraw did not say what happened to the teacher...

Let's go to the video tape. Fellow blogger, honorary Crack Team member and SBSB fanboi NYCDoenuts shared his opinion in a tweet. An opinion I 100% agree with. He and I both want proof! Where's the proof? Show the video. Name the teacher. If the teacher did this, it shouldn't there be a crime? We demand proof!

Yep, let's blame the teachers. But in the meantime... LET'S ARM THE TEACHERS (smh)! Yes, the same teachers who have are being blamed for the non existent teaching of Critical Race Theory. The same teachers who are not allowed to say gay in Florida. The same teachers who are supposedly grooming four year olds. The same teachers that will soon need pre-approval from parents for lesson plans. The way to solve this problem is for teachers to carry? Where's the money going to come from? Will teachers be trained? Who will supply the guns? 

But...but... we can do like Ted Cruz said. Only one door per building. Good idea. That'll work well for fire drills, dismissal, and all other times. 

 But Texas Department of Public Safety Director Steven McCraw as he blabbered whilst scapegoating teachers; two teachers died were slaughtered in that school. I will bet everything I have that those two teachers did everything tin their power to come between the students and the the bullets. 

Who were the heroes? The teachers. The cops were the ones that were chicken shit. 

I'm sick of this shit. It's senseless. These shooters hate life so much just go in the bathroom and put the barrel of the AR-15 in their mouths and pull the trigger. It worked for Pyle. 

https://twitter.com/RonFilipkowski/status/1530219824156139523?s=20&t=_x56KIbx75lNgOY9KCSqTAhttps://twitter.com/RonFilipkowski/status/1530219824156139523?s=20&t=_x56KIbx75lNgOY9KCSqTA

https://twitter.com/RonFilipkowski/status/1530219824156139523?s=20&t=_x56KIbx75lNgOY9KCSqTA

Yes, the ballots are out. I got my ballot in the mail on Monday. Simple for me. I am voting the UFC slate. No vote splitting for me. In 2019 I did not vote slate and vote for both Solidarity candidates and deserved candidates from Unity. In fact Chaz the Blogger was known to do this (here and here). Even NYCDOEnuts is doing so this year (here and here). I disagreed with them but as those who knew Chaz and know NYCDOEnuts know both men of their convictions. 

But something is amiss out there. Word has been filtering into the SBSB news room as well as to members of The Crack Team that a another form of ballot splitting occuring. Which can be quite ominous for the Unity ticket.

From what we here have heard is that many members of Unity are fed up with Mulgrew. That this year nstead of voting for the Unity slate,  these people with be voting  Camille Eterno for president and voting for the rest of Unity. 

Of course this is anecdotal, and some of it has come to us as second hand. But where there is smoke there is fire. So far in this election cycle we are seeing things never before seen from Unity. There have been attacks upon the opposition on Twitter and a professionally created web page. We have seen talking points and slogans that seem to have originated with focus groups and let's not forget one more thing; The smell of real fear coming from Unity. 

Now of course we don't know how many in Unity are ballot splitting. We don't know if those that are taking this path are "official" members of Unity or just regular rank and file teachers like you and me. Heck, we don't even know if its a few dozen or so who are doing this or if there are hundreds. There is no way to know. But what we do know this years election cycle is different than in years past. 

What does this say about Unity if that many are fed up with Mulgrew? Look long term. The worst thing for Unity would not be for it to lose the election, but to get under sixty percent of the vote. At least a total lost there probably will be people willing to fall upon there swords and have the foresight to reform the caucus. But if Unity stays in control and loses a significant percentage of votes the bloodletting can and will begin. It's time for the Unity house of cards to have some damage.

Several days ago, in what then was a tongue in cheek blog post, we here at SBSB suggested that my cat Sparkles, run for UFT president.

Apparently when we were all asleep Sparkles manages to read that post and sat down with me to discuss the possibility. She has spent the last several days contemplating a run and today decided to sit down with members of The Crack Team to announce her decision and share her policy points.

Here now is the entire "presser" held by Sparkles, with myself offering the translation from cat talk to English, completely unedited.

Sparkles, you called us to your home today telling us you have a major announcement. What is it?

I have decided to throw my hat in the ring and run for president of the UFT

Which caucus nominated you? In fact which caucus are you with?

Careful there bub. I have yet to be nominated. I find it presumptuous to nominate oneself or even influence others to nominate me.

As for which caucus I am aligned with, that would be the MORE caucus. You can say I represent teachers that are cat owners. 

