St. Paul educators set March 11 strike deadline, seek community support

February 28, 2024 by

SPFE members rallied for a contract before a school board meeting in January.

Union educators in the St. Paul Public Schools are giving the district two weeks to settle their contracts. Otherwise, the St. Paul Federation of Educators’ 3,689 members – teachers, education assistants and school professionals – will go on strike March 11.

Outside the state Bureau of Mediation Services, where union representatives on Monday filed an official notice of their intent to strike, SPFE President Leah VanDassor said the district would need to significantly improve its contract proposals on wages, health insurance and student supports to prevent a strike.

“This is about retention,” VanDassor said. “This is about stability. This is about valuing what goes on in those classrooms in our schools.”

Representatives of SPFE and the district will meet with a state mediator Friday – their last scheduled session before the union’s strike deadline, although other dates could be added.

Last Friday, the two sides held their first mediation session since SPFE members voted overwhelmingly to authorize a strike Feb. 15. The vote, VanDassor said, should have sent a powerful message that educators are “enthusiastically ready” to stand together “to show, as a working group, that we need to be respected,” she said.

But district leaders continue to claim educators’ demands – even a scaled-back economic proposal passed across the table last Friday – exceeded the amount SPPS has budgeted for the contract, despite a record $56 million funding increase delivered by state lawmakers last session.

“While we agree that our staff deserve more for their hard work on behalf of our students, we also have to live with the resources available to us without compromising the services and programs that our students need and deserve,” Halla Henderson, school board chair, said during a press conference yesterday.

The board met in closed session Monday to discuss negotiations.

SPFE, meanwhile, has set up an online form for supporters to email board members. VanDassor said District negotiators “claim the Board of Education sets the parameters” for how much of the SPPS budget can go toward the educators’ contract.

“If that’s what happening here, then the board needs to change those parameters,” she said. “We have an educator shortage that’s only getting worse, not better. We’re asking for a budget that reflects that reality.”

VanDassor also asked supporters, especially parents of SPPS students, to offer their solidarity to educators and staff as the strike deadline nears, whether in person at a school or online via the union’s social media channels.

She emphasized that educators do not take the decision to set a strike deadline lightly.

“Our bargaining team is doing everything in its power to reach a settlement before that time and will continue to do so,” she said.

– Michael Moore, Union Advocate editor

Filed Under: Politics, Union Events Tagged With: , , , , ,

School board ducks meeting after striking workers plan to show

February 15, 2023 by

Laurie Potthoff, a food service worker at Hastings High School, speaks during an impromptu union rally after school board members canceled their scheduled meeting.

Striking food service workers in Hastings have a lot of questions for members of the local school board, who were scheduled to have a public meeting this afternoon.

Why won’t the district come back to the bargaining table?

Why does the superintendent deserve a 6% raise when 2% is the best he can offer food service workers?

What’s changed since the height of the pandemic, when frontline staff were praised as heroes for helping deliver thousands of meals to the community?

Unfortunately for workers, the board abruptly canceled its noon meeting, avoiding a face-to-face encounter with workers like Laurie Potthoff, a high school cook who spoke during a rally outside Kennedy Elementary instead of before the board.

“We are ready to settle this strike, and we are ready to go back and feed the kids. But the board won’t meet with us,” said Potthoff, who has six years of experience with the district. “Come on, school board. Bring us back to the table.”

In bargaining, the district’s negotiators have held firm that most food service workers should accept 35- to 40-cent raises. If the district’s elected leaders share that position, they should look workers in the eye and say as much, Service Employees (SEIU) Local 284 Executive Director Kelly Gibbons said.

“I have a message for the Hastings School Board,” Gibbons said. “Shame on you. Shame on you for not coming to the table and not coming to this meeting and talking to these workers.”

Local 284 represents the 35 food service workers who have been on strike since Feb. 7.

Workers have refused to accept the district’s offer to raise their wages by 2%, with a one-time bonus. Union members want the wage scale increased by $3 per hour, and they say one-time bonuses won’t do enough to keep Hastings’ pay competitive with other districts in the area.

