State of theUnion Winter/Spring, 2015
Appropriate Staffing Levels = Better Patient Care
Danbury Nurses Unit 47 President Mary Consoli & AFT Connecticut Vice-President Joanne Chapin [Editor’s note: the following op-ed was originally published Feb. 28 in Hearst Media newspapers.]
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e are proud to collectively represent over 700 registered nurses (RNs) at Danbury and New Milford Hospitals, two of the three acute care facilities in the Western Connecticut Health Network (WCHN). We were saddened to learn last month that both ranked at the bottom of a statewide adverse events report prepared by the Connecticut Department of Public Health (DPH). In other words, our hospitals reported more adverse events per patient day than any other facility in the State. We wish we could say we were surprised (continued on page 3)
Educators Organize to Resist Privatization
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ew Haven Federation of Teachers members in January began to organize a grassroots response to a privatization proposal that threatened to divert scarce resources away from the students they educate. They quickly came together on news of a plan for their local district to “partner” with private charter management organization (CMO) Achievement First, Inc. on a new taxpayerfunded school. Union members reached out to parents, students, administrators, elected officials, and advocates and over the course of five weeks presented a strong, unified front of opposition to the scheme. Their efforts paid off when in late February the superintendent in response to overwhelming community opposition announced the proposed “Elm City Imagine” charter would be dropped indefinitely. [Editor’s note: media coverage of the win is linked in the “News” page’s “Holding Charter Management Companies Accountable” post at our website at www.aftct.org.] Describing members’s efforts as “nothing short of terrific,” New Haven Federation of Teachers President David Cicarella (pictured, right) praised their show of force at Community Engagement Starts at Home
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two Board of Education (BOE) meetings. “I was really proud of just how much we came together. The number of members who made it a point to go to the meetings, spent hours waiting to speak -- on school nights -- really showed that this issue was important,” he added. Members at the first meeting where the plan was presented raised a number of questions during public comment about the plan’s apparent lack of transparency and democratic process. “This is the first time this discussion has occurred,” said Ashley Stockton (pictured, above), a union member and parent with students in the district’s schools. “Yet children are currently being enrolled in a kindergarten that doesn’t exist,” she said. Many members -- as well as parents -- raised concerns over Achievement First’s well-documented (continued on page 3)
Demanding CTE: Accountability for the A Bridge to the Charter Industry Middle Class
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Community Engagement Starts at Home
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FT in early January organized a first-ever forum on racial justice attended by members of the national Paraprofessionals & School-Related Personnel (PSRP) Program and Policy Council (PPC). Leaders of AFT Connecticut affiliated unions attended the town hall-style event in Florida and reported on recent successful community engagement efforts where paraeducators have played a significant role. “The overlap between community member and union member is indistinguishable,” said AFT Connecticut Vice-President and PSRP Council Chair Shellye Davis (pictured, center, with members of the Hartford Federation of Paraprofessionals). “We are an integral part of the communities where we work because we live in these communities, too. We attend the same churches, vote for the same candidates and send our children to the same schools as the parents of the students whose educations we support.” [Editor’s note: report-back from the forum is available in the “News” page at our website at www.aftct.org.] Davis shared with participants at the forum how the Hartford Federation of Paraprofessionals joined with their colleagues in the teachers union to mobilize support for a “Community Bill of Rights.” A resolution backing the Hartford Rising! coalition’s blueprint for holding civic, business and elected leaders accountable to basic needs was in December adopted by the City Council. “We were inspired by the opportunity to make real, lasting change in our schools and in our communities,” she said. “And the fact that Hartford Rising! was organizing to resolve the issues we see facing our students every day -- poverty, racism, segregation, and inequality -- convinced our members to get involved.” A key take-away for many who attended AFT’s racial justice forum is that achieving measurable results in our communities takes focused, sustained effort and the support of natural allies. That’s exactly how Hartford’s teachers and paraeducators won a “community bill of rights” that provides a foundation for a better future for themselves, their schools, and their city.
CTE: A Bridge to the Middle Class
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tate employees in the Connecticut Technical High School System (CTHSS) have long known the value of integrating academic studies and high-quality career and technical education (CTE) programs. Their experience has been vital to the discussions taking place in the nation’s capitol as Congress considers reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) -- known in its current form as “No Child Left Behind” (NLCB). AFT Connecticut Vice-President and Public Employees Council Chair Jan Hochadel (pictured below, right) urged a U.S. Senate panel in February to view students benefitting from CTE as “success stories, not anomalies.” The event highlighted CTE’s importance in renewal of the ESEA as well as the Career Ready Act of 2015, which our national union has been advocating for. The proposed legislation emphasizes the importance of preparing students not just for college readiness upon graduation from high school but also for workforce readiness for those seeking a different path. Jan, who also serves as president of the State Vocational Federation of Teachers, told the Senate panel that CTHSS “does not just ‘expose’ students to various career opportunities.” She explained that she and her colleagues prepare their students “to have the skill set needed to enter into a career directly upon graduation, often with a license or two years of apprenticeship.” [Editor’s note: report-back from the Senate panel is available in the “News” page at our website at www.aftct.org.] As part of the effort to support and grow quality CTE opportunities, AFT in November teamed up with the AFL-CIO organize a first-ever “CTE Summit” in Washington, DC. There the results of a national survey of career and technical education teachers, including SVFT members, were released. Melodie Peters President Stephen McKeever First Vice President STATE OF THE UNION is published on an irregular basis up to four times a year by AFT Connecticut, 35 Marshall Road, Rocky Hill, CT 06067. Phone: 860/257-9782 www.aftct.org Third class postage paid at Hartford, CT
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Appropriate Staffing Levels... (continued from page 1) by the results. New Milford Hospital used to have one of the best rates in the state, and Danbury Hospital has a well-deserved reputation for excellence. Unfortunately, we have been experiencing staffing shortages at each of our facilities as a result of cost-cutting measures. Layoffs, unfilled positions, and reductions in support staff have had a direct impact on our members and our patients. We have long tracked short staffing and saw problems were getting worse. Now, we all see evidence of the impact of this cost cutting. Adverse events are those errors that should never happen. The two most common reported statewide were pressure ulcers (bed sores) and death or injury from falls, representing over two thirds of the total reported number of incidents. Each of these events are directly related to bedside care. The basic formula is as clear as it is obvious; fewer nurses and other caregivers equals more adverse events. The reverse is also true; appropriate staffing levels equals better patient care. This has been well documented in academic reports and scientific literature. Our nurses are dedicated to their patients, but when staffing levels decrease it simply becomes impossible to do the job for which they were trained. Bed sores occur when staff do not have the time to move patients as often as recommended. Falls occur when there are not enough caregivers around to watch troubled or confused patients. Such conditions are simply not acceptable.
