Organizing to support students at Alcott Elementary

The power of having a union contract is the power to advocate for our shared priorities and ultimately to have what we need to support our students. This takes a variety of forms:

• We make sure our union contract meets current needs by identifying collective priorities each time we come to the bargaining table to bargain our next contract. SDEA members are ready to go to the bargaining table this month with a platform built and ratified by members.
• We assert our contractual rights through the grievance process when necessary.
• Most importantly, we build daily solidarity within our communities!

Successfully addressing violations of our contractual rights is essential, even when the process takes time! Ideally, union members can also meet urgent needs quickly by organizing with their colleagues. See some examples of how fellow SDEA members used site-based organizing to solve immediate needs in their schools:

Alcott Elementary organized to get the prep time necessary to support their students!

This Fall, SDEA members at Alcott Elementary flexed their union muscle to support students with IEPs, and they came out stronger than before.

Alcott is a small school with just ten classroom teachers, nine of whom had more than 20% of students in the classes with IEPs. According to section 29.7.2.1 of the SDEA contract, they tried to create a support plan with the principal. They proposed multiple support plans but could not get the principal to agree to any of them. Some might have given up, but not these educators.

One option was to file a grievance over a violation of section 29.7.2.1 of the union contract. But Alcott SDEA members didn’t want to wait for the grievance process to run its course. Instead, they organized for a speedy solution.

First, union members had a union meeting to build consensus on a solution. They decided they wanted 15 prep days shared among the ten teachers.

Then they created a petition to the principal very clearly calling for 15 preparation days. 100% of the union members signed it. Instead of just putting the petition in the principal’s mailbox, all the union members marched up to the principal to deliver the petition as a group.

The principal couldn’t ignore them. He reacted by offering 2 of the requested 15 prep days (with the possibility of more, he said.) He said that was as much as the site budget would allow. 2 out of 15 didn’t sound good, so they didn’t back down.

A small group created a simple paper survey that asked one question: “Are you satisfied with the principal’s response?” It invited members to a union meeting on December 4, explaining, “If this problem isn’t resolved by then, we will review the survey results and make a plan of action.”

Guess what happened the day before the union meeting? The principal announced that he’d found the money in the budget to pay for 15 release preparation days! So instead of using the union meeting to plan the next action on the principal, they used it to celebrate.

Grievances vs. Organizing

While grievances are a formal way to remedy violations of our contractual rights and strengthen our contract in the long term, Alcott is an example of how organizing around shared priorities got results without waiting for the grievance process.

Have an urgent issue at your site that you hope to solve? Talk to your colleagues and bring it up at your next union meeting!