Starting pay for food service workers in the nearby South Washington County School District is $16.50, compared to $3.85 per hour in Hastings, where some workers with three years of experience are making just $15.05 per hour.

Hastings workers also accuse the district of inequitable treatment when it comes to ensuring a minimum number of work hours, and they are fighting to maintain affordable dental and family insurance premiums.

Striking food service workers picket outside Kennedy Elementary in Hastings.

The two sides, who had been working with a state mediator, haven’t met since Feb. 2, despite requests from the union to resume talks.

Instead of sitting down with workers, school administrators attempted last week to bully SEIU members back to work, sending out letters that warned they would lose their health care benefits and citing “End of Employment” as the reason.

It is illegal to fire striking workers under Minnesota public sector labor law. Members who have paid into their health insurance should have access to their benefits through the end of the month, Local 284 Executive Director Kelly Gibbons said.

“The district should be coming to the table to find a fair deal to get these incredible workers back on the job feeding Hastings students,” Gibbons added. “Instead they are sending letters that are misleading and possibly even illegal, hoping to scare our members into accepting a contract.”

Gibbons, a former school food service worker herself, said she hasn’t seen “such solidarity and commitment from a group of workers in a long time.”

The Hastings community, meanwhile, has shown striking workers overwhelming support, with multiple deliveries of food and drinks to the picket line. The feeling is mutual, according to Potthoff, who said she and her co-workers are ready to “get the warm meals back into our students’ bellies so they have the nourishment they need.”

“A frozen sandwich does not cut it,” she added.

The school board’s next scheduled public meeting is Wednesday, Feb. 22.

Filed Under: Organizing, Union Events Tagged With: , , , , , ,

Educators frustrated by plan to uproot St. Paul students

October 15, 2021 by

Art teacher Lindsay Walker greeted returning students at Benjamin E. Mays elementary school with sidewalk chalk and confetti in one of several back-to-school celebrations staged by members of the St. Paul Federation of Educators last month.

Plans to close five schools in St. Paul and merge or consolidate 10 others drew a swift rebuke from union educators, who called the proposal heavy handed, shortsighted and disruptive to students and families.

Members of the St. Paul school board received the recommendations, generated through a realignment process called Envision SPPS, from district administrators during a special meeting Oct. 11.

The board is scheduled to take action on the proposals Nov. 16.

Officials can expect to hear plenty of public response before then, members of the St. Paul Federation of Educators said, after not doing enough to engage the community while putting together the plan.

First-grade teacher Annaka Larson said Envision SPPS working groups never convened a meeting with stakeholders at Wellstone Elementary, where she teaches in the Spanish dual immersion program. Staff were stunned to find out the school was among those slated to be closed.

“The idea that you would make a decision about the bilingual program without consulting teachers, without consulting families? It’s incredibly frustrating. We worked so hard to build that program,” Larson said.

Seeking the ‘correct alignment’

If the school board approves the Envision SPPS recommendations, Wellstone and four other elementary schools – Highwood Hills, Jackson, John A. Johnson and Obama – would close before the start of next school year. Obama would reopen as a magnet school after a remodeling project.

LEAP High School would also close next fall, and 10 other schools, mostly elementary, would merge or consolidate programming. Most of the impacted schools share a low “utilization rate,” meaning their enrollments fall well below their building capacities, compared to other schools in the district.

Administrators justified the upheaval as necessary to ensure students have access to specialists and enrichment opportunities, which smaller schools can’t always afford. Jackie Turner, SPPS’s chief of operations, pitched the plan to board members as a step toward right-sizing the district’s programming with its declining enrollment – a key factor in state and federal funding formulas.

“We need to make sure we have correct alignment,” Turner said.

Where’s the plan to grow?

Birth rates are declining in St. Paul. So, too, is the district’s “capture rate,” or the share of school-age children residing in the district who enroll in SPPS schools. In the 2012-13 school year, SPPS drew 67% of eligible students. It has since fallen closer to 60%.

