Issue link: http://educator.cta.org/i/1509126
On Unionizing: MARY GARDNER " Having a union gives you a sense of dignity in our profession that is often quite lacking in our society. Our union has been huge for building community and welcoming new faculty." SAL WILLIAMS " Winning transparency has made a huge difference. We used to not know how much money we had to spend and now I know exactly what's in the budget that we can spend on books, supplies or field trips." JEREMY ZUNIGA " Having our voices heard is incredibly important. Any decision from management is going to impact our students, and ensuring educator voice is why we're all here." NICOLE PIPER " Teachers are loving, caring and generous people and sometimes managers take advantage of that. Organizing makes school better for your students. Unionizing helps the whole community." KYNA COLLINS " A union gives you a voice. It provides you with resources, opportunities and support. If we want public education in California to succeed, educators need to be at the table, and the way to do that in a meaningful way is in a union." MICAH WULLSCHLEGER " Regardless of the beautiful, unique things we can do at our charter schools, we are all deserving of some basic labor rights and protections that are worth fighting for." "is first contract is the first time we have guaranteed sick days and personal time," says Micah Wullschleger, five-year humanities teacher at High Tech High in Chula Vista and HTEC member. "To have a sustainable contract is what's best for our students." For HTEC, in San Diego County, that meant also negotiating a 25-to-1 stu- dent-to-teacher ratio into their contract, which benefits the whole school commu- nity. In Santa Cruz, United PCS members are hoping their new contract will mean Pacific Collegiate School stops losing a significant number of teachers every year. Both victories made ripples throughout the California educational landscape — United PCS President Mary Gardner says a colleague from a neighboring local said the campaign made a difference for all educators in the area. "That really meant a lot to have that impact," she says. "It's all about raising teacher voice because we understand what students need." ese leaders and 23 of their colleagues who are members of CTA-affiliated char- ter school unions were the initial cohort in a pilot program born out of a recom- mendation by the CTA Charter School Advisory Committee to the CTA Board of Directors. e result was the Charter Leader Strategy meeting, which brought 25 charter local leaders to the March CTA State Council of Education meeting in Los Angeles. The goal was to provide a space for these educators to have discussions about issues important to charter school edu- cators and give them a firsthand look at the inner workings of State Council, CTA's policy-making body, so they can bring a charter educator voice as the cohort expands and continues. "It was cool to see it all in operation and realize 'I'm a very small part in a very big machine," says Sal Williams, English teacher and president of San Jose's South Bay Educators United (SBEU), which was the first educators' union to organize during the 2020 quarantine. While some of the charter leaders were still fighting for their first contract, others are more experienced like Nicole Piper, president of California Virtual Educators United (CVEU), who is in her sixth con- tract campaign. Even a seasoned leader like her found the meeting informative and p ower ful , l earnin g that many of the charter management organizations across the state are represented by the same law firm. Solidarity rocks! High Tech Education Collective members kicked off the year by winning their first contract ever. 40 cta.org Advocacy