The voice of Saint Paul's working families since 1897
Anticipating negotiations with a school district that seems perpetually short on resources, St. Paul teachers launched their contract campaign today – Tax Day – by calling on the city’s wealthiest corporations to pay their fair share toward local public schools. St. Paul Federation of Teachers Local 28 kicked off its contract campaign early this […]
Teachers, parents and community members lined the walkway outside LEAP High School in St. Paul yesterday, forming a protective wall around students at the school for new immigrants as they walked to their buses after dismissal. Organized by the St. Paul Federation of Teachers on the day before Donald Trump’s inauguration, the public action […]
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 […]
One by one Friday, graduates of the inaugural MN Trades Academy stepped up to the podium inside IBEW Local 110’s union hall and offered their three favorite construction crafts. Welding was a popular choice – not surprisingly, given the teenage demographic – but there was something for every one of the 20 graduates, who […]
Philando Castile, the man fatally shot during a traffic stop in Falcon Heights last night, was a cafeteria supervisor at J.J. Hill Montessori Magnet School in St. Paul and a member of Teamsters Local 320. Officers of Castile’s union today expressed grief at the sudden loss of their union brother, “an amazing person who did […]
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 […]
As Minnesota lawmakers announced a breakthrough in negotiations over the state’s E-12 education budget yesterday, the faces behind the financial figures – students, parents and teachers – rallied against staff and programming cuts in St. Paul. “We cannot nickle and dime our kids’ future,” school board candidate Zuki Ellis, the parent of a first-grader in the St. Paul Public […]
School board members weighed into the minimum-wage debate this week, when all seven members of St. Paul’s Board of Education signed a letter urging state senators to help close achievement gaps in their district by supporting a substantial wage hike this session. Louise Seeba, a board member and AFSCME Local 3757 member, spearheaded efforts to […]
Three days before members of the St. Paul Federation of Teachers were scheduled to take a strike-authorization vote, negotiators for the school district and the teachers’ union reached a tentative agreement on a two-year contract that will run through the 2014-15 school year. Teachers planned a ratification vote for March 4, and the union’s executive […]
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