But educators worry that uprooting hundreds of students – and drastically changing the learning environments of hundreds more – will prompt more families to consider open enrollment in another district or a charter school, draining more funds from SPPS and, ultimately, leading to another realignment down the road.

“I don’t think they’ve considered how these changes might push families further away,” said Peter Ratzloff, a science teacher at Galtier Community School, where students will relocate to Hamline Elementary as part of a merger.

Educators, Ratzloff said, want a plan to bring students back to SPPS, while it seems administrators “are just looking to make the numbers work.”

A step away from equity

The proposed realignment also raised equity concerns. SPFE President Leah VanDassor said Envision SPPS would leave programming in the city’s predominantly white neighborhoods mostly intact, while the East Side and West Side neighborhoods would see big disruptions.

“These buildings that are closing are the buildings that have, specifically, not been funded over the years, and now they’re being closed,” she said. “Chronic underfunding has brought us to where we are, and so has lack of foresight about how charter schools would impact our district.”

Those concerns have been echoed by labor-endorsed candidates for school board this fall: James Farnsworth, Halla Henderson, Clayton Howatt and Uriah Ward.

“If we accept this an equity issue, consolidating is a step away from that goal,” said Ward, a financial aid counselor at Augsburg University, during a candidate forum sponsored by SPFE this fall.

“There’s nothing equitable about shuffling students and closing schools,” added Henderson, a policy director at the MN Alliance with Youth. “When we’re taking resources away from our communities, all we’re doing is continuing to disenfranchise and defund communities that desperately need those resources.”

Farnsworth, a graduate of the district who works as director of the Highland Business Association, criticized the district for failing to work in partnership with staff and families on Envision SPPS.

“Families deserve upmost transparency,” he said. “The biggest thing that’s missing is any sort of real engagement structure in this.”

Howatt, a PTO president who works in construction, said the district needs a plan to increase enrollment, and it must include dealing with charter schools directly. He supports pushing a moratorium on new charters while experts study their impact.

“While SPPS is looking at closing elementary schools, two more charter schools are slated to open next year and another two or three the year after,” Howatt said. “This system of taking a limited amount of resources – our students, our tax dollars – and spreading it thinner and thinner, it makes no common sense.”

‘Mad and fired up’

Still, it’s likely decisions about Envision SPPS proposals will be made before new board members take office.

Educators and families, meanwhile, were already planning to push back at virtual public information sessions, scheduled by the district Oct. 26 and Nov. 8 from 6 to 7:30 p.m., and at listening sessions at the district office, 360 Colborne Ave., from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m. Oct. 28 and Nov. 11.

After the initial shock of learning Wellstone could close, Larson said, staff members’ mood soon changed to “extremely mad and fired up.”

“There was a meeting for families that I listened into, and families were confused and angry as well,” she added. “Wellstone is such a welcoming place. We have a very diverse student body and a diverse group of educators. I don’t understand why the district would want to mess that up.”

Filed Under: Community, Politics, Union Events Tagged With: , , , , , , , ,

SPFE sets strike vote, parent info session

February 11, 2020 by

SPFE members and community supporters rallied last month in support of the union’s contract campaign.

Members of the St. Paul Federation of Educators representing over 3,600 teachers, educational assistants, licensed professionals and other staff in the St. Paul Public Schools will hold a strike-authorization vote Feb. 20, leaders announced today.

In an e-mail to community supporters, members of the St. Paul Federation of Educators’ negotiating team said the union’s executive board called the strike vote in a unanimous vote last night.

“This decision was not made lightly, but we are certain that a strike vote is necessary if we hope to reach a settlement with the district that respects our students’ needs and honors our educators’ voices,” the e-mail says. “After nearly a year of negotiating, the District still isn’t taking our student-centered proposals seriously and has refused to have any real discussion around educator pay and benefits.”

Before the vote takes place, SPFE will hold an information session for parents to discuss what its bargaining proposals are – and why educators are willing to strike for them. The session will begin at 10 a.m. Saturday, Feb. 15, at the union’s headquarters, located at 23 Empire Dr., St. Paul.

