Families, educators, food shelves brace for SNAP cutoff: ‘This is a policy choice’

October 31, 2025 by

Matteo Halbesleben speaks at a press conference outside a St. Paul food shelf.

Matteo Halbesleben of Minneapolis is among 42 million people nationwide, including 440,000 in Minnesota, who will see food assistance from the federal government, known as SNAP, disappear tomorrow.

Benny Roberts is executive director of the Hallie Q. Brown Food Shelf in St. Paul, where demand already has doubled this week, prompting staff to put out a call for donations – money, food, clothes, toiletries and volunteer help.

Devina Moore teaches at nearby Benjamin E. Mays elementary school, where over half of students qualify for free or reduced school lunch. She and other educators are trying to keep things “as consistent as possible” for children – 150,000 of whom rely on SNAP in Minnesota – while scrambling to connect families with other resources.

As they brace for the impacts on their families and their community, Halbesleben, Roberts, Moore and others are also calling out the driving force behind the SNAP cutoff and ongoing federal government shutdown.

“Greed,” Roberts said during a press conference outside his food shelf in the city’s Rondo neighborhood, arranged by unions, faith groups and progressive organizations.

“This isn’t a charity issue,” St. Paul school board member Erica Valliant added. “This is a policy choice.”

Sitting on $5 billion

The motive behind that choice, union leaders say, is especially callous – an attempt by President Donald Trump and Republicans to use hunger as political leverage. Why else would the administration refuse to release more than $5 billion in SNAP contingency funds?

The AFL-CIO and 26 labor unions today sent a letter demanding Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins release the contingency funding. AFL-CIO President Liz Shuler said Trump is “deliberately inflicting pain on workers by cutting jobs, slashing food assistance and ripping away livelihoods.”

“The administration could continue SNAP without a hitch,” she added. “Instead, it’s inflicting cruelty on people and treating this crisis as some sick political game.”

SNAP cuts will only add to the pain inflicted on workers during the shutdown.

The administration has forced 730,000 federal workers to do their jobs without pay, locked 670,000 federal workers out of their jobs, threatened to destroy 130,000 health care jobs and sidelined hundreds of thousands of workers in construction, transportation and energy by canceling infrastructure projects.

Pain spreads

As the shutdown enters a second month, more Minnesotans, like Halbesleben, will feel the pain.

He began accessing SNAP benefits several years ago, after a string of health crises – skin cancer, reconstructive surgery and a car accident – left him unable to work. Halbesleben is now able to work part time, but still cannot stand for more than four hours without needing to lie down for a physical-therapy exercise that resets his rib cage.

“My story is my own, but there are other stories out there – people who have families who are trying to keep their kids fed, elderly (people) who can’t work anymore and whose retirement doesn’t pay enough for them to (buy) food.”

He said SNAP benefits allow him to put money he does earn toward keeping his home. He already lost the home where lived at the beginning of his health troubles.

Valliant and Moore said they worry that losing SNAP benefits will create a similar snowball effect for SPPS families, making it even harder to afford housing, transportation, energy and other costs.

“It’s overwhelming to see what our families are already going through, the needs that they already have,” Moore said. “Our youngest citizens are being affected the most, and they can’t do for themselves.”

‘We need community’

Valliant noted that Minnesota students will continue to have access to free breakfast and lunch on school days, and Gov. Tim Walz and some counties have tapped emergency funds to help prepare local food shelves like Hallie Q. Brown for a surge in demand.

But it won’t replace SNAP.

“For every meal a food shelf provides, SNAP provides nine,” Valliant said. “We’d be hard pressed to replace that with donations and good will alone, and we should not have to.”

Roberts agreed, calling the shutdown a continuation of “overt and covert practices that pick on the vulnerable for the profit of the comfortable” – a nod to the political fight behind the government shutdown, which pits tax cuts for the wealthy against funding that keeps clinics open and health insurance affordable.

“We’re going to brace for harm – in community,” Roberts said. “We’re going to support each other – in community. We’re going to do our best, but we need community.”

Looking to access food, donate or volunteer with a local food shelf? Click here for a map of locations across Minnesota.

