Making a splash for schools
Participants say effort a show of solidarity
Little Rock Central High teacher LaRon McAdoo (foreground) helps lead a rally Wednesday morning on the front steps at Central High before a “walk-in” in a show of solidarity for the Little Rock School District in the face of state control and rejection of the teacher bargaining organization. More than 250 teachers, students and parents shrugged off the rain at more than 40 schools around the city. Video is available at arkansasonline.com/117walkin/
More than 250 teachers, students and parents braved rain showers Wednesday morning to join in “walkins” staged at public schools throughout the state-run Little Rock School District as a show of solidarity.
Teachers and support staff are now working without a contract and without the ability to negotiate one.
In October, the Arkansas Board of Education approved a draft plan for “reconstituting” the 23,000-student district that calls in part for an election of nine local school board members in November 2020, with limited authority. The Education Board also directed the Little Rock district to end its decades-old recognition of the Little Rock Education Association employee union.
The district has been under the control of the state since Jan. 28, 2015, when it removed the elected school board and placed the superintendent under state authority.
Walk-ins were staged at more than 40 public schools in the district beginning at 7:30 a.m. at the elementary schools, according to the Little Rock Education Association. At Little Rock Central, organizers
set up a staging area between the steps below the front entrance at 7:30 a.m., with people assembling there until 8:30 a.m., when the crowd walked into the school carrying signs of support, many wearing #OneLRSD sweatshirts, and some singing and chanting.
Amanda Heinbockel , an art teacher and former student at Central, who was accompanied Wednesday by her mother, Jeanette Krohn , said the purpose of the day’s walk-in was to show solidarity with educators, students and parents, and to demand an end to state control and the return of collective-bargaining rights to the Little Rock Education Association.
“This is to show the board that we are all ready for a full return to local control,” Heinbockel said.
“Which we definitely don’t have yet,” added Krohn.
Later Wednesday Little Rock Superintendent Mike Poore said the day went well with “no disturbances” reported as the result of the walk-ins, some of which were more organized than others. School leaders used the walk-ins as an opportunity to recruit new PTA members and volunteers, Poore said.
Heinbockel at Central said the state’s decision to end recognition of the employees organization as the bargaining agent for the district’s educators and replace it with a personnel policy committee will leave district educators at a disadvantage when trying to gain concessions from the district.
“You’re going from a union with membership of 70% of the teachers to a group of people who you’re asking to work full time and somehow fully digest and recommend policies,” she said. “It’s an unequal system of bargaining, taking it down from the people who have their full time to dedicate to fighting for teachers and support staff and students’ rights in the classroom to asking the teachers themselves to volunteer to read through all kinds of legalistic policy language and come up with recommendations.”
Krohn said both her daughter and a son were educated in Little Rock public schools and what she said she sees as the state putting emphasis on charter schools is destructive to the district.
“I see the governor and the political establishment trying to gut [traditional] public schools, ” Krohn said. “[My children] got an incredible education through Little Rock
public schools and people diss it all the time … . They got a great education and I put most of that on the fact that they had exceptional teachers. Teachers are being so disrespected right now and the state seems to think they can just plow in here … and take over even though they made things worse.”
COMMUNITY SUPPORT
Heinbockel said she believes community support has been increasing as more and more people have become aware of the wrangling that has been going on between the state and the school district.
“I feel like we’ve seen a lot of strong community support in the past couple of weeks, or last couple of years really,” she said. “I feel like we’ve got the Little Rock community behind us.”
Bennett Dishongh , 14, a Central High ninth-grader, said his teachers have been circumspect among students whenever the subject of the current strife in the district comes up.
“They’re trying to not really talk about it too much,” he said. “Some of them have explained what’s happening, but they’re not really taking a side on it. I don’t know if they can’t or if they just choose not to.”
He said some students have been hoping for a strike, or have even talked about going on strike themselves in order to get out of school, but he said most are supportive of the teachers.
“They want to help, but they don’t know what they can do,” Dishongh said.