Additionally, SPFE is encouraging members, parents and community supporters to attend the district’s Feb. 18 school board meeting, hoping a last-ditch appeal to board members – many of whom were elected with labor endorsement – will lead to movement at the bargaining table.

Talks between SPPS and SPFE began last May. Union members offered 31 proposals based on the needs identified by educators, parents and other stakeholders. But the district refused to respond to most of them, and the two sides entered mediation in December.

Union proposals look to expand on gains made in recent contract campaigns, which focused on “building the schools St. Paul students deserve.” Educators’ top priorities would increase mental-health supports for their students, reduce special-ed caseloads and expand families’ access to multilingual services.

Rank-and-file union members signaled “overwhelming support” for those priorities – and for calling a strike vote – in petitions circulated throughout the district’s 65-plus buildings, according to union leaders.

 

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Voters back labor-endorsed candidates, referendums in local elections

November 8, 2017 by

Union volunteers made phone calls in support of the Roseville school district’s bonding request at a phone bank hosted by the St. Paul Regional Labor Federation this fall.

Labor-endorsed candidates performed well in municipal and school-board elections across the East Metro area Nov. 7, while voters in four large suburban school districts approved major school-funding requests that drew support from local unions.

Kera Peterson, political director of the St. Paul Regional Labor Federation, which issues unified labor endorsements in local races, credited endorsed candidates for running good campaigns this fall.

“Several union members ran for local office in the East Metro and, as a result, Election Day turned out to be a good one for kids and communities,” Peterson said. “Their interests will be well represented by the people that the Regional Labor Federation helped to elect.”

School boards

The three labor-endorsed candidates for St. Paul school board won comfortably. Incumbents Jeanelle Foster and John Brodrick gained re-election, and challenger Marny Xiong, a former union organizer with SEIU Healthcare Minnesota, was the leading vote getter.

Labor-endorsed candidates Craig Angrimson, Art Coulson and Mike Roseen swept three seats up for grabs on the Rosemount-Apple Valley-Eagan school board. Angrimson is former president of Operating Engineers Local 35 and a delegate to the St. Paul Regional Labor Federation.

In White Bear Lake, all four labor-endorsed candidates won: Deborah Beloyed, Kim Chapman, Jessica Ellison and Don Mullin. Mullin is executive secretary of the St. Paul Building and Construction Trades Council and a longtime member of the Painters and Allied Trades Union.

Sean Brown, a member of the Carpenters union and the labor-endorsed candidate in a special election for South Washington County School Board, lost by just 287 votes in a tightly contested five-person race.

School funding

Several school districts put requests for operating levies and capital-improvement bonds to voters in the East Metro this year, and the Regional Labor Federation endorsed referendum campaigns in six districts.

Operating levy requests passed in the Burnsville-Eagan-Savage and White Bear Lake districts, but failed in the Forest Lake and Rush City districts. Voters approved bonding requests in the Mounds View and Roseville districts, but rejected a request in Forest Lake.

The results in Mounds View and Roseville will inject a combined $300 million into construction projects in suburbs north of St. Paul.

“These bonding initiatives are a win-win for working people in our communities,” St. Paul Regional Labor Federation President Bobby Kasper said. “They ease the constant strain on our school districts’ operating budgets and serve as a critical investment in our students’ learning environment.

“Bonding projects also keep our brothers and sisters in the Construction Trades working to build our communities, something they take an incredible amount of pride in doing.”

Municipal races

In municipal elections, labor-endorsed Mark Miazga won one of two open seats on the Falcon Heights City Council. In New Brighton, Mayor Valerie Johnson won her re-election bid with labor backing, and Graeme Allen, an organizer with the Minneapolis Regional Labor Federation, won a seat on the City Council.

Filed Under: Politics Tagged With: , , , ,

Bobby Kasper: Union candidates share our values, amplify our voice

October 24, 2017 by

Bobby Kasper

Every election cycle our unions interview and consider endorsing candidates for public office, from local school boards and city councils to the Legislature and Congress. We want to know which candidates share our values. We want to know who stands with us on issues that matter to working families, like affordable health care, quality schools and a fair economy.

