Law in honor of Feldman would help close achievement gap

A key legacy of former AFT president Sandra Feldman’s tenure will be national legislation to help close the achievement gap between low-income and higher-income children.

In July, Sen. Christopher Dodd (D-Conn.) told delegates to the AFT convention that he was introducing the Kindergarten-Plus Act of 2004, to be named in Sandra Feldman’s honor. The bill, co-sponsored by Sens. Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.) and Jeff Bingaman (D-N.M.), will help states extend the kindergarten year to provide better preparation for disadvantaged children entering first grade.

“Sandy knows that seeds [for educational success] are sown far earlier in life,” Sen. Dodd told the convention. He cited Feldman’s initial Kindergarten-Plus proposal, unveiled at the union’s 2002 convention, which later became the model for the first state law in the country to extend kindergarten to disadvantaged youngsters, passed by the New Mexico Legislature last year. In July, Louisiana became the second state to adopt Kindergarten-Plus legislation.

New Mexico is seeing the benefits of that state initiative, with preliminary reports showing that participating students have made substantial gains in achievement and that the number of students referred to special education has dropped.

UTD calls on district to cure 'sick schools'

Fed up with the “glacial speed” of Miami-Dade school district officials to fix its unhealthy schools, the United Teachers of Dade took matters into its own hands this summer. The union filed a lawsuit against the district, charging it with failure to take meaningful steps to address the environmental hazards found in several schools. If the problems were not resolved before the first day of classes, the union said it would seek to have those schools closed under public nuisance laws.

“The schools in this lawsuit are representative of the pervasive problems in schools throughout the district,” says Pam Pedlow, who works with UTD members to address environmental hazards in the schools.

Four schools with the highest number of reported illness among staff and students were named in the suit: Hammocks Middle School, Lakeview Elementary School, Norland Senior High School and North Miami Senior High School.

Jocelyn David, a science teacher at Hammocks Middle School in West Kendall, a suburb of Miami, discovered dangerously low oxygen levels in the school during a class exercise.

“I knew the levels were not normal. At first I thought the student measurements were incorrect, so I did them myself,” David said. When his measurements corroborated the students’ findings, he began asking questions. David knew that a number of teachers had fallen ill over the years, but he didn’t know why until his investigation led him to the culprit: fumes from an underground holding tank at the school.

School officials had been aware of the problem since 2001. But the only action it took was closing off the classroom where the fumes were emitted.

Over the years, UTD has tried to work with district officials to address health concerns through a joint indoor air-quality task force that included members of UTD as well as district personnel. Unfortunately, very little action has been taken, Pedlow says.

Earlier this year, a separate UTD “sick building” task force presented the district with findings from an informal union survey of more than 2,000 faculty and staff members districtwide.

Survey participants reported conditions such as noxious fumes, inadequate oxygen in classrooms and halls, mold and mildew, indoor air-quality problems and water leaks. According to the survey, these conditions contributed to ailments such as allergies, asthma, headaches, skin rashes, ear and eye infections, sore throats, nausea and muscle fatigue.

“We know something is wrong” in these schools, and “we will be relentless” until the district does something to correct the problems,  says Joan Cortez, a UTD member who heads the union task force and is a teacher at Oliver Hoover Elementary.

The lawsuit charges that the district has taken a “Band-Aid” approach to addressing these problems, including ordering the covering of moldy walls with new dry wall, and plastering or painting over moldy, water-damaged walls and ceiling tiles.

“Making cosmetic changes is not enough. The district needs to get to the heart and soul of the problem,” says Cortez.

AFT upholds CTU election

An AFT executive council investigation committee has rejected a challenge to the recent election of officers of the Chicago Teachers Union. The investigation committee, which released its report in early August, found no grounds for overturning the June 11 runoff election won by special education teacher Marilyn Stewart.

The committee issued its findings after an 11-hour hearing in July that included testimony from representatives of both Stewart’s slate and the defeated incumbent, Deborah Lynch. Stewart narrowly defeated Lynch in an election that was decided by fewer than 600 votes out of more than 22,000 votes cast.

The victory was later called into question when the CTU canvassing committee deemed the June 11 runoff null and void, citing what it considered to be evidence of fraud, reported irregularities and discrepancies in school vote counts.

The canvassing committee also called for a new round of elections, a move opposed by Stewart and her slate. Stewart requested a formal investigation by the AFT executive council, which authorized the investigation.

“The allegations of election improprieties made by the Lynch slate are not supported by evidence of ballot tampering or other wrongdoing,” said the investigation committee’s report, which was approved by the union’s executive council. “While Lynch made allegations of election fraud, there is no evidence of ballot tampering, removal, substitution or any other possible fraud.”

The committee also noted that the process for collecting and presenting alleged election improprieties to the CTU canvassing committee under the direction of the Lynch slate “was fundamentally flawed and lacked due process” because the Stewart slate was not given a chance to present its own evidence and arguments before the canvassing committee made its decisions.

The CTU canvassing committee “did not have the proper authority” to overturn the election, said the investigation committee.

Albuquerque teachers give old supplies new life

Like most veteran educators, Pam Porter managed to accumulate all kinds of teaching materials during her career. When she decided to take a leave of absence last year, the second-grade art teacher was happy to know she could give her materials to someone who needed them, thanks to the Albuquerque Teachers Federation (ATF).

At a Teachers Emporium last summer, the AFT affiliate asked teachers who were retiring or who simply no longer needed their classroom materials to donate them for others to use. The emporium was part of a union-sponsored daylong professional support effort designed to help teachers get acclimated in their new careers.

Rachel Liberatori, a fifth-grade teacher at Seven Briar Elementary School in Albuquerque, attended the emporium and was able to scoop up curriculum guides and a number of children’s books for her classroom library.

“It’s great that the union did this. It demonstrates that the union supports new teachers and recognizes the reality of our needs,” says ATF member Liberatori. There are teachers who spend thousands of dollars of their money on supplies, she says—especially at the elementary school level. As for the teachers who donated their materials, Liberatori is grateful. “I don’t know their names,” she says, “but it showed that they care.”

The emporium was mutually beneficial, Porter points out. It’s very expensive for young teachers to start a classroom, and giving away her old supplies was “a good thing psychologically.”

The event was a success on all counts. By day’s end, all of the donated materials had been taken, and the union had signed up 30 new members.

“We are still an organizing union, and this was a way to connect with new teachers,” says ATF president Ellen Bernstein.

Union officials say the emporium has taken on a life of its own: Teacher donations continue to trickle in, and the federation plans to hold similar events in the future.