To the Editor:

As a long-time school psychologist, I was pleased to finally receive my SESIS reimbursement. However satisfying that money is, and this was truly a union victory by the UFT, I remain bitter about the entire SESIS endeavor.

Though their own SESIS pilot studies were not satisfactory, the DOE proceeded to roll out the system in the spring of 2011. Whatever training sessions were given were often at regional offices almost impossible to reach, and such sessions filled up quickly and were closed. Yet the DOE implemented the system on an all-or-nothing basis.

From the outset, the SESIS system was complicated, confusing and, most of all, inaccurate. When problems arose, we were told that there were “known issues.” Calling the SESIS help line often required as long as an hour’s wait time.

Two years later, the SESIS system remains an impediment to our jobs. To prepare a new IEP literally takes hours — that is, if the system is indeed running smoothly at the time. After all my years of doctoral training as a clinical psychologist, my job with the DOE now involves spending the majority of my hours “fighting” with my computer to enter work on the SESIS system — all while the neediest of children in my school receive less and less clinical attention from the school providers.

Even after two years, the system remains broken. That the DOE now needed to pay out $38 million to UFT members only indicates this system to be another colossal folly of the DOE bureaucracy.

Bradley Atlas, Ph.D., PS41 and PS 94, Queens