As someone who has been through more of these candidate screenings than I could count, I can say this with absolute certainty: No one understands our issues better – or articulates our priorities with greater clarity – than union members. Too often candidates seek our support without understanding the issues that keep our unions strong, like prevailing wages, collective bargaining rights and labor-peace agreements.

That isn’t the case with these three labor-endorsed candidates for school boards in the East Metro, all of whom deserve our support in the Nov. 7 elections.

• Craig Angrimson. If he’s elected to the Rosemount-Apple Valley-Eagan school board (ISD No. 196), Craig won’t need a crash course in what labor unions are all about. Since exiting the Marine Corps, Angrimson has spent his entire career in the labor movement, working for Northwest Airlines as a Machinist from 1987 to 2006 and, later, as a chief wastewater operator for the Met Council. Within three years of taking that job, Craig was elected president of Operating Engineers Local 35, which recently merged with Local 49. He is a member of the St. Paul Regional Labor Federation Executive Board.

After working union his whole life, Angrimson has little time for those who would build or improve school buildings without a Project Labor Agreement, or seek to privatize any district employee’s job.

He has lived in District 196 for 25 years, and his daughter, Rachel, graduated from high school in 2015. Craig is exactly the kind of elected official we need. Whether we’re parents, taxpayers or employees in the district, he’s walked in our shoes.

• Sean Brown. A longtime member of the Carpenters union, Sean is seeking a two-year term on the South Washington County School Board (ISD No. 833). Like Craig Angrimson, Sean has deep roots in the district, with two stepchildren currently attending Woodbury High School and a daughter who graduated in 2014.

Voters who see Sean’s name on their ballot also will see three levy questions that, if approved by voters, would preserve the district’s fiscal health and invest in upgrades to aging classroom technologies. Sean has been a supporter of these levy requests from the start, and it’s a big reason he earned the endorsement of teachers in his district. Without levy support, the district would face cuts that threaten to increase class sizes, reduce course offerings and eliminate extracurricular activities.

• Don Mullin. A second-generation trade show decorator and member of the Painters and Allied Trades union, Don is seeking re-election to the White Bear Lake Area School Board (ISD No. 624) after winning a seat four years ago.

Don currently serves as Executive Secretary of the St. Paul Building and Construction Trades Council. He understands better than anyone the skills young adults need to enter the workforce – and how our public schools can prepare them for the next step in their career, whether that’s a four-year college, a vocational school or an apprenticeship program.

Most importantly, Don understands, as Sean and Craig do, that the primary job of school board members is to equip teachers and other professionals with the tools they need to do what’s best for our children. As union members, we know that by working together and having each other’s back we can achieve great things. It’s a lesson some in Washington, D.C. would do well to learn.

– Bobby Kasper is president of the St. Paul Regional Labor Federation, AFL-CIO, representing more than 100 affiliate unions with over 50,000 members in Chisago, Dakota, Ramsey and Washington counties. Find a complete list of the federation’s endorsements at www.stpaulunions.org.

 

Filed Under: Labor Voices Tagged With: , , , ,

Union plumbers step up to keep St. Paul Schools’ water safe

November 21, 2016 by

Tom McCarthy (R), president of St. Paul Plumbers Local 34, received the thanks of St. Paul school board chair Jon Schumacher during the board’s Nov. 15 meeting.

Tom McCarthy (R), president of St. Paul Plumbers Local 34, received the thanks of St. Paul school board chair Jon Schumacher during the board’s Nov. 15 meeting.

Union plumbers are stepping up to make sure drinking water is safe for students and staff in the St. Paul Public Schools.

The district recently finished testing all water fixtures in its buildings for lead. While more than 95 percent of fixtures passed the initial test, maintenance staff identified 233 fixtures that needed replacing.

At the Board of Education’s Nov. 15 meeting, Plumbers Local 34 President Tom McCarthy informed school board members that union members had voted to donate $25,000 toward the lead-mitigation effort.

Facilities management staff members said they were inspired to conduct the lead tests ahead of schedule after reading the news about lead poisoning in Flint, Mich.

