14 minute read
Strength in Union
MEA Joins Seven-State Pilot
Utica second grade teacher
Advertisement
Casey Joss will start her 18th year in the classroom this fall, but the MEA member hasn’t forgotten the struggles and uncertainties of being brand new to the profession.
In fact, it’s become her passion to remember those early days with clarity—so she can develop meaningful ways to directly help today’s early career educators thrive amid the complexities and demands of the job.
“Teaching is so hard, and we need to retain high-quality people in the profession and not lose them in those first few years, so I think of it as one of my duties to support the next generation of teachers,” Joss said.
Now she has a new vehicle to drive that work within the union.
MEA is one of seven Midwest education associations piloting a teacher-led system of supports for early career educators, called Educators Leading the Profession (ELP). Joss will serve as one of the virtual coaches available for participants to select as a professional practice guide.
In addition to a virtual coach, early career educators in the pilot program will receive a building mentor to act as a go-to person for practical information about how the school operates. Building mentors will also help to form a local in-person community of new teachers to support each other through collaboration and reflection.
Virtual instruction coaches, including Joss, will offer direct guidance through one-on-one meetings and use of research-based frameworks in a series of learning modules.
Joss said her focus with any new teachers she’s assigned to support will be to stress the importance of building relationships with students, the how-to of classroom management, and everyday realities not covered in teacher preparation programs.
She already has experience supervising student teachers in her classroom. In addition, for the past several years, Joss has secured an NEA grant to run professional development courses to help new teachers in Utica earn 30 of the 90 hours required in their first two years of teaching.
“Whenever there are openings, I also teach mathematics to undergrad students at Oakland University right before they’re getting ready to do their student teaching,” Joss said. “I get a lot of positive feedback, because I talk about the realities. They will stay after class just to chat about how to handle an angry parent or to get feedback on their lesson plans.”
The ELP pilot program offers veteran educators like Joss a new avenue for leadership within the union, and it extends MEA’s reach in a vital area of support for educators that is growing in importance—especially given the teacher shortage in Michigan and across the U.S., said MEA Executive Director Mike Shoudy.
“Because it’s union-led, the whole structure of the program is about creating a safe space for the new teacher to grow and be vulnerable,” Shoudy said. “We don’t work for administration; we’re not part of the evaluation process; we are solely there to support new teachers and make sure they’re successful so they stay in the profession.”
The discussions and planning for the program over the past two years have been vibrant and enthusiastic
Casey Joss Mike Shoudy
Program to Support New Teachers
as union leaders from across the region have come together in thinking outside of the box and trying something new, Shoudy said.
“Professional practice is our work. Being the voice of members is our work. Supporting new educators is our work. And our willingness to take a chance on something new is an exciting shift into a space where we haven’t traditionally been involved.”
By mid-summer, Farmington Public Schools had joined the free program to begin this fall. In Michigan, the goal is to run the pilot in two school districts for two years—and then evaluate if new teachers who participated grew their skills and stayed in the profession longer than peers who did not.
“Many members have described the first one to five years of teaching like drinking from a firehose,” Shoudy said. “Helping new teachers sift through that volume of information is so important.
“With ELP’s program, new teachers have a virtual coach to help on that instructional side, while the building mentor can support them in navigating the school’s culture, administration expectations, how to hold parent-teacher conferences, etc. Someone who has been there and can give advice and encouragement—that means so much to new teachers.”
MEA President Paula Herbart thanked the coaches, mentors and new teacher participants for being willing to pioneer a new approach that promises to keep early career educators from slipping through the cracks in those critical first few years.
“I can think of nothing more important than building an understanding and encouraging community around the early career educators who’ve answered the call to join the greatest profession,” Herbart said.
Neighboring state associations partnering in ELP include Nebraska, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Minnesota and Ohio.
Bring a hands-on, field trip-style experience to your school!
BOOK NOW AT miagclassroom.org/lab/reserve/
We’re hiring FARM Science Lab Regional Educators!
APPLY NOW AT miagclassroom.org/lab/recruitment/
Grandville Union Stands in Diversity, Equity & Inclusion
For MEA member
Henry Stallings, systemic racism and bias is nothing new in the U.S. “As a Black man, I live this every day,” he says. But one thing is changing, he believes: public awareness of issues surrounding marginalized communities in America.
With the May 25 one-year anniversary of the brutal police killing of George Floyd, which sparked worldwide protest and calls for change, the local union in Grandville—where Stallings works as a third-grade teacher—passed a resolution and presented it to the school board in support of the district’s beginning work to broadly promote diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI).
