They voted to dissolve! So when does the SRC finally go away?

Their last day is June 30. This follows the requirement that the vote must happen at least 180 days before the actual dissolution. The June 30 aligns with the fiscal year -- new school board, new budget.

What will replace the commission?

A nine-member school board appointed by the Mayor, which is what oversaw the district before the SRC came into existence in 2001. There is also a planned non-voting position for a current Philadelphia student.

How will these members be selected? 

According to the Mayor’s timeline, A nominating committee will be appointed by Mid-December. This committee will recommend 3 possible choices for each of the 9 seats on the board. The mayor will select one of these recommendations for each seat. There is also pending legislation -- which will require approval by public referendum --  that would require city council approval for all nominees.

Can anyone become a member of the school board?

For the first time since 2001, Philadelphia will soon control its own schools. With Mayor Kenney’s endorsement, the SRC is almost certain to vote for its own abolition, ending the failed experiment that put Harrisburg in control of the Philadelphia School District.

The return of local control is a victory for Philadelphia’s students, parents, teachers, and community members. It is a victory for those who have spent years attending SRC meetings to protest and testify for more accountable school governance. It is a victory for Mayor Kenney, for recognizing the danger that state control poses to the future of our school district, and it is a victory for the members of the SRC for recognizing that the students of Philadelphia are best served by their willingness to step aside.

It is a victory that would not have happened without strong, grassroots organizing.

After more than 15 years, why have the Mayor and SRC chosen this moment to dissolve? The Mayor has spent the last year refusing to commit to a particular timeline. As recently as a few weeks ago, he said that he expected a vote on SRC abolition to happen “sometime in 2018.” Meanwhile, members of City Council and the Mayor’s staff had told us in recent months that there was little movement towards SRC dissolution, and little likelihood this would change without outside pressure. So what changed?

Every parent, student, educator, and community member has a vision for the vibrant public schools that Philly deserves. Whether your vision is of community control, culturally-relevant pedagogy, sanctuary schools, or simply sufficient staffing and resources, we believe that the only way to make our vision for Philly schools a reality is by coming together to share ideas, build our skills, and working together. 

On Saturday, November 4th we hope you will join us for our 4th annual Working Educators Convention to share YOUR vision for Philadelphia's public schools. We invite EVERY educator, education advocate, and community member to join us for a day of building our skills, learning together, and discussing key public education issues with workshops organized by leaders in education, union, and justice work from all over the country. Plus, breakfast and lunch to break bread together, and childcare will be available to make sure everyone can join us.

Can you make it? Can you invite a fellow educator, parent, or public school advocate to join us? 

We are thrilled to have a keynote address by Erica Smiley, a progressive labor leader and Jobs with Justice's National Organizing Director- and a closing address from Massachusetts Teachers Association (MTA) President Barbara Madeloni!

P.S. Check out Barbara Madeloni on Friday night for a free and public speech on "Pedagogy and Power: The Essential Role of Teacher's Unions in Movement Building", as part of the Critical Theories of Education Today Conference at the Friends Center!

Here's the full agenda:

Building Power through Organizing: 4th Annual Convention

Sat, Nov. 4, 2017 (9:00am-4pm), Old First Reformed UCC, 151 N. 4th Street

9:00-10:00am, Registration & Breakfast

10:00-10:45am, Keynote

“Building the 21st Century Labor Movement: Confronting White Supremacy to Build Shared Bargaining Power” by Erica Smiley (Jobs with Justice)

11:00am-12:00pm, Breakout Session 1

• Worksite Mapping (Kathleen Brower):  Participants will learn how to build an effective organization and worksite structure to mobilize a super-majority of their coworkers.

• Critically Examining Race Inside the Classroom and Beyond (Ismael Jimenez, Keziah Ridgeway, Angela Crawford):  The session will explore the multiple manifestations of racism within our society and how to purposefully address racism inside and out of the classroom.

• Decentering Whiteness In Our Classrooms and Schools  (Charlie McGeehan & Monica Clark):  This session is intended to help educators who identify as white unpack the role their whiteness plays in their classrooms, schools, and daily interactions. Participants will leave with strategies to bring this work to peers at their schools

12:00-1:00pm, Lunch

1:15-2:15pm, Breakout Session 2

• Tools to Build Power: Using Surveys to Move People to Action (Christi Clark & Zein Nakhoda): Participants will leave with an understanding of how to use WE’s new survey, skills to respond to tough questions, and a plan to engage more educators in taking action.  