Filed Under: Community Tagged With: , , , , , ,

Community support gives North Branch teachers momentum as contract talks resume

February 5, 2016 by

web.NorthBranch-line2

North Branch teachers rallied with supporters on back-to-back days this week, sending a clear message to school board members and administrators before contract negotiations resumed today.

“We’re not in this alone,” industrial tech teacher Irv Geary said. “We’re all in this together. And it’s not just a teacher issue; it’s a community issue.”

North Branch teachers and supporters line the street in front of district offices during a contract-campaign rally.

North Branch teachers and supporters line the street in front of district offices during a contract-campaign rally.

Geary, a lead negotiator for the North Branch Education Association and its 200 educator, said talks with the district on a new contract have moved at a glacial pace since teachers’ previous contract expired June 30, 2015.

The union’s bargaining team met three times with school board members before November, union Co-President Stacy Johnstone said. The board then requested assistance from a state mediator, who facilitated one meeting in December and scheduled another for today.

“Teachers deserve a respectful process and a timely process,” Johnstone said. “Here it’s February, and we’re still trying to come to the table.”

According to a tally provided by Education Minnesota earlier this week, 173 of 356 bargaining units statewide have settled contracts with their school districts, or 48.6 percent.

But Johnstone, a transition-age special education teacher, said dragging out negotiations has become “standard practice” for North Branch administrators in recent years. That takes a toll on teachers’ energy and morale, she warned.

“This is amazing energy,” Johnstone said of the 50-plus people lining the sidewalk outside a North Branch campus, holding signs and waving at vehicles as they passed buy. “But we could be home grading papers and writing lesson plans. We’re just ready to get our full focus back in the classroom.”

Pay is a sticking point in negotiations. Veteran teachers’ salaries have remained virtually stagnant in recent years as the district boosted pay at the lower end of the scale, seeking to recruit younger teachers to the area.

“Our long-term teachers who have committed their whole careers to North Branch are feeling the pinch,” Johnstone said. “We’re really out rallying for them.”

Health benefits are at issue as well, she added: “In our last round of negotiations, we were able to finally get a boost in our health benefits, and now they want to take a part of that away. It’s not sitting well. It’s a little frustrating for our members.”

Members of the Kreitz family show their solidarity with North Branch teachers: Joanne (L) a paraprofessional in the district; Susan, a member of the MN Nurses Association; and Steve, 49er. "We've got to keep together or we fall," Susan said.

Members of the Kreitz family show their solidarity with North Branch teachers: Joanne (L) a paraprofessional in the district; Susan, a member of the MN Nurses Association; and Steve, 49er. “We’ve got to keep together or we fall,” Susan said.

Cars driving by the informational picket line Wednesday honked their horns in support of teachers, who waved and held signs reading “Respect our teachers” and “My base pay has increased 2.6% in 8 years.”

Paraprofessionals in the district, also members of Education Minnesota, and several members of other unions joined teachers at the rally. Among those represented were the Machinists, Minnesota Nurses Association, Building Trades and St. Paul Regional Labor Federation.

“We want happy teachers so we have smart kids,” Operating Engineers Local 49 member Steve Kreitz said.

“I think this is the face of North Branch, and they’re out here saying, ‘Hey, we stand with the teachers,’” Geary said. “I think that says a lot.”

Filed Under: Organizing, Union Events Tagged With: , , , , , , , , ,

Four for Change: Meet the Labor-endorsed St. Paul school board candidates

November 2, 2015 by

 

Maddy Lee, a senior at Harding High School in St. Paul, asks candidates for school board a question about the district’s discipline policies during a forum at the East Side Freedom Library. St.  Paul Federation of Teachers Local 28 sponsored the event, attended by all four labor-endorsed candidates for the board: (L to R) Jon Schumacher, Mary Vanderwert, Steve Marchese and Zuki Ellis.

Maddy Lee, a senior at Harding High School in St. Paul, asks candidates for school board a question about the district’s discipline policies during a forum at the East Side Freedom Library. St.  Paul Federation of Teachers Local 28 sponsored the event, attended by all four labor-endorsed candidates for the board: (L to R) Jon Schumacher, Mary Vanderwert, Steve Marchese and Zuki Ellis.