– Michael Moore, Union Advocate editor

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

Educators, families, students unite behind St. Paul levy campaign

October 24, 2025 by

Victor Xiong, a student at Central Senior High, speaks to volunteers at the Yes for SPPS campaign’s kickoff doorknock.

Voters will decide the fate of a $37.2 million levy request from the St. Paul Public Schools this fall, and the stakes are too high – for students, families and the community – to tune out during this quiet election year.

That’s the message educators, students and school board members delivered during a rally to kick off the Vote Yes for SPPS campaign last month. And volunteers have been delivering it to voters across the district, door by door, in the weeks since then.

“We know that our public schools are the heart of our democracy and our community,” St. Paul Federation of Educators President Leah VanDassor said. “This is the work we need to do, and we’re all in it together.”

The levy referendum is a fork in the road for SPPS. District leaders covered most of a $51.1 million budget shortfall this school year by pulling about $35 million from reserves, but SPPS faces another projected shortfall in 2026-27.

The district is seeking voter approval to increase its operating levy by $1,073 per student for the next 10 years. If it passes, the levy would position SPPS to stabilize its budget, retain and attract quality educators and preserve programming inside and outside the classroom, district leaders say.

But if it fails, the district will need to cut programming and services by $37.2 million before school starts next fall.

Carlo Franco, a member of the district’s Board of Education, said many programs that give students opportunities to “find their passion” – arts, languages, cultural enrichment, athletics and after-school opportunities – will not survive without the new operating levy.

“We have done our best to keep cuts away from the classroom as best we can,” Franco told volunteers at the kickoff rally Sept. 20. “Without an additional $37 million, the reality is we’re going to be looking at some of those programs that are the motivators, the college and career readiness, that we need to make sure our students thrive. That is what’s on the ballot right now.”

Horace Mann science specialist Sarah Bosch, a member of the St. Paul Federation of Educators, offers support for the $37.2 million operating levy request during a “Vote Yes for SPPS” kickoff event.

Cuts leave students ‘heartbroken’

Educators, students and families in the district – and across Minnesota – have dealt with budget cuts before, of course.

Victor Xiong, a Central High School student, remembered learning that his teacher in freshman world history class had lost her job in a round of budget cuts. “I was basically heartbroken,” he said during the rally.

“We can’t cut any more without harming students,” added Sarah Bosch, a science teacher at Horace Mann Elementary, where students lost a reading support specialist this school year.

Staring down a ‘triple financial threat’

Inflation has steadily chipped away at the buying power of school districts like SPPS over the last two decades. SPPS estimates it would have an extra $50 million this school year if state-aid increases had matched inflation rates.

An influx of federal funds during the COVID-19 pandemic helped SPPS cover its budget shortfalls temporarily. Not only have those funding streams dried up, but in July the Trump administration threatened to rescind nearly $7 billion in support for public school districts nationwide, before backing away from the plan in August.

Lagging state aid, loss of COVID relief and federal uncertainty represent a “triple financial threat” to school districts, according to Teresa Mozur, campaign manager for the Vote Yes committee and a SPPS parent.

“Now more than ever, with support eroding at the federal level, we need to protect the things that make Saint Paul Public Schools strong,” Mozur said. “Local funding is the only way we can prevent devastating cuts that will have a direct impact on families, our community and our local economy.”

Labor backs school levies across East Metro

St. Paul isn’t the only school district asking local voters for more funding.

In the Nov. 4 election, school districts in Minnesota have authorized 44 ballot questions seeking additional operating revenue. Another 80 ballot questions ask voters to approve money for construction, renovations, technology and other capital projects.

The St. Paul Regional Labor Federation, which brings together over 100 affiliated local unions with over 50,000 members, has endorsed the SPPS levy referendum, as well as levy requests in the following east-metro districts:

Find a full list of labor endorsements in the Nov. 4 election at stpaulunions.org.

– Michael Moore, Union Advocate editor

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

St. Paul school levy gets labor endorsement

September 18, 2025 by

Organized labor is backing the campaign to pass a new operating levy in the St. Paul school district this fall. Administrators and union leaders say the increased funds are necessary to maintain educational programming and avoid steep budget cuts.

Delegates to the St. Paul Regional Labor Federation, which unites over 100 affiliate unions in the East Metro, voted Sept. 10 to endorse a “yes” vote on the levy request, which will appear on the ballot Nov. 4.