• Expanding Sanctuary Inside Schools and Out (Max Rosen-Long & Edwin Mayorga):  How can we create “sanctuary schools” that support students and families across issues of culturally relevant teaching, policing and ICE in schools, and parent-school relationships? Help develop a framework to make sure our schools are empowering for all students, educators, and families.

• Organizing to Save Our Schools: (Tonyah Bah, Kendra Brooks, Andres Celin, & Amy Roat) Hear how students, parents and teachers are organizing together to fight against threatened school takeovers (through SGS, Turnaround, Renaissance Charter, Closure, etc.)

2:30-3:15pm, Closing

“Union leadership and the dismantling of white supremacy” by Barbara Madeloni (President of the Massachusetts Teachers Association, EDU)

If you have any questions, please contact us at [email protected] or post in the facebook event. We can't wait to see you!

(Pictured above: photos from last year's 3rd Annual WE Convention) 

WE convened Tuesday, September 12 in a classroom at Kensington CAPA for our monthly organizing meeting. This meeting kicked off the year with matters of deepest concern:  discussing how to fight for safer, healthier schools and maintaining the values at the heart of WE: educational justice and equality for our students.

A representative from the Philly Healthy Schools Initiative opened the meeting with frightening facts about the poor indoor air quality in specific schools throughout the district:

• Dobbins AVT High School, Furness High School, Spring Garden School, and F. Amadee Bregy each have extensive mold remediation issues. 
• Clementè Roberto Middle School, Hunter Elementary School, Edward T. Steel School, Luis Muños-Marín Elementary, and Furness High School all have potential issues with asbestos remediation.

These are the schools that WE are positive have these issues, yet there could be more with these conditions that are unknown.  

When six Philadelphia public schools were announced to be "restructured" earlier this month, we knew it was time to get organized.

Inspired by the anti-turnaround fights waged by schools like Munoz-Marin and Kensington Health Sciences, we know we can successfully defend our schools and colleagues by building deep connections between parents, school staff, and community members. 

Our System of Great Schools support campaign is about diving head first into local school organizing! We are standing in solidarity with the leadership of families, students, community members, and teachers in these six buildings (Rhoads, Gideon, Steel, Wagner, Penn Treaty, and Feltonville SAS) so that their voices, needs, and hopes for their schools are at the center of the entire process. 

Inside the buildings, educators and families are working around the clock to organize their communities. But every public education supporter is needed in this fight.

We can all support these schools by being present at the eighteen public SGS evening meetings (3 per school), to listen to and support parents and students and teachers as they organize to take their school back. Our goal is to have as many supporters as possible at each meeting.

Will you sign up to go to one of the SGS meetings and help to bring others with you? Here's the calendar:

I take my loyalty to the PFT seriously.

The week the SRC tried to cancel our contract, I was at the microphone testifying against them. I have served as a Political Liaison at two schools. I’ve been a member of Building Committee. I have served on the citywide Community Schools Taskforce, whose work directly led to Mayor Kenney’s pledge to bring Community Schools to Philly. I’ve been to every membership meeting since I’ve been a teacher, and I’ve been to countless protests, rallies, and town halls pushing for public schools and their employees. I make it a point to talk about my union with my colleagues as much as possible, and to make sure that my entire outside network knows about our recent contract battle -- and our win last June.

And sometimes I do those things wearing a WE t-shirt.

And I want to be clear about something: I don’t wear it because I’m against the PFT leadership. I don’t wear it because I’m trying to win votes for anything. I don’t wear it as a statement of opposition, and I’m not wearing it to persuade people of something.

Let me try to explain why I do wear it.

With the new school year right around the corner, the Caucus of Working Educators is getting ready to move forward by looking back at our biggest, most successful year in our short history.

How did our actions turn into wins? Here’s the short version: 

#Fightfor15 

In November, WE joined forces with the Fight for 15 campaign and stood with fast food workers, home health care workers, and allies looking to ensure that all Americans earn a living wage at their jobs. Several caucus members took arrests and wrote about why. With a $15 minimum wage already a reality in several cities and states, our participation contributed to a national movement and ongoing debate about raising the wage in Pennsylvania. 

