Union busting, Chicago - style... Rally at Urban Prep charter school's 'board' meeting challenges firing of 17 teachers who unionized -- then were fired this month!... Speakers at June 25 rally challenge Urban Prep's lies, CPS expansion of the school...
The "Urban Prep Academies" charter schools network in Chicago has become the latest battleground in the war on teachers unions. A rally at the school followed an end-of-the-year announcement by Urban Prep's leadership that the charter was firing 17 workers from the school (15 teachers and two others). Some speakers at the rally at an Urban Prep board meeting on Thursday, June 25, 2015, said it is also a war on the students and communities that Urban Prep claims to serve.
Demanding that Urban Prep Academies charter schools rehire teachers who were fired after they voted for a union, about 200 supporters on June 25, 2014 rallied and held a press conference outside of Englewood High School.. Urban Prep, which enrolls only males, moved into the building 6201 S. Stewart Ave., Chicago, in 2006, and continues to share space with a real Chicago Public School, Team Englewood High School. Substance photo by David R. Stone
At issue was Urban Preps decision to fire 17 teachers and staff members who had voted to be represented by a local union affiliated with the American Federation of Teachers (AFT). About 200 supporters of the fired workers rallied at the Urban Preps Englewood campus, 6201 S. Stewart Ave., on Thursday evening, and demanded that the fired teachers be rehired.
Urban Prep operates three high school "campuses" in Chicago. Urban Prep students are all African-American males. While officially part of Chicago Public Schools (and receiving CPS funds), as a charter school Urban Prep is operated by a non-profit organization with its own board of directors. Under Illinois law, charter school employees cannot be part of the Chicago Teachers Union (CTU) that represents other CPS teachers.
Union leaders argue that it was illegal for Urban Prep to fire the 17 workers. As evidence, they cite this timeline:
- On June 3, 2015, more than 60% of eligible workers at Urban Prep voted to be represented by Chicago ACTS (Alliance of Charter Teachers and Staff), which is AFTs Local 4343. Under federal labor law, the vote makes Chicago ACTS the collective bargaining agent for the employees.
- On June 19, 2015, the Urban Prep board fired the 17 employees, including some veteran teachers from each of the three campuses. Among those fired were leaders of the union organizing committee. Speaking inside the Englewood high school building on June 25, the president of Chicago ACTS, Brian Harris, told Urban Prep board members, Unionization is not your decision; 61% voted to unionize You made your case You said you would bargain in good faith, but how is firing 17 people negotiating in good faith?
Samuel Adams, who says he has worked at Urban Prep for 8 years, praised one of the teachers fired by the board of the non-profit organization that operates a "network" of three Chicago Public School charter schools. Speaking at a meeting the Urban Prep board held in the auditorium of the Englewood High School "campus" (which houses one Urban Prep "campus" and the TEAM Englewood Chicago high school, a real high school), Adams told the crowd that Ms. Robinsons students had the highest test scores, and that she was fired with no reason given. Substance photo by David R. Stone
Most of the other speakers focused on the students, and the harm they will suffer from losing the teachers who have supported them. The speakers included current students, recent graduates and parents, plus teachers, community members and supporters from other unions.
Such speeches were limited, however. Borrowing a tactic used by the Chicago Board of Education, the Urban Prep board put a time limit (30 minutes, in this case) on the public participation section of the meeting, and gave each speaker only two minutes. Only the first speakers who signed up were allowed to speak. The crowd in the auditorium added their own participation with chanting of slogans at various times during the meeting. After chants of Let them speak! erupted when a group of current Urban Prep students and recent graduates came to microphone at the end of the allotted time for public comment, Urban Prep Board President Tim King allowed them to choose one member to speak.
The students and graduates told personal stories of how one or another of the fired teachers went above and beyond the call of duty to help them. The narratives fell in line with the typical story told by charter school supporters about saving at-risk students.
Like many of the charter schools that are hyped for their success in the media, Urban Prep makes claims that are based on a marketing strategy resting on the refusal of corporate media to check closely the claims of the charter schools. Every year since it switched from being a relatively successful private schools (Hales Franciscan) to becoming a Chicago charter school, Urban Prep has announced that 100 percent of its graduates get into college. The fact that it's easy to get into college is ignored as the Urban Prep marketing machinery is hyped to the media. Also and more seriously unexamined is the fact that the dumping of students between 9th and 12th grade continues unabated at Urban Prep. The hypocrisy is shown in the fact that Urban Prep claims that the students "voluntarily" left the school, rather than being forced out. Those who are pushed out of Urban Prep wind up in the city's real public high schools -- or as dropouts. Beginning in July 2015, those young people who can testify about these charter school hypocrisies will be speaking at each meeting of the Chicago Board of Education to counter the nasty attacks on the city's real public schools that are orchestrated each month by Urban Prep, Noble Street charter schools, and others.One parent who spoke in support of the fired teachers and other school workers questioned Urban Preps self-promotional messages about how 100% of the schools graduates earn admission to college. Shoniece Reynolds said that students may be admitted but not necessarily ready to succeed in college.
Noting the mismanagement of Urban Prep despite the claims, Reynolds said that in one class her son had no teacher for a year. She said Urban Preps policies (