And just what is it you have done for teachers that own cats? 

I have started the UFT Kitty Alliance FB page (Well I didn't start that someone else did), Don't Tread on Teacher Kitty Owners, I have been there for teachers when they need to talk to someone about their kitty coughing up hair balls, I have begun many websites and list servs as well.

And have you engaged in any picketing in favor of teachers that own cats? 

No. Basically it is a waste of time picketing a school with only 8 people and one of those 8 are wearing a Captain Picard uniform. Picketing is all well and good but basically, without community support, or the "real" media involved, you basically look like a bunch of schmucks out there.

It's better to establish a presence within the school to hand out information extolling the caucus, i.e. when are meetings, people to contact, etc... Also to reach out personally to other groups in the community. Picketing, unless you truly narrowly target where you are picketing, such as an unexpected place, makes you look like a bunch of schmucks. 

Now mind you, there are cat owning teachers that have been discontinued, brought up on 3020-a charges, are being harassed, but empty gestures can only raise their level of expectations which in the end will disappoint them.

So all these social media pages have they affected any change within the DOE or the UFT?

You're joking, right?

Why do you expect to be nominated?

I don't. If I do, fine, if I don't fine. Democracy rules. I can honestly tell you there are people more worthy than myself to be UFT president. My owner has listed them here.

Speaking of which, I feel blogs have more (Pardon the pun) influence and more reach, at least the popular ones, such as Ednotes, Chaz, NYC Educator, SBSB, Raging Horse, ICE, DOENUTS, than picketing and all that stuff. The above blogs are what the people read!

Some say that James Eterno will be nominated. What would you do if he is? Will you put up a fight?

I will graciously step aside and support James. Remember, anyone can own a restaurant not everyone can be a 5 star chef and it is the chef that brings in the people to the restaurant.

And on that note James once made me a liver, chicken and cheese påté that was to die for!

If James is not nominated and you are, would you offer James the position of UFT Secretary?

I don't know if James would accept that job. I would like to have James be my closest advisor, much as Clark Clifford had been to many presidents. Anyway I am thinking of having my good friend, Bill the Cat be secretary.

Editors note: It was at this point that Sparkles got distracted by birds flying by the window and then she decided to clean herself. 

And if you are nominated, what can we expect?

You can expect to have someone there to work their butt off for every UFT member there is and I will put in place throughout the entire UFT only those that will put members first. I will not have an ego, I will allow anyone to come to me if they disagree with me and I will not be vindictive, I will not have a hissy fit, and I will be mature with those who are of independent thought.

Last question, what can the rank and file expect from a Sparkles presidency? 

It will be a union run buy the teachers, for the teachers. If I become president, God willing, I will stand before the rank and file a humbled kitty. That all egos will be checked at the door and that each member of the union is as important a cog in the wheel as me or anyone.

Thank you for allowing me this time. I now want to take a nap. Godspeed to all. 

And there you have it. Sparkles threw her hat in the nominating process.

After a prolific January of posting, I am finally getting to my first blog post for the month of February and in two weeks!

So much has been on my mind of late. One thing that has sat on the front of my brain for some time is the guest blog post by the Original NYCDoenuts written on January 19, 2014. There is so much I want to share to what DOEnuts wrote, so much about what he had written that hits home in so many ways. The best way I can share and expand on what he wrote is in my own special way.

From day 1 in this business I was told not to trust anyone. Me being cynical as it is, I have no problem not trusting people. It's what I do.

On the other hand I am loyal to people. I won't go behind someone's back, I am there for a friend if needed, and I will support friends, and especially teacher's to the nth degree.

Which is all the more painful for we see it in this business day after day after day.

It's the taker. The fair weather friend. The friend who unloads all their tsuris (Yiddish for heartburn) on you and when it is time for that person to come through for you, well they disappear, not showing an ounce of concern for you, not lifting a finger to listen to you or to take the time for you the way you did for them. This type of person takes, they need, it's all "gimmee, gimmee."

I have no problem helping teachers. There are plenty of teachers out there that have been through or are going through what I currently going through and I have, and will continue, to do whatever I can and must do for them. I'm not going to name names, but some of these teachers have not only given me invaluable technical advice, but emotional advice as well, and I will be forever indebted to them.

