NC Teachers: This time, it's personal!

Politics & Elections
1

On May 16, the North Carolina General Assembly comes back into session. The North Carolina Association of Educators organized a way for teachers to basically come glare at them: NC teachers earn three personal leave days each year, and if we ask for one with at least 5 days notice, we can only be denied if there’s a lack of subs. Thus the tagline. In practice, personal leave is almost never denied.

This time last week, I thought I’d be the only person from my school going to Raleigh. I’m trying to up my civic involvement, but I also don’t like to badger people (even though I’m the NCAE rep for our school). But then I heard a few other teachers from my school express interest, so I figured what the hey, why not check with some other teachers?

By Thursday afternoon, I’d heard a half-dozen teachers express interest; so I talked with my principal and gave him a heads-up. He was pleased.

By Friday afternoon, I’d talked with nearly every teacher at our school, and nearly half the staff had put in for a personal day.

By Monday evening, our district’s school board, voicing approval for the rally, decided to call a workday. Our school had something like three times as many teachers putting in for leave as other schools, proportionally.

At last count, a little less than half the students in North Carolina will not be in school on May 16–districts are closing like gangbusters. And the NCGA is noticing, and running scared. This is, after all, an election year (which is also the reason this is in elections: I strongly suspect that there will be some electoral repercussions from this event/movement).

We’re chartering a second bus to Raleigh for our medium-sized district.

I have some mixed feelings. Chief among them is triumph: this is blowing up way bigger than I think anyone expected. But I also recognize a couple of things:

  1. We need to communicate clearly to parents why this is so important–we can’t lose parent support.
  2. The Republicans in the NCGA have been awful for public education, but they’ve been excellent at politicking. Already they’ve managed to cook stats to make it look like they’ve been wonderful for education, talking about the massive raises they’ve given us (in truth, if you compare what I’ll earn next year under their proposal, to what I would’ve earned if they’d done nothing but inflation-adjust the 07-08 salary schedule under which I was hired, I’m down about $100 a month–and that’s not counting the huge decrease in auxiliary benefits). We need to be very clear about what they’ve done to education.
  3. This is inconvenient for a lot of people (as a protest should be–nothing ever gets done through convenient protests). For folks in poverty, it can be extra-bad. I’m trying to see if we can set up meals for kids in our town who are food-insecure.

Anyway, this is a pretty exciting time for teachers in NC, full of potential, and it’s not entirely clear what happens on May 17. I’m up to answer non-gotcha questions, if folks have them!

2

It should be illegal for teachers to protest! All of them should be fired on the spot. Won’t somebody think of the children?

I keed! I keed! Make those bastards squirm, which would be possible if they have consciences, which I doubt.

3

Heh. You kid, but Phil Berger doesn’t:

4

The 2 cents from an old union organizer: I can’t stress the importance of your first point enough. Work with the parents as partners in this. Find some parents willing to speak to the media and work with them on messaging. I’d also strongly encourage you to find other allies in the community and have them present your message to the media and legislators as well-- churches and religious groups, clergy, community orgs, people from the universities and community colleges. Even students. Have individuals from those allied groups trained on messaging as well. Recruit messengers that mirror the population of the state demographically. (Ie, don’t lean too heavily on recruiting white people, or black people, or women, etc)

Good luck!

5

Regarding point 3, meals would be nice but if you could organize something to keep kids busy and supervised for the day would probably be a good idea. A lot of people might not be able to afford the day off to watch their kids when school is cancelled. Maybe some summer camp or church group could help out.

6

When you find you are in a relationship with someone who has narcissistic personality disorder, you leave, cut all ties, and prevent them from ever contacting you. The reason is that no matter what you do, they will find a way to turn it against you.

Americans in many places have elected NPD people to public office. Americans in many places are screwed.

7

I assume NC is much the same as VA and I can assure you that a day of unstructured play in late May could not be more heavenly. They can climb trees, have dirt clod fights, or go fishing.