Technical Professionals at Danbury and New Milford Hospitals Gather After Voting “Union Yes” in November We don’t know whether our hospitals’ poor rankings among other facilities are the result of better reporting, so no one should be complacent. We doubt that this is just a problem at WCHN, and caution that any hospital with inadequate staffing will see similar results. Patients across the state deserve to know not just about reported adverse events, but also how their hospitals are staffed so they can make intelligent decisions as to where to entrust their health and the care of their loved ones. We are grateful that State Reps. David Arconti and Theresa Conroy have introduced legislation that would require hospitals to report staffing plans and actual daily staffing levels to DPH. We hope and expect that it will be supported by all who share our commitment to providing safe, high-quality care to our patients. [Editor’s note: at press time “safe staffing” legislation had passed the General Assembly’s Public Health Committee.]
Educators Organize... (continued from page 1) problems with exclusionary enrollment and harsh discipline. “When we reproduce this criminalization of students in our schools, we message that these young people don’t belong in school,” said union member Nataliya Braginsky (pictured, below). She warned the BOE that partnering with a CMO with such a high suspension rate risks leading more of the city’s students “down the path of the ‘schoolto-prison pipeline.’” Parents attended the meetings voicing not just their opposition to
the proposal, but also their support for New Haven’s traditional public schools -- and the teachers who educate their children. Many of our members who spoke also have children enrolled in the district, and they offered a unique dual perspective. “I wish that that the school that I work in had some of the same resources that my daughter’s school has,” union member and parent Jennifer WellsJackson (pictured, right) told the board. Her comments were echoed by many concerned that the proposal threatened to siphon already scarce public education dollars from the city’s neighborhood
schools. [Editor’s note: brief video with highlights from both meetings is at our YouTube Channel at www.youtube.com/AFTConn.] New Haven educators, working with a broad and diverse coalition, demonstrated what we mean by “community is the new density.” A local unionled, grassroots mobilization of “natural allies” was able to overcome the substantial advantages of the well-funded and politically-connected privatization lobby. This type of approach is exactly what will be needed to prevail against the many challenges union members can expect in the future. STATE OF THE UNION
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Demanding Accountability for the Charter Industry
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Melodie Peters, AFT Connecticut President
e learned last summer just how little we know about what goes on in schools operated by outside charter management organizations (CMOs). An investigation conducted by the State Department of Education (SDE) into the Jumoke Academy and the CMO that ran it, Families for Excellent Schools (FUSE), revealed shocking details. SDE’s report told us just as much about the department’s failures as it does about the shortcomings of Jumoke and FUSE. It demonstrated a lack of protocols, policies or procedures in place to ensure the kind of oversight needed to prevent the scandal -- or any other like it in the future. That’s why when the outgoing commissioner of SDE last November asked the State Board of Education (SBOE) for at least $21 million for additional publicly-funded charters we responded. In an op-ed published in The CT Mirror I urged the SBOE to reject the now former commissioner’s misguided and ill-timed charter scheme. [Editor’s note: a membership update sent in November with a link to Melodie’s op-ed is online in the “Take Action” section of our website at www.aftct.org.] Now that the legislative session has begun and state lawmakers are seeking ways to close an anticipated budget shortfall, the proposed charter dollars have been scaled back. Still, AFT Connecticut leadership, along with affiliated local unions and allies, are urging legislators to instead direct those resources to local districts underfunded by the state’s Education Cost Sharing (ECS) formula. We are also appealing for action this session on Connecticut’s charter school law, enacted in 1996 and among the weakest in the nation with regard to transparency and accountability. The lack of any mechanism to hold charter schools, CMOs or SBOE responsible for academic, administrative or financial functions exposed by the Jumoke/
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FUSE debacle demands immediate attention. In February I told the legislature’s Education Committee that a proposed bill seeking to reform and modernize charters and CMOs represents a good start, but does not go far enough. I urged they include additional requirements that would strengthen the bill by improving transparency as well as establishing the academic, operational and financial oversight that is lacking today. [Editor’s note: Melodie’s testimony is online in the “News” page’s “Holding Charter Management Companies Accountable” post at our website at www.aftct.org.] Considering the current controversy surrounding charters, lawmakers would be wise to develop new systems of state oversight before further investing in charter schools. Until those systems are established and implemented, proposals for new charters should be rejected and existing CMOs should only be funded at current service levels. [Editor’s note: at press time the legislature had raised a bill with even stricter oversight and accountability requirements for CMOs that AFT Connecticut is supporting; follow developments online at our Twitter feed at www.twitter.com/AFTCT.]
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