 

Four candidates for four open seats on the St. Paul school board have been endorsed by the St. Paul Federation of Teachers and the St. Paul Regional Labor Federation, AFL-CIO. Here are brief profiles of the candidates that appeared in The Union Advocate’s Election Guide in advance of the Nov. 3 election.

11209340_865531016818197_9128463057204661149_nZuki Ellis

• Union background: Former member, Bakery Workers Local 22. Her husband is a Minnesota Association of Professional Employees (MAPE) trustee.

• Best teacher she’s ever had: Ms. Betty Richardson, high-school English. “She wouldn’t let me get away with doing anything halfway, she challenged me and she introduced me to authors that I had never heard of,” Ellis said. “We had great conversations about books, and she made me feel like I was the smartest person in the room. I adored her and appreciated that nudge that she gave me to work hard.”

• On what it means to be labor endorsed: “It says to me that the vision of success, growth and empowerment that I have for all students of the St. Paul schools is supported by the men and women of this city who would like to see their children reach those same goals. Labor continues to be the backbone of our country, and it is wonderful knowing that the message I conveyed during this campaign is resonating with those who are connected and not connected with unions.”

marchese_headshotSteve Marchese

• Union background: Former AFSCME member while living in New York.

• Best teacher he’s ever had: Judy Alcaly, sixth grade. “She was originally from England and brought a whole different approach to how she taught,” Marchese said. “She gave me the opportunity to learn more about the world and a chance to do creative projects, like plan a lesson or do a radio broadcast of world events. She was creative, thoughtful and sophisticated in her approach.”

• On what it means to be labor endorsed: “As the son of a long-time Teamsters truck driver, I am very proud to have labor support. I know what unions have done for my family, enabling my father to make a living wage to provide for us.

“People coming together to work for a common goal is what has motivated my campaign for school board. This is the work unions do every day. We need to think about the community and how we support the workers who both work in our schools and send their children to our schools.”

16830_789029934466708_1610625907302473931_nJon Schumacher

• Union background: Member, SAG/AFTRA – Twin Cities Local, 30 years

• Best teacher he’s ever had: Ms. DeSart, junior-high French. “She brought joy, energy and clarity while challenging us to think and travel outside of our own cultures,” Schumacher said.

• On what it means to be labor endorsed: “Community is the core of everything we do. Building community around our public schools is critical to their success. Unions represent the best of community. They guarantee living-wage jobs and working conditions that give their members and families stability. That allows them to contribute to our communities with their time, talent and financial support.

“Receiving labor endorsements means that I can continue to build relationships with these strong and engaged community members to find ways to make our schools pathways to success for all our kids.”

10873436_1596440330590150_2869741665802944207_oMary Vanderwert

• Union background: Former member, AFSCME and MAPE.

• Best teacher she’s ever had: Bill Albrecht, third and fourth grades. “Because it was a very small school in a very small rural community, we could do frequent field trips to explore in nature,” Vanderwert said. “We seined for fish, hunted for arrow heads, had sledding outings and played soccer before school in the back yard. He showed me that learning was exciting, that nature was so very interesting and that we need to combine fun and music with whatever we do to keep our energy up. We learned the academic basics we needed but so much more about life and the world.”

• On what it means to be labor endorsed: “Unions have made our country productive, innovative, just and safe. In this time of anti-union rhetoric, we need to remember that our workers are the backbone of our economy and most of them parents of the children in our schools. They must be treated with respect and their work valued with fair wages. I have been impressed with the willingness of our unions to work not only in our schools but with our schools to provide opportunities for students to explore careers in the Trades. I hope we can work together to help our students with interest to be able to gain the skills they need to move into the higher education or other training they need to be active workers and members of the unions that will move our community forward.”

Filed Under: Politics Tagged With: , , , , , , , ,

In new report, St. Paul teachers give ‘cookie-cutter’ policies a failing grade

August 7, 2015 by

Panelists at the SPFT event yesterday included (L to R) Michael Diedrich, Caitlin Reid, Zuki Ellis, Steve Marchese. SPFT political organizer Patrick Burke moderated.