The St. Paul Federation of Educators, which represents about 4,000 teachers, education assistants and school professionals in the district, also endorsed the levy request, as did AFSCME Council 5, representing nearly 300 school clerical and technical workers.

Labor endorsement means unions will support the community campaign to pass the levy, Yes for St. Paul Public Schools, with both resources and volunteers. SPFE Executive Board member Quentin Ocama, a kindergarten teacher at Maxfield Elementary and SPPS graduate, is chair of the campaign.

“Labor knows how important strong public education is to our community and our city’s future,” Ocama said.

The campaign will hold a kickoff rally Saturday, Sept. 20 – the day after early voting begins. Organizers also invite volunteers to join regular door knocks and phone banks; learn more at www.yesforspps.com/events.

If passed, the levy referendum would raise $1,073 per student annually for the next 10 years, or about $37.2 million per year in additional revenue for the district. It also includes annual inflationary adjustments.

The new funding stream would help the state’s second-largest school district address a projected annual funding gap of over $50 million per year.

Several factors have contributed to the shortfall. Per-pupil funding from the state, although recently tied to inflation, lagged districts’ rising costs for two decades. Federal pandemic-relief funds helped bridge the gap temporarily, but the Trump administration has threatened to close the Department of Education, putting federal funding streams at risk.

Without an influx of revenue, SPPS leaders warn, the school system will be forced to make steep service cuts at its 69 schools, which serve over 33,000 students.

Erica Schatzlein, SPFE’s lead negotiator in contract talks with the district earlier this year, said those cuts would be “drastic” – and risk gains the union has made over the last decade in bargaining for classroom staffing, mental health services, outreach initiatives and other supports for students and families.

To make those gains, SPFE pushed administrators to dip into the district’s fund balance, arguing cash reserves were larger than necessary. That’s no longer the case, Schatzlein said.

“Now it’s at the bare minimum,” she said. “We didn’t ask them to dip into their fund balance to settle our contract this year because they can’t. We know. We looked at the numbers.

“This is a levy to keep the district stable and strong. We’re looking to the taxpayers of St. Paul to keep us on that track of providing the resources the schools St. Paul students deserve – and we don’t do that lightly.”

Investments in local public schools, St. Paul Regional Labor Federation President Kera Peterson said, have a ripple effect throughout the community.

“Union members know that high-quality public schools are a key part of St. Paul’s economic vitality,” she said. “They equip the next generation of workers with the skills to meet employers’ needs. They are essential to the fabric of our community.”

“Strong public schools are necessary for St. Paul to continue to be a place where working families choose to live,” Ocama, the Yes for SPPS chair, said. “Public schools are a vital part of our civil fabric, and they are important so that we can raise the next generation of our city’s residents.”

Visit spps.org/vote to learn more about the levy referendum.

– Michael Moore, UA editor

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

Union educators tracking effects of federal funding loss

October 23, 2024 by

NEA President Becky Pringle spoke to media members alongside SPFE member Nicki Nolen before the “walk-in” at Adams Spanish Immersion school.

During the previous three school years, Nicki Nolen worked as Adams Spanish Immersion Elementary School’s reading support teacher. She spent school days dropping into kindergarten, first- and second-grade classrooms, where she led small, guided reading groups tailored to meet students’ individual needs.

Every elementary school in the St. Paul Public Schools had a reading support teacher like Nolen – until this year, when the federal pandemic-relief program that funded the position, known as ESSER, expired.

“This year I’ve had families coming to me in the hallway and saying, ‘Oh, you’re not a reading teacher anymore, what happened?’” Nolen, now a first-grade teacher at Adams, said. “And I have to say that the funding was cut.”

In a show of unity on Sept. 30 – the ESSER program’s official expiration date – St. Paul educators, school administrators, union leaders and lawmakers held two events to raise awareness of the impact the loss of funding will have on students and families.

“What will end are after-school programs,” National Education Association President Becky Pringle said. “What will end are successful literacy programs. What will end is that one-to-one attention that our students need. What will end is making sure we have counselors and mental health services.”

Pringle, who leads the nation’s largest labor union, joined a “walk-in” event at Adams before the start of the school day, one of several staged by members of the St. Paul Federation of Educators at their school buildings Sept. 30. Similar events took place in 17 other states, Pringle said.