In addition to race, the Grandville Education Association’s resolution in support of equal rights and opportunity considers individuals’ color, creed, gender, LGBTQIA+, national origin, and physical, intellectual or emotional ability.
The resolution’s first statement addresses “both the current and historically disparate treatment of and biases against the aforementioned persons, and a growing awareness of these injustices in our Grandville community, our State, and our Nation.”
Stallings served on a committee of the GEA that drafted the resolution. He acknowledged fears and difficulties that educators face in discussing controversial topics in school, but teaching kids how to understand and discuss complex issues is partly the role of education, he said.
“We have all of these events converging at this one point in history. Can we just talk about it? The time is now. In order for things to even remotely change and be better for the next generations, we have to be able to talk about difficult things.”
Grandville is a small suburb southwest of Grand Rapids where the 5,600-student school district is predominantly white, although the racial and ethnic demographics of the city are becoming more diverse as is happening elsewhere. Last year the district’s administration formed a DEI committee and is next hiring a DEI director to build awareness of and support for students who belong to underrepresented communities. That is the work supported by the GEA in the union’s resolution. Middle school math teacher
Kristin Bakker co-chaired the GEA’s resolution committee, her first time stepping up to a leadership role with her local union since she began working in Grandville three years ago.
Bakker spent her first 12 years teaching in the more diverse
Grand Rapids Public Schools. “I came in with a different-angle view on various students and populations I had worked with in Grand Rapids, which is where I developed a real heart for this work around diversity, equity, and inclusion,” Bakker said. “It’s a passion of mine.”
The committee met virtually each week for several weeks to develop a draft resolution, which was put out to membership for line-by-line feedback and further revised based on the comments and suggestions submitted.
The resolution pledges support for the district’s DEI work and calls upon the administration to “allot
Henry Stallings
Support of Initiatives
Kristin Bakker
and require professional development opportunities related to race and other challenging topics such as confronting biases, racial micro-aggressions, using schoolwide data on race and discipline, fears, cultural ignorance, inclusion, and stereotypes of the aforementioned youth to all district staff and associated employees.”
The resolution also announced the establishment of a permanent GEA Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Committee and pledged the union’s commitment to promote those values within the local association by “reviewing our bylaws and policies that may be contributing to lack of diverse representation within our Association.”
The Grandville Education Association believes that every person, regardless of race, color, creed, gender, LGBTQIA+, national origin or physical, intellectual or emotional ability, has the right to equal opportunity for education and employment and equal rights of citizenship as established in the nation and state by the constitutions, statutes and judicial decisions. WHEREAS, in response to both the current and historically disparate treatment of and biases against the aforementioned persons, and a growing awareness of these injustices in our
Grandville community, our State, and our Nation;
WHEREAS, schools should be places for practice of equity, for the building of understanding, and for the active engagement in creating pathways to freedom and justice for all people;
WHEREAS, the Grandville Education Association acknowledges the need to address institutionalized racism and inequity in the communities in which we all coexist;
WHEREAS, we affirm our commitment to the emotional and physical safety of all our Grandville students. It means that our schools and classrooms must be safe spaces for dialogue and support on the relevant issues we are facing;
WHEREAS, the core principle of unions and the labor movement— “An Injury to One is An Injury to All”—requires all working people of conscience to take a stand for justice;
Therefore, Be It Resolved that the GEA:
Will encourage and support Grandville Public Schools’ initiatives reflected in the work of the Diversity, Equity and Inclusion committee. We are committed to finding ways where the GEA can partner with the district’s goals. Will call upon the district to allot and require professional development opportunities related to race and other challenging topics such as confronting biases, racial micro aggressions, using school-wide data on race and discipline, fears, cultural ignorance, inclusion, and stereotypes of the aforementioned youth to all district staff and associated employees.
Will actively work to foster diversity, equity and inclusion in our local association by reviewing our bylaws and policies that may be contributing to lack of diverse representation within our Association.
Will establish a permanent Grandville Education Association Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Committee.
Will promote the understanding, acceptance and recognition of all individuals, regardless of race, color, creed, gender, LGBTQIA+, national origin or physical, intellectual or emotional ability.
Grandville Education Association, 2021
Blake Mazurek
The union’s resolution plays an important role in giving voice to educators who want to show support for all of their students and staff colleagues by acknowledging social justice struggles playing out in society and on the news every day, Bakker said.
“Having a statement like this gives support to teachers by saying together we are standing behind this work and it’s important for our students to feel heard and seen,” Bakker said. “It says that it’s OK to talk about tough issues within our union and to look for ways to make things better for our students.”
The resolution overwhelmingly passed a vote of the membership, and GEA President Blake Mazurek presented it to the school board a few weeks later. He stressed the resolution’s purpose—to highlight the importance of strengthening the community’s bonds.