Black Lives Matter Week

In January, WE organized our biggest campaign ever, all designed to get schools talking about racial justice. Black Lives Matter week featured suggested curriculum for teachers, an event or panel every evening, and t-shirts to show solidarity and get the conversation started. Over 100 schools participated, and Philadelphia Eagle Malcolm Jenkins spoke at the closing panel. The week set a new standard for how we talk about race in Philadelphia schools, and thanks to our model, BLM week will be going national next year, with other cities modeling their programs after ours.

Immigrant Rights 

Starting last November, WE started organizing to protect our students and families who were threatened by new immigration policies. We organized several information sessions, showed up at Philadelphia International Airport when Trump tried to turn away arriving refugees, and advocated tirelessly for the district to step up in its protection of immigrant students. As a result of our efforts, the District agreed to a mandatory training about immigrant rights for all educators at the start of this school year.

PFT Contract Actions

WE never lost sight of the fact that district educators were in their fourth year without a contract -- and we made sure that nobody else in Philly could forget it, either.

First, we designed printed those buttons announcing how many days it had been. And when 1,000 turned into 1,100, 1,200, 1,300+ days... we sent out updated images. 

Then, we dropped a banner in the middle of the Labor Day parade to remind our union brothers and sisters that we needed their solidarity.

Next, we flooded Dr. Hite's office with written requests for the district to return to the negotiating table, delivered via pony, the internal mail system. 

And then, we printed thousands of lawn signs letting people know that their friendly neighborhood educators neighbors were feeling the squeeze of no contract -- and also letting allies announce their support.

All of these actions moved our contract battle into the public eye -- and brought us a long way towards a fair resolution with the district!

May Day of Advocacy

When it felt like we might not see a contract before the end of the school year, WE decided enough was enough. Over five hundred educators from across the district took personal days and showed up in front of 440 to demand fair treatment, and then at City Hall in solidarity with Day Without An Immigrant. We got the entire city's attention -- including the front page of the Inquirer.

This “coordinated teacher absence” was not a strike, but the district still tried to punish educators for acting within their rights by withholding pay. This attempt was successfully shut down by PFT leadership, who did not endorse the action but supported its members after the fact. We showed the district that, even with the state prohibition on strikes, Philadelphia teachers can still take action -- and that action helped get the PFT to a contract offer the next month. 

Contract Information

Before the contract offer was released, we started a petition asking that the PFT leadership give the rank and file a reading period before the vote. Thanks to our efforts, we went from a same-day reading period in 2011 to a three-day reading period for the new contract. When the new terms were released, we immediately built a wage and health care cost calculator to help the rank and file figure out exactly what the contract meant for them financially., organized contract reading parties around the city, and posed questions to the leadership about contract terms we did not understand. Our work helped the rank and file make an informed decision about their vote! 

 ...And Cool T-Shirts!

In addition to the massively popular Black LIves Matter t-shirts, we also did a limited run of PFT Local 3 shirts, in the style of one of your favorite sports teams.

Missed the window? Don’t worry, we’ll be back soon with a new design, this time in the spirit of a different team!

So, What’s Next?

Our committees are hard at work making plans for the coming school year. We’re not a top-down organization, our best ideas come from members and their experiences in their schools, neighborhoods, and communities. Each of the campaigns described above was dreamt up and brought to life by educators just like you.

What that means is: What do YOU think the caucus should be doing next?

That’s right, we want to work with you! Become a member today or just shoot us an email at [email protected]. We’ll help you figure out where you fit in the work.

It’s really that easy.

On November 19, the Caucus of Working Educators brought together PFT members and a wide range of allies to ask what educators, union members, and communities could do to champion schools and justice in the shadow of a newly-elected Presidential administration: “Organizing is the Answer.” WE’s 3rd annual convention was a day of building skills and highlighting winning campaigns with workshops organized by educators and union leaders from all over the country.

What exactly did we do and learn?

Jia Lee from the MORE Caucus of the UFT of New York—along with representatives of BMORE, NJCORE, and the Korean Teachers Union (KTU)—spoke of the ongoing challenges and philosophical penetration of advancing the fight for equity and justice in unions as well as through society-at-large. This event also hosted a number of breakout sessions on organizing within school buildings and local communities, as well as plans for successful issue campaigns and developing new union leaders. These were led by regional labor and community advocates from PASNAP, 215 People’s Alliance, Parents United, Labor Notes, and unions from higher education.

What are the next steps? How can you answer the call for organizing within the PFT, the city, the important causes of the day? Where can you get involved?

