Some educators have rejoined the union because they recognize the importance of solidarity, particularly under the current circumstances. Others feel a need for the liability insurance or want the job security that flows from having a contract and a grievance procedure.

Still others have become members of AFT-United Teachers of New Orleans (AFT-UTNO) because they recognize that their working conditions are directly linked to the quality of the education they deliver.

“Most teachers understand that they can improve those working conditions when they speak with a unified voice,” says Jim Randels, who has been helping AFT-UTNO recruit new and former members since he returned to his full-time teaching position last August.

Randels teaches at McMain and Douglass high schools where he says his efforts to organize teachers, paraprofessionals and clerical employees are paying off, in part because both schools have veteran principals “who understand and value the union and teachers, and are not threatened by us coming together.”

Rebuilding the union, and getting back the educators who left the city and would like to return, will have an impact not just on education but on other important aspects of life in the new New Orleans, Randels says: UTNO “was one of the largest organized bodies in New Orleans and the state, and is recognized as a leading advocate for social and economic justice.”

Anthony Hart knows what it’s like to teach with and without a contract—and he prefers the former. Prior to Katrina, Hart, a former union building representative, had a reputation for speaking out about the inadequacies and inequities he saw within the New Orleans public schools.

Right now, however, he is focusing his attention on recruiting union members at Reed High School, which, thanks in large part to Hart’s efforts, already has the distinction of being one of the first schools in the state-run Recovery School District to have a majority of its staff join AFT-UTNO.

“A contract would make me feel a lot more comfortable when I’m advocating for the needs of my school and its students,” says Hart.

Billie Dolce fled New Orleans for Dallas after Hurricane Katrina hit and the levees broke. There she “cried for two weeks” watching news coverage of the crowds at the convention center and Superdome, and “looking for the faces of my students or their parents.”

Those tears turned to anger, however, when, shortly after the water had receded and many of the residents of the Crescent City began returning, Dolce received notification from the school district that she, along with more than 7,500 other school employees, was being fired. This left her with no option other than to retire, which was the only way she could continue to receive a paycheck.

Now that she’s back home—and could return to teaching if she chooses to—Dolce is torn over whether she ever wants to teach again in New Orleans. She knows the district is looking for certified teachers like her, but Dolce still is miffed over the callous treatment she and other New Orleans educators received in the aftermath of Katrina.

“I was forced into retirement,” she angrily asserts.

Dolce’s story of escaping the worst of the hurricane only to be humiliated by her state and local government and the city’s school system parallels those of many other members of the New Orleans affiliate. “Leaders of the Recovery School District say there’s a teacher shortage,” AFT- UTNO president Brenda Mitchell explains. “There’s no shortage, just a refusal to recognize that there are a lot of qualified teachers out here who were deeply hurt by the way they were fired and how they and their union have been treated” ever since.

At a hearing in March, New Orleans City council member Cynthia Hedge-Morrell, who chairs the council’s education committee, admonished RSD officials for not opening more neighborhood schools. She asked them to focus less on opening additional charter schools and more on opening neighborhood schools for chil-dren who have returned to those neighborhoods.

Noting that the RSD has a shortage of certified teachers, Hedge-Morrell urged RSD officials to reach out to AFT-UTNO and the educators who were fired so rudely in January 2006. “You could start off by saying ‘I’m sorry’ to those teachers,” she suggested.

While “sorry” might be a start, Jackie Cockerham is looking for something she considers even more valuable—her bargaining rights. A biology teacher, Cocker-ham says the district “just kicked us to the curb” when it fired its teachers in 2006. Now, she regularly receives letters from the state urging her to reapply for her job.

Cockerham says she won’t return to the classroom without the support and security of a union contract.

More security guards than certified teachers

For most high school students, a trip to Washington, D.C., in the early spring would typically include stops at some of the city’s museums and a tour of historic sites like the U.S. Capitol. Kristen Theodore, an 11th-grader at Frederick Douglass High School in New Orleans, traveled to the nation’s capital on a different mission, however.

She was there to tell a forum of education activists, community leaders and others what it’s like to attend a school “where there are more security guards than certified teachers.”

Theodore—and fellow New Orleans high school student Jade Fleury—read to forum participants papers they had written about their experiences as public school students in post-Katrina New Orleans. Their words challenged those who believe the “educational experiment” taking place in New Orleans is a marked improvement over the previous school system.

Theodore wrote that she has lost faith in her ability to get a quality education at Douglass since the state takeover of the school. Her biggest worry is that “the state cares more about students in the charter schools” than it does about her and her schoolmates at Douglass, she says.

No one has to tell Demonte Bosmon about the importance of being an involved parent. With a daughter already in a New Orleans public school and a son expected to enroll next year, Bosmon’s already a regular presence at her daughter’s elementary school—and she has no problem speaking up.

When the school, Drew Elementary, opened last October—a month behind schedule—Bosmon went downtown to complain to RSD officials about the deplorable building conditions, the mixing of elementary-age kids with junior high students, the security guards (she calls them “kids in uniform”) and the shortage of certified teachers.

But what upset Bosmon the most was the still-frozen food her daughter was given to eat. “It was frozen bagels in the morning and frozen lunches in the afternoon,” she says.

Recognizing that there’s strength in numbers, Bosmon signed on as a volunteer with the Alliance for Quality Education, a coalition of community, union and church groups spearheaded by ACORN (the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now) and AFT-UTNO. Then she went to work helping the alliance recruit other parents.

“If enough people come together and say we are not going to tolerate those frozen lunches for our kids, we’re not going to tolerate these building conditions, the RSD will do something,” Bosmon says.