Um, all with adult supervision, of course. :smiley:

8

there are local groups setting up to look after kids who get the day off on the 16th. YMCA, churches, etc.

9

Y’all give wise advice. I’m not sure how much I can personally put into effect, being both overwhelmed with end-of-school stuff and without much authority in NCAE, but it’s certainly stuff I’ll pass along upstairs and try to connect with our PTO about.

10

I think the Oklahoma’s teacher strike got a lot of millage out of showing people just how low education funding has affected schools: broken desks, ancient textbooks. One effective way to reach out to parents is to show all the things that aren’t happening because their isn’t money–not just choir or band, but adequate instruction because classes are too big, there aren’t materials, and teachers aren’t prepped because they don’t have planning time and have a 2nd job.

You might also see if you can get help from high-quality former teachers who left because of the pay. One of the most affecting stories I ever heard was about a career teacher, very talented, whose daughter came to him one day and asked about being a cheerleader: he had to tell her no, because the fees were too much. They couldn’t pay for camp and they couldn’t pay for uniforms. And then he realized that he was asking his family to sacrifice so that he could do the thing he loved–teaching–and that that wasn’t right. And within a few years, he left the field to go be a corporate trainer. If you could get people like that to go protest, and speak to the media, it might highlight what we lose when we keep salaries/benefits so low–the good people leave because they can’t justify the low salary when they could do better by their own families. That undercuts the “if we pay teachers well, we will get people who just want a paycheck!” argument.

11

Best of luck in your endeavor. I’m generally a pro-free market guy, and I consider organized labor to be as much a part of the free market as anything else.

12

In reference to the above advice: the media can be your friend here as well. Any decent reporter would have a filed day with a story that contrasts broken desks, run-down classrooms, etc. and teacher protests when they can also show the community coming together to keep the kids busy, feed the food-poor, etc. Make sure you’ve contacted all the local press so you get some media saturation. Than go get 'em!

13

Is there a union for teachers? Is it really illegal for teachers to strike?

Also, good on you for rallying people and participating!

14

So…there is a union, of sorts. NCAE is an affiliate of the National Educators Association, and a portion of my dues goes to the national org. However, neither collective bargaining nor striking are legal for public sector workers in NC. I looked the latter up: a strike is in the second-most-severe class of misdemeanor, punishable by up to 120 days in jail and a $10,000 fine. The most severe misdemeanor class includes things like assault with a deadly weapon.

This, of course, isn’t a strike. This is just a bunch of folks taking their personal leave to attend an event they want to attend, which is totally legal.

15

Cool, thanks for the answers!

I think it’s great! Good luck :slight_smile:

16

I cannot fathom how any law making it illegal to strike could possibly be constitutional. The only difference between a bunch of teachers just happening to take their personal days on the same day and a strike is the organization, and that’s covered under the First Amendment freedom of assembly.

17

Tell that to Reagan.

18

the big cities are pretty much all shutting down schools for the rally. The rural districts are staying open.

NCAE is barely a union, as someone said they cannot strike or collectively bargain. Maybe if someone tested that in court it would not hold up. Or maybe it was tested and upheld in the past.

the South has always been very anti union. Many businesses moved south to avoid unions

19

Update: having talked to some folks on the PTO, they’re handling the feeding-kids thing (a few weeks ago I spoke at the PTO meeting, and got a ton of support, consisting primarily of parents saying, “PLEASE TELL US HOW WE CAN HELP Y’ALL!” They wanted to pay our union dues, but I had to tell them that’d probably lose them their tax-exempt status). The main roadblock is whether it can be done in compliance with local law and with our liability insurance. I understand the need for bureaucracy, but sometimes…

And our school is hosting all-day care through our afterschool program, doing two concurrent field trips as well as some in-school activities. So my concerns in these areas are pretty well met!

20

And then there’s the “blue flu” and other illnesses that are difficult to disprove. Take a few days sick time, have your doctor write a note.