Parent Samantha Dorer said she wants to see teachers respected and empowered in order to empower their students.
“I want to see the LREA reinstated as the collective-bargaining agent for our teachers, and I want to see the state give us back a democratically elected school board,” Dorer said. “And that’s to take total control of the whole district, not just portions of it, and I don’t want it to just be a facade for the state board.”
Katie Kasten, another district parent, said the message she wanted to send with her presence at the walk-in was simple.
“I want the teachers to know that they are supported,” she said. “And I want the board to know that I’m supporting the teachers. I think it’s important that the teachers have the right to organize and to be a part of the union, and I think it’s important that we support that right.”
Kasten said she believes that criticisms of the school district’s ability to provide a quality education to students are unfounded.
“My daughter started college with 25 [college] level credits and almost a sophomore through this institution, Little Rock Central,” she said. “She has an extremely good education. My son, who is a sophomore, is well on his way to that as well.
‘MIDDLE GROUND HERE’
“I’ve heard the state board say they can’t just abandon these schools that are in distress, so they have to take the whole district over, but I don’t buy that,” Kasten added. “There is middle ground here. It’s not that they have to take it over to support the schools. They can support those schools without taking it over. It’s not mutually exclusive and it shouldn’t be treated as such.”
Verda Davenport-Booher , who has two children at Central, said she has been frustrated with what she sees as a slow pace of change and unresponsiveness from those in charge of the district. She said small protests don’t seem to be having any real effect and she fears it may take a large action, such as a strike by teachers, to get the attention of the state.
“It feels like it,” she said. “I understand, but I don’t feel like we have the power that it takes to make the changes that need to happen. Not recognizing the union and dividing the district, I mean, it’s crazy. Where is our power, where is our leverage? I don’t know.”
Central High teacher LaRon McAdoo said he has been gratified to see the support that has come from the students, parents and the community in recent weeks, and he said he saw the walk-in on Wednesday as a way to help solidify that support and to raise awareness of the issues facing the district.
“Like a lot of protests, this is designed to bring attention to our cause,” McAdoo said. “To make sure the people understand that we are a profession and that we deserve a seat at the table. We are the ones implementing education, and we should be the ones making decisions about education. We know the children, and we know the curriculum, while those making the decisions don’t know the children or the curriculum.”
A social media post this week suggests that Central teachers are participating in or are being encouraged to participate in a “Work to Rule” action in which they serve students only during the parts of the day for which they are paid — forgoing tutoring, grading and student-recommendation writing outside their contract day.
Poore said he had heard “rumblings” of such action, and that anyone not doing work for which they are contractually paid, “is a problem that we would have to address.” Poore also said that teachers and administrators work hard, and that 85% to 90% of them work well beyond the contract days.
“As professionals we want to do whatever we can to serve kids,” he said.
RULES HAVE CHANGED
The state Board of Education voted 5-4 in 2015 to assume control of the district because six of the then 48 schools were identified as academically distressed because of chronically low student scores on state math and English/language arts exams.
State laws and rules on school accountability have changed in the intervening years. The Little Rock district now has eight schools that have F grades on a scale from the state, based largely on results on the state-required ACT Aspire exams given in third through 10th grades. The district has yet to meet stateset requirements for a clear exit from Level 5 — intensive support and state control.
Districts that fail to meet exit requirements within five years must be annexed, consolidated or reconstituted, according to state law.
Elections of personnel policy committees — made up of teachers and support staff along with district administrators — are underway in the Little Rock district. The committees are required by state law to enable teachers and other employees in a school system to provide nonbinding advice to school boards on employee working conditions.
The state’s plan for the limited return of local governance and ending union recognition has generated fervent opposition from some teachers and community members who call for the district to be fully returned to local governance and recognition restored to the Little Rock Education Association.
The opposition from swaths of the community to continued state limits on local governance and the removal of the union from the negotiating table has been demonstrated at a series of public forums, at a candlelight vigil at Central High, at state Board of Education meetings and in letter-writing and yard-sign campaigns.