“A close reading of our statement shows acceptance, not exclusion; encouragement, not indictment; recognition, not repudiation,” he told the board. “We are your partners in building a stronger, more equitable school district and community.”
Mazurek teaches middle school history and knows firsthand that discussing controversial issues in school can be fraught with peril, he said. Educators must be careful not to appear to espouse political points of view with a captive audience of students.
“Many teachers—especially if they’re newer or don’t believe they’ll be supported by administration— don’t want to get anywhere near that line,” Mazurek said. “Even if they feel a discussion about what is happening today could help students understand the curriculum, their caution about how they may be misconstrued holds them back.”
However, with his knowledge of U.S. history, Mazurek also realizes all of us are living in a period when “we’re rubbing up against some of our past history that keeps dogging us and that we need to find a way to let go of and move beyond”—and the union has a role to play in helping members stand up and speak out together.
“These things that we struggle with as a nation, as a community, they’re not easy topics,” he continued. “It’s hard to look in that collective mirror as a nation and see some of the things that we’re carrying forward from the past that we need to address and find solutions for by continuing to listen and trying to understand.”
Bakker agreed that talking and learning are important steps toward healing divisions in the country.
“We’re all learning here, and no one is a master on the subject,” she said. “This is not pointing a finger that I’m right and you’re wrong. It’s about saying, ‘Hey, let’s have the discussion and be willing to hear each other out.’ That would be a massive step forward anywhere.”
Being willing to talk and listen is a vital first step that is overdue, Stallings added. “If we can’t be in a place where we aren’t afraid to talk about difficult things, the wheel is just going to keep spinning and things will just keep going the way they have been going,” he said.
Award-Winning ESP Leader Fought for ‘the Little Guy’
It won’t be easy for MEA
member Becky Lesh to retire at the end of this summer from the Waterford district where she’s lived for 27 years and worked for two decades. But she finds consolation in wins that her education support professionals unit has secured under her leadership.
In her five years as local president, Lesh beat back a district effort to fully privatize the custodial department, and she won back some of the 16% wage cut and four holidays that were taken away to discourage those members from staying.
In 2017, the district moved to privatize transportation, but Lesh organized the community and her members to pull out a victory. She has since won an increase in transportation wages and paid holidays.
“My grandpa was a huge union guy, a pipefitters union steward, and I’ve always been one to look out for the little guy,” Lesh said. “In the end, it’s about making sure people aren’t taken advantage of.”
A longtime bus driver and vicechair of the 7E Coordinating Council, Lesh has been named MEA’s 2021 Leon A. Brunner Award winner for her tireless work fighting privatization efforts and reversing cuts to positions and pay.
Lesh has gotten at least 15 positions returned to the unit in various job classifications as a new administration agreed with her arguments that higher union pay and local control brought greater ease of hiring, better quality, and greater efficiencies over privatization, she said.
“Now I feel good that hopefully things will continue to rise up and get better,” she said.
Lesh led her local union in various community service opportunities, from holiday donations to raffle fundraisers, and she has been a patient leader always willing to teach and share information with members and the community, according to nominators Heather Madigan, the union’s custodial maintenance rep; and Toni Weddle, the food service rep and local treasurer.
“Becky is continually there for her members and is always willing to fight for the betterment of our members,” the nominators said. “If she feels anyone has been treated wrongly by the District, she is willing and ready to go the extra mile to make it right.”
The annual Brunner Award recognizes support staff members who have exhibited a high degree of commitment and dedication to their union while advocating for ESP member issues.
MEA UniServ Director Troy Beasley worked with Lesh when he was president of the education association in Waterford. She was instrumental in developing the collaborative relationship that exists between the teachers and support staff unions, he said.
“She believes in unions, solidarity, and speaking up for those who can’t speak for themselves,” Beasley said. “She is not afraid to speak her mind and is the first person to volunteer to help others when they are in crisis.”
Despite the admiring words and award, Lesh says anyone can do what she did—armed with belief and commitment—and she has trained others to replace her. “I remind my members every day, I’m not Superwoman; you can do this without me. Just don’t say, ‘OK’ when something’s not right. Choose to stand up for yourselves and each other.”
She has the same advice for anyone who thinks of becoming a leader but shies away from doing it.
“Don’t be afraid. Reach out to the people who’ve been doing it. Get yourself into ESP conferences and any of the MEA trainings, because you’ll network. You’ll meet friends and realize you’re not alone. Just ask, and you’ll be amazed at the number of people who are willing to help at the drop of a hat. I’ve been amazingly lucky that way.”