SPPS received approximately $207 million in ESSER funds as part of the 2021 American Rescue Plan (ARP). Among other things, the district used the money to expand arts and after-school programming.

It also went toward the literacy program that brought Nolen and other reading teachers into the classroom, known as What I Need Now (WINN). Due to its success, the district allocated $7 million this year to keep some WINN programming in place, but it came at the expense of other district offerings.

And WINN didn’t survive at many elementary schools, including Adams.

“COVID funds gave SPPS the opportunity to focus on what students actually need to be successful learners,” Nolen said. “Students, parents and educators all saw our students improve. The loss of these funds will be devastating for our community.”

Pringle said the NEA has been working in partnership with the Alliance to Reclaim Our Schools to track and evaluate the effectiveness of local initiatives funded by ESSER, like St. Paul’s literacy program.

“This is actually working,” Pringle said. “We have evidence that we are closing those reading gaps, we have the evidence that students are doing better, that their social, emotional and academic learning is increasing… We need to make sure that we have this funding permanent.”

Later in the afternoon, Pringle joined a press conference with school board members, educators and U.S. Rep. Betty McCollum, who said the COVID aid provided a glimpse of the gains schools could make with fully funded Title I and IDEA programs, federal supports for low-income students and students with disabilities, respectively.

The 4th District representative has co-sponsored the Keep Our PACT Act to put the federal government on a 10-year path to full funding for both programs.

“As a former teacher, I understand the importance – as well as the challenges – of ensuring that every child receives a great education,” McCollum said. “We must fulfill our commitment to our nation’s youth, no matter their abilities, skin color, zip code or background.”

– Michael Moore, Union Advocate editor

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

St. Paul educators’ new contracts deliver pay increases, preserve classroom gains

March 14, 2024 by

Educators held an “art build” for a potential strike at the Carpenters union’s training center in St. Paul.

St. Paul educators voted this week to ratify new union contracts that will improve their pay and benefits while upholding the in-classroom supports they won in previous bargaining cycles.

“Educators often bargain for things that are outside of those bread-and-butter issues,” St. Paul Federation of Educators President Leah VanDassor said. “This time around, we’re really struggling to keep our educators in St. Paul, so we did push a lot harder on pay and benefits than in the past. And we did get some classroom wins as well.”

The union said its members voted “overwhelmingly” to ratify contracts covering 3,689 employees in the St. Paul Public Schools. Three bargaining units – licensed teachers, educational assistants, and school and community professionals – negotiated jointly with the district, and each agreed to two-year contracts that will expire after the 2024-25 school year.

Educational assistants, the lowest-paid SPFE members, will see the steepest wage increases under the new contracts, with an hourly hike of $2.25 retroactive to Jan. 1 and an across-the-board increase of 4% in 2024-25. That amounts to a 16% pay increase for newly hired workers.

Other union members will see salary increases of $3,084 or $3,500 this school year retroactive to Jan. 1, and a 4% pay increase next year. The contracts also provide longevity bonuses and increased holiday pay to some educators, and the district will increase its contribution to union members’ health plans.

“With historic funding from the state, now was the time to be bold for our members and our students – and we were,” VanDassor said. “I’m proud of the improvements we won for our schools with this contract and the past progress we were able to expand upon.”

Prior to reaching a tentative agreement with SPFE on March 5, school administrators had claimed that the student-centered commitments won by the union in previous bargaining cycles – like language capping class sizes and establishing mental health teams in each school – prevented the district from offering competitive pay increases this cycle.

Not only will existing student supports remain in place under the new contracts, but SPFE won language that will reduce caseloads for some special-ed teachers, as well as new supports for dual language immersion educators.

The agreement also restores site councils at schools across the district, giving local educators, parents, students and district administrators a voice in decisions on budget priorities, events and other issues.

New contract language also will establish an easy process for educators who wish to change their names or pronouns used by the district, extending a policy to staff members that has been in place for SPPS students for about a decade.

“No one contract campaign can fix all of the things we need for our students and for our educators,” Erica Schatzlein, a member of the SPFE Executive Board, said during a press conference announcing the agreement. “But I do feel strongly that this is one big step.”