Start by joining us on Tuesday, December 13, at Kensington CAPA High School (1901 N. Front St, Philadelphia, 19122) in room 209 at 4:00 p.m. for WE’s Monthly Organizing Meeting. We’ll be discussion action plans for continuing to support the PFT’s contract negotiations with the District, protesting Pat Toomey’s campaign against sanctuary cities, developing special District-wide Black Lives Matter curriculum and events for January, abolishing the School Reform Commission, and more.

Parents and students are the most important allies that teachers’ unions must embrace to secure a strong contract and better education for children.

Families see a site for just the few years that children attend a school, and many misunderstand the gradual return of some staff over the past few years as improvement, without seeing the net loss over the longer term. We still have not returned to pre-2013 levels of funding and staffing, and we cannot allow the lingering “Doomsday Budget” to become the “new normal.”

Parents need the constant reminder that educators’ working conditions are their children’s learning conditions, and once a year we have the opportunity to build solidarity with thousands of families across the city: Back To School Night!

So... Get A Rally Going At Your Back To School Night!

For the past two years, staff at several schools have hit the pavement with signs, flyers, chalk, and political theater before BTSN with a great response from parents and the press. We need to take our message city-wide this year! It will look different at every school, but here are some tips:

• Mobilize your comrades on staff to take action. Here’s a sample mailbox flyer to download and edit.
• Stage your rally immediately before your official BTSN start time when parents are arriving.
• Build solidarity with your parents by contacting your Home & School Association or key parent leaders in advance and ask for their support in raising awareness. Invite parents to come early and join educators outside the school before the official BTSN begins.
• Get the real numbers affecting your school, and don’t just include your pay and benefits. Be sure to highlight the direct impact that cuts and freezes have on kids: Larger class-sizes, lost programs, no library, fewer counselors, part-time nurse, old textbooks, broken furniture, dirty classrooms, deferred maintenance, no NTA’s, cuts in total budget, cuts in per-pupil spending. Ask your principal for some of these numbers.
• Make a leaflet to hand out. Include those numbers, and links for families to get involved in the struggle! Here’s an example leaflet you can copy. 
• Turn that leaflet into a press release and send it out. Example press release
• Make signs that parents and students can relate to.
• Sidewalk chalk your messages near the entrance.
• Translate materials into the languages that your families speak.
• Create theater and symbolic displays that drive home the impact of cuts. In the past, staff have brought out student desks to show what a 59-student classroom looks like, set up displays of battered old textbooks, staged a bookselling of Driven By Data books, and collected supply donations from parents.
• Make a What’s NOT Back To School banner
• If your principal is sympathetic, ask her to join you, and see if some staff can remain outside for a short time after the start of BTSN, and plan for some parents to stay outside to continue the message.
• Take Photos and share your action
• Once inside, continue the conversation as much as possible. Add a slide to your back to school night presentation about how budget cuts are affecting your school this year.

The beginning of the school year is very busy, but colleagues working together can pull together a successful rally very quickly. Central teacher KD Davenport describes how she turned an idea into a hugely successful rally in just a matter of days:

I got an immediate positive response from my colleagues. People were amazing about contributing their gifts: One creative colleague suggested that we line up 59 desks to represent the number of students in an Algebra class; another put together a flier of facts and figures; still others translated that flier into Spanish and Chinese. Once we had a flyer made up, we adapted it into a press

 release and sent out a blast via email and Twitter to the media. Word quickly spread and on Back To School Night we were joined by reporters and photographers from NBC 10, ABC 6, The Inquirer, and WHYY Newsworks.

Our PFT building committee was incredibly supportive and publicized the event to the entire staff. Our administration was also on board. Our principal came outside and spoke to the press, and we even got our Alumni and Home and School associations involved. Helen Gym showed up, as did Jerry Jordan. And we did it all in a matter of days!

Go and do it!

As summer gets going, mark your calendars now to celebrate Philadelphia's union family at the annual Labor Day Parade and Picnic this year!

We will begin gathering at 9:30am at the Sheetmetal Workers Union Hall (1301 S. Columbus Blvd, near Washington Ave), with the parade to Penn's Landing kicking off at 10am.

Bring your whole family to celebrate after the march, at the AFL-CIO family celebration and picnic from 11-2pm at Penn's Landing! Click here to download the flyer to print or share on social media.