Panelists at the East Side Freedom Library yesterday included (L to R) Michael Diedrich, Caitlin Reid, Zuki Ellis, Steve Marchese. SPFT political organizer Patrick Burke moderated.

 

There is no one-size-fits-all solution for improving under-performing schools, according to a report issued yesterday by the St. Paul Federation of Teachers. To achieve lasting improvement, district leaders must engage a school’s surrounding community and address the unique, underlying challenges in students’ neighborhoods, homes and lives.

That’s the conclusion policy researcher Michael Diedrich, author of the SPFT report, reached after a deep analysis of efforts to turn around one under-performing school in the St. Paul district, Frogtown’s Maxfield Elementary.

Diedrich discussed his report, “Capacity, Context and Community: Learning from School Improvement Policy at Maxfield Elementary,” at the East Side Freedom Library yesterday with teachers, union activists and two labor-endorsed candidates for school board, Zuki Ellis and Steve Marchese.

The panel also included Maxfield Elementary teacher Caitlin Reid, who began teaching at the school shortly before it received a three-year federal School Improvement Grant (SIG) to address “widespread misbehavior” resulting from “layers of dysfunction” inside and outside the building, according to Diedrich’s report.

The additional funding from 2010 to 2013 allowed Maxfield to add teachers and support professionals, invest in technology and extend students’ learning time. “Incidents of misbehavior dropped, and the responses to the remaining incidents were more thorough and constructive,” Diedrich’s report said.

With more support staff, students received more individual or small-group attention for everything from reinforcing a lesson to addressing misbehavior. But when the three-year grant ran out, Reid said, many of those support professionals disappeared.

“We saw a lot of cuts early on after the SIG,” she said. “The biggest cuts that affected us were some of the staff who did math and reading support.”

Now behavior issues are on the rise at Maxfield again, and the school has been designated a “priority school” under the Minnesota Measurements Rating system. The SIG, Diedrich said, “didn’t work very well for producing long-term change” at Maxfield.

Report author Michael Diedrich, a former English teacher at Brooklyn Center High School, is an education policy researcher.

Report author Michael Diedrich, a former English teacher at Brooklyn Center High School, is an education policy researcher.

Why not? And what can the district learn from ongoing attempts to turn Maxfield around? Panelists laid out three key responses during their discussion yesterday.

• Underlying factors behind a school’s performance matter, and policymakers who ignore those unique factors will most likely fail.

“We don’t want another cookie-cutter solution because it’s not going to work,” Reid said. “We’re not the same as every other school” that is under-performing.

Ellis said she hopes to change the St. Paul Public Schools’ approach if elected to the board. Rather than handing down policy directives without seeking input from “any parent or any teacher in that building,” Ellis said she would engage teachers, parents and community stakeholders “more thoughtfully and effectively,” asking them, “What do you need and how can we support that?”

• Engaging parents and involving the school’s community are critical to improving student performance.

“Public schools are meant to serve their communities,” Diedrich said. “One of the best ways we do that is by involving the community in making our school better.”

Reid said several Maxfield teachers have visited students’ homes as part of the union’s Parent Teacher Home Visit Project, and it’s led to greater parental investment in Maxfield’s programming. “We’re building that community of parents and teachers working together to address issues,” she said. “For me, it’s been career changing.”

• There are no quick fixes for under-performing schools, and sweeping, new policy directives every three or four years make it hard to tell what’s working and what’s not.

“That shifting of gears every three years, it’s hard on the staff, it’s hard on the kids, it’s hard on the communities,” Marchese said, adding that the school board should be “setting standards for what is expected across the system,” but giving school stakeholders flexibility in crafting – and sticking with – a plan to meet those standards.

Diedrich added: “Being able to have investment at the district level that supports you in building what works for your community is very, very meaningful. Just saying, ‘Now everybody gets an iPad!’ – that is the kind of thing that ends up being ephemeral.”

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