Maybe I shouldn't look at others, whether they are there for me or not through the prism of my values, my life experiences, the accepted social morés of the day. Perhaps it is time that I stop this idealizing and accept the vapid self obsessed for what they truly are. Set my expectations so low that it shan't bother me when I hear the, "mine, mine, mine." Or, "It's mine, all mine," 

Now mind you, I would rather deal with this type of person any day over someone who attempts to seperate you from your direct deposit, otherwise known as a rat. But this will be explored in the next blog post.

But I guess that is par for the course in this business. We live, we learn, we get burned. But I won't stop helping or doing whatever I can.

A special welcome and a special thank you for guest blogging, to one of The Crack Team's favorite bloggers, OLD NYCDOEnuts who was the originator of NYCDOEnuts blog. Kind of like the two Darrin Stevens. With OLD NYCDoenuts as Dick York.


The Crack Team is lying around the SBSB newsroom yesterday when an email from DOEnuts come in. DOEnuts had left witness protection, has something to say and needs a platform (He has reached out to other bloggers as well).

After checking to make sure their were no vulgarities in his message, nothing that might come across as offensive, assuring that any member of a family can read this without blushing, and getting a promise from NYCDOEnuts that he will take The Crack Team out for wings and beer, we are publishing his,- can we say manifesto? welcome back letter? essay? treatise?- here tonight.

Note: Bold, italics, and spelling corrections were added by The Crack Team


A friend at a party during the Bloomberg years:
Friend: “Hey Chuck, it’s nice to meet you”
Stranger: “Thanks. Sooooooo, you’re a teacher?”
Friend: “Yeah, man. It’s a great job. ‘Been at it for ten years now. What do you do?”
Stranger: “I’m a lawyer with DOE legal. I fire teachers for a living”
Friend: “Sh** man. That’s what you do for a living? How do you like it?”
Stranger: “Bonuses are good”


Some people don’t care about these exchanges. Others will pretend to care about them only when it serves their purpose.  As a teacher -one who has lived through the Bloomberg days and has been a direct victim of his attacks from his minions- I care about them. That’s why I’m proud to be able to say that I will be joining with Francesco Portelos’ Don’t Tread on Education effort. One of the things Francesco is seeking to do is to defend teachers who have been attacked by ruthless administrators by educating them about the tactics that are being used to destroy teachers’ careers. This is an altogether worthy endeavor and I look forward to putting my best effort into it.

It’s also a very noble effort! It is a very noble thing to devote large chunks of your personal life so that others may benefit. This is especially true if you’re like Francesco and have experienced the true attacks the department can launch on your livelihood. Answering those attacks in such a way that the next guy doesn’t have to experience them is probably the most high minded thing that a person can do and Francesco is a hero to me (and many of us)  for leading the way.

My own resume toward stopping the attacks on good teachers isn’t entirely empty. I have, in the past, written in defense of Francesco as well as another dear friend who’s life was turned upside down by the vicious attacks of Bloomberg’s employees. I have found proof that perhaps as many as 12,000 teachers have faced this process since just 2008 alone and I once spent months researching the use of state funds and uncovered as much as $37 million being spent just on the salaries of arbitrators who hear and decide the cases the DOE make as it asks to fire teachers. I’ve written and researched court cases, went and watched oral arguments and have pleaded with colleagues (some at MORE) to reassess their opinions of teachers who had been accused -all in the hopes of supporting teachers who were attacked. I don’t think I’ve done nearly enough toward this effort. Certainly not as much as true, dedicated heroes like Norm Scott, Betsy Combier (oh and here), James Eterno as well as heroes who blog under monikers like, NYCEducator Assailedteacher, Perdido Street School , AccountableTalk, Raginghorse, Chaz’ School Daze, SouthBronxSchool and Francesco Portelos’ have done. They’ve done more –and in a more thorough and thoughtful way- for a longer period time than an ant like me ever could. I’m a spec on the battlefield of defending teachers. But I’m an honest, forthright spec who knows he can no longer be sit back and watch a department try to fire teachers for things like:

·   Posting one thoughtless comment on Facebook after work (from a lady who is a wonderful teacher and whom I’m proud to call my friend today).
·   Bluffing: making students feel that their antics in the boys room was being filmed in an effort to get them to stop putting toilet paper in the bathroom
·   Allowing an angry parent to go home with a note written on a napkin
·   Farting in class
·   Calling himself an asshole in public
·   Making one comment to a female teacher (despite an immediate apology continued apologies since)
·   Telling a student he was so proud of her test score he could kiss her (in a public class, with clear intent of showing pride for the good work she had done).