Throughout negotiations, which began last May, the SPFE bargaining team maintained that the district was painting an overly dire financial picture, pointing to a record $56 million increase in state funding delivered by lawmakers last year.

When union leaders asked for strike authorization in February, members responded with an overwhelming “yes” vote. Two weeks later, the SPFE filed notice of its intent to begin striking March 11 barring an agreement with the district.

A mediation session between two sides scheduled for Friday, March 1, stretched deep into the weekend without an agreement, and VanDassor said administrators’ economic offer did not meaningfully improve until educators held a raucous round of informational picketing outside district headquarters Monday, March 3.

When the two sides returned to the table, the district brought more money, doubling its proposed wage increase for educational assistants, VanDassor said.

SPFE members have voted to authorize a strike in every bargaining cycle since 2018, but union leaders found reason to believe a more collaborative bargaining relationship with the district could be possible. VanDassor credited school board members – six of whom her union endorsed – for taking more active role in negotiations.

“Elections matter, they really do,” she said. “We’ve turned over the board over with people who support educators and families. And it’s clear at the table, where we had four of six board members who could participate in negotiations actually show up and do that. It turned the tide.

“This is a step forward in our work with the board so we don’t get to this point again. It’s very encouraging.”

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

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: , , , , ,

St. Paul educators vote to authorize strike: ‘It’s time for us to stop being disrespected’

February 16, 2024 by

Over 2,000 SPFE members voted on a potential strike yesterday at the Carpenters hall in St. Paul.

Over two-thirds of the Saint Paul Federation of Educators’ members filed into the Carpenters union hall yesterday to take a strike vote, and an overwhelming 92% voted “yes.”

Union leaders said they hope the resounding support educators showed for their bargaining team will push the St. Paul Public Schools to improve its financial proposals in mediation sessions scheduled the next two Fridays. Otherwise, the union’s 3,689 members – teachers, education assistants and school professionals – could go on strike next month.

“When the district sits and refuses to talk to our bargaining team about the things that we need, they are not just refusing that small group of people,” SPFE Treasurer Robyn Asher, a teacher on special assignment, said. “There are thousands of us, and this (vote) is a show of support.

“We’re showing that we’re ready, and we’re hoping that they take us seriously.”

That means offering educators more than the most recent wage proposal, which would raise most union members’ pay by 3.75% over the two-year contract. Educators also want some relief in their health insurance costs.

“We just had insurance increases, and our paychecks have all gone down,” Rene Myers, an intervention specialist at Hazel Park Preparatory Academy, said. “The district wants to add to the cost.”

SPFE members said they expect the district to do better after state lawmakers passed a record $2.3 billion increase in funding for public schools last May – and after the district raised administrators’ pay by 6% last August.

“It’s about priorities,” Asher said. “With what our members are seeing the Legislature give to education this time and for what we know that we need to retain educators, [the district’s offer] is not good enough.”

SPFE members went on strike for a week in 2020, and they came within minutes of a strike deadline in 2022 before reaching a deal with the district. Those talks resulted in historic contract language that commits the district to investing in the services that educators say their students need, like class-size limits, school nurses and mental-health supports.

This time around, union negotiators are looking to preserve and expand on those gains, while also gaining ground in compensation, arguing it is critical to the district’s ability to recruit and retain staff during a statewide teacher shortage. Myers said 75% of her colleagues at Hazel Park have told her “they’re leaving or they’re thinking about leaving.”

In a statement released after the votes were tallied, SPFE President Leah VanDassor said educators don’t want to strike, but have shown they are committed to doing what’s necessary “to give our students the schools they deserve and keep our educators in the profession for years to come.”

“Over the past decade, our union has come together with our community to win improvements to our schools like class size limits and student mental health supports,” she added. “Now is the time to build on that progress while also helping our educators afford their lives and stay in this district.”

SPFE must give the district notice at least 10 days before beginning a potential strike.

“Nobody wants to go on strike,” Myers said. “This is not what we set out to do. It’s an inconvenience and a pay loss for a lot of us. But it’s time for us to stop being disrespected.”

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

St. Paul school employees vote to strike, plan rally Tuesday

October 10, 2022 by

AFSCME Local 844 members rallied before a school board meeting in July 2022.

