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Teachers at charter school make bid to join union
(by Rebecca S. Rivas - May 14, 2008)
For the first time in St. Louis, a group of teachers from a city of St. Louis charter school will join the local teacher’s union — a move that may diffuse some of the opposition within education circles toward charter schools.
Mike Meehan is one of about 30 teachers and workers at the Construction Careers Center charter high school near the Lafayette Square and Soulard area who entered into negotiations with the American Federation of Teachers Local 420 branch.
Meehan, the social studies department chairman, hopes joining the union will “enable us to retain the good teachers here and hire even more,” he said.
One of the main priorities for the group is more professional development, and negotiations are expected to start soon.
“None of us became teachers to get rich,” he said. “There seems to be a misconception that this is all about money.”
Rich Ledbetter, chairman of the Construction Careers board of education and president of a local construction company, said that the union could provide teachers with ways to enhance their career paths.
“Our mission as a school is what’s most important, and that’s to offer our students excellent education and pathways into the construction industry,” Ledbetter said. “When other people support that mission with us, good things will happen.”
However, he said the union and the school have not started the negotiation process yet. “We all know the stories of what can happen in that process,” he said.
The charter school is sponsored by the St. Louis Public Schools and was started by the Associated General Contractors of St. Louis Foundation. During its seven years of operation, the school has grown to reach full capacity: 450 students.
Charter schools continue to increase in the city of St. Louis, as four schools opened in the past year and more are expected to come with the new Washington University-sponsored Knowledge is Power Program schools in upcoming year.
Since charter schools appeared in the city eight years ago, the animosity between the traditional public school district and independent public schools has caused lawsuits, debates and protests.
Mary Armstrong, president of the AFT Local 420, said that charter schools are not held accountable according to the same guidelines as St. Louis Public Schools, and they should be part of the larger SLPS district.
Part of this belief goes back to the origins of the charter-school model, Armstrong said, which was part of the late AFT President Albert Shanker’s vision.
Shanker wanted to see “publicly funded, experimental, unionized schools [that] would allow teachers greater flexibility and freedom to experiment,” Armstrong said. The successful methods of these schools would then be integrated into all public schools.
A good charter school has financial transparency, employs highly qualified certificated teachers, and “its governance [is] controlled by the local school board connected to overall district reform efforts — not separate, for-profit, corporate islands,” Armstrong said.
The AFT represents teachers and school-related employees in more than 70 charter schools in nine states. Some charter schools allow more teacher input than others, she said.
Aaron North, director of the Missouri Charter School Association, said, “There’s a lot of ways for teachers to be engaged in the operations of charter schools.”
The charter-school model gives schools and teachers freedom to organize themselves in the way that best fits each school’s mission, he said. There are “more meaningful ways for teachers to influence their schools than some of the more traditional ways,” North said.
Whether its teachers enter a union or not, each charter school has to stay focused on its own mission, Ledbetter said.
Ledbetter said he couldn’t speak for all charter schools about whether teachers joining the union could bridge the gap between charters and the SLPS district. However, he said, “I only look for our relationship with local 420 to improve our relationship with the St. Louis Public Schools.”
Charter schools are willing to build ties with anyone interested in contributing to the students’ academic success, North said.
However, he said, “Charter schools are independent public schools. [Teachers joining the union] shouldn’t play a part of bridging the gap between charter schools and the St. Louis Public Schools.”
Some of the animosity between the SLPS and charter schools is the result of competition. North said having alternative options for schools makes the SLPS take a strategic position on how to better serve its families.
“If there’s options, the district has no monopoly,” he said. “If the district is concerned that parents are taking their children out of the district, then maybe they should talk to them and find out why.”
In Missouri, charter schools are only allowed to operate in the two largest “problem school districts,” Kansas City and St. Louis. In several other states, charter schools are more common.
Armstrong said that because of the dire financial situation of the SLPS, the AFT is proposing a moratorium on opening any new charter schools in the city.
“Further expansion of charters would prove to be detrimental, if not deadly, to SLPS,” she said.
The negotiations are ongoing. Meehan said he has no personal experience working with a teachers union, but the schools’ board members all have union ties in the construction field. The talk of joining a union seemed pretty natural for the school workers, he said.
“The nice thing is we are so small,” he said. “It’s not thousands of people with a thousand points of view.”
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