These aren’t made up stories, folks! These are true stories from the Bloomberg years. Career teachers –beloved by the colleagues and their students- have faced firings for these precise actions. If there is a practice in the Department of Education that must end, the enfettered harassment of teachers by cold and callous lawyer-driven system is one of them and I am very blessed to have been asked to be a part of it.

My intent is to devote every non-working, non-parenting, waking hour to Francesco’s effort to educate teachers and help them defend themselves. I will be skipping my second Master’s Degree program for this effort (I can’t study for my 30 above and spend real efforts defending teachers and if I have to choose one I choose to help protect teachers), but I’m cool with it.

Just one thing: If I’m going to dedicate a large part of my adult life to this effort, I want to make sure that the teachers who I work to defend are really decent people and real teachers. We have a hard truth to face  before we get started and it’s one that I’ve never publicly faced before: There are bad teachers in this system. There are, sad to say, some teachers I won’t be able to bring myself to defend. I won’t, for instance, defend the teacher who snuck Heroin into a courthouse. I know he got his job back and I hope he does well in the classroom. But I’m old fashioned and I don’t think drug users who carry their drugs into public buildings, are good role models.  And then there is the obvious stuff like inappropriateness with staff or students, stealing, threatening or hurting anyone. I can’t defend that.  But there are also a few things I won’t stand to defend either. Therefore,  I would like to submit the following list of standards that teachers need to reach in order to earn my defense of them. I can -and will- work to defend you, as long as you don’t do any of the following things:

You can’t bash or disparage virtually all of the other teachers within your own building and make them all your enemy. It takes a special kind of contrarian to do this. Usually one who isn’t well.
Sorry, DOEnuts doesn’t go-to-bat for crazies.

You can’t bash students that you teach and claim that you ‘could give a sh__ less about them’ in the teachers’ lounge. Kids are the only reason I have a job, bub. I believe in them. You should too.

You can’t be “that guy” who has no relationship with teachers you’ve worked with for twenty years. I worked with this guy who comes from a different school and when ATRs from his old school come in a stay for a week, they ask us to help them avoid this guy like the plague. No lie! We’re stashing people in the back of classrooms and work romos because they’re totally freaked out by this guy.  That’s not a good sign. I hope “that guy” doesn’t get himself into any trouble, but lord knows I won’t stick up for him.

While I’m on the thought, you can’t earn the reputation of being a dangerous, deceitful, lying snake in the grass. This poor guy has been described -by his former colleagues- with words like “spiteful”, “petty” and “dangerous. DOENuts doesn’t have the time, nor near the inclination to help you out if you’re like that).

Avoid being an ingrate to friends who have helped you out (you know, man. If a friend helps you get a job at a school or something and, I’m just saying, the first thing you do is tell everyone that he is a “piece of sh__” and “didn’t invent the wheel” and is a terrible “excuse of a teacher”, then I can’t stand by you (hey, the last guy who stood by you got a knife in his back. What’d ya think I’m going to get?)

Repeatedly curse in the hallway in front of students (I have a thing about this. Please don’t do it).
Work hard to have other teachers do your work for you. I have a thing about this, too.  Please don’t do it. Other teachers aren’t there to do your work, are they? Are they getting part of your check for;

• Writing lesson plans
• Tallying report card grades
• Taking daily attendance
• Calling parents

Or any host of other things? I didn’t think so. Earn your check, man!

Finally, I can’t help you out if you’re a bully. I hate bullies. Hey man, everyone wants that special parking spot or that primo classroom. Bullying your way into getting it isn’t going to help me to help you. DOENuts doesn’t help bullies who have been bullied.


If you don’t do any of these things, then I can defend you.  Mind you, If you’ve done one or two of these things, then I will still be absolutely be happy to defend you! But if you look deep inside and honestly know that you have done more than three, or even more than four of these things, then you shouldn’t count on me. DOENuts defends the ones with good hearts and pure intentions. My sympathies lie with them and if you’re not one of us, well then, DOENuts could give a crap less about you.

So, in short, if you’re there for kids and there for your colleagues, and a half way OK human being, I will not rest until you have been defended by the new group I work for.

But if you are one of these people who could care less about anyone in the world but yourself;. if you use people. If you lie to people. And if you hurt the ones around you, I won’t stand by you. I may even put the blade in your chest myself.


I digress!! I have a message for the folks who wake up early every day, work hard on behalf of  students and have been marked for an Accuse and Remove by the department, It’s a message that speaks loud and clear and does not mince words: You are not alone! Francesco Portelos is one his way (and he’s got a blogger from the Apocalypse riding shotgun!)