St. Paul Public Schools’ clerical and technical workers have voted to authorize a strike, and members of AFSCME Local 844 plan to rally tomorrow at district headquarters in advance of the school board meeting.

Contract talks covering 265 workers began in April, but the district has refused to meet union members’ demands on wages, training, remote work and other issues.

“One and a half percent just isn’t enough,” Local 844 President Martin Hoerth said of the wage package included in the district’s last offer. “Our health insurance is going up 9%. We have issues with retention, and one of the reasons is we have quite a few job titles where people are having to work two jobs, three jobs to make it work.”

The local represents office, accounting and payroll clerks, as well as distribution workers, processing specialists, student placement workers, occupational therapy assistants, technology services workers and others.

The district filed for mediation over the summer after nine bargaining sessions, and the two sides have met once since then.

Other outstanding union demands include “onboarding” of new staff, so workers understand their options when it comes to benefits. The district eliminated the service at the start of the pandemic, Hoerth said.

“They just hope and pray people sign up for their insurance and other benefits,” he added.

AFSCME members also want the same accommodations – and compensation – as other employee groups when it comes to working in person on days when schools switch to remote learning due to extreme weather.

“They’ve negotiated with educators how they will work from home, and with custodians what they get for coming in,” Hoerth said. “We’re asking to be treated the same.”

Union members voted overwhelmingly to reject the district’s last offer and authorize a strike, but Local 844 has not yet set a strike date. State law requires the union to notify SPPS at least 10 days before a strike begins.

Hoerth said the bargaining team would wait until after their next mediation session, scheduled Oct. 24, to make a decision about a potential strike.

Meanwhile, workers are hoping for a show of public support both at the rally and at the school board meeting afterward. Local 844 plans to start the rally at 5 p.m. outside the district offices at 360 Colburne St. S., where board members will receive public comment at 5:30 p.m.

AFSCME stands for the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, which is an AFL-CIO affiliate.

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

St. Paul educators balk at district’s demand for concessions

December 16, 2021 by

Educators line the sidewalk outside St. Anthony Park Elementary during a walk-in event highlighting their union’s student-centered contract priorities.

Less than two years after their historic strike drew thousands of supporters into the streets, St. Paul educators are back at the bargaining table, looking to defend and build on gains made in their last contract.

This morning educators were back outside their school buildings, too, showing unity and support for the student-centered priorities guiding their union in talks with the district.

“The students should always come first – always,” second-grade teacher Ruth Krider said before a “walk-in” event at St. Anthony Park Elementary.

That means keeping class sizes small, staffing mental health teams at every school, hiring and retaining more bilingual educators and educators of color, and providing more support and resources to special education teachers.

The St. Paul Federation of Educators calls it building the “schools St. Paul students deserve,” and educators have fought hard in recent rounds of bargaining to write benchmarks for student services into their union contract. An agreement to expand students’ access to mental-health supports was key to settling the strike in March 2020.

But union members say the district set out this year to take back many of those gains, including limits on class sizes and the hard-fought language around mental health. One proposal to eliminate a guarantee that students have access to recess time sparked a new chant outside St. Anthony Park this morning: “What do we want? Recess! When do we want it? Now!”

The district is demanding concessions from educators despite receiving over $200 million in American Rescue Plan funds.

Krider called it “disheartening” to see that kind of posturing from the district, particularly during a school year that many educators have described as their most difficult. In St. Paul, looming school closures have only added to the stress of teaching during the COVID-19 pandemic.

“It feels like things are coming at us from all sides,” Krider said. “With negotiations on top of all that, it would be nice to feel like we could be trusted by the district, but staff are not being listened to.

“We feel like we’re moving backwards, almost. We fought hard, we had some gains, and now we’re feeling like we have to redo the whole thing.”

But SPFE members aren’t shying away from another fight with the district.

Yesterday, a delegation of educators presented Superintendent Joe Gothard with a petition signed by 75% of members supporting the union’s contract proposals. And today’s “walk-in” events, in which educators enter school alongside the students at the center of their bargaining priorities, took place across the city.

Supporters can sign onto the petition backing educators’ bargaining proposals, and sign up for updates from the union about future public actions.

SPFE and district leaders met Tuesday in their first mediation session since the district petitioned to move talks behind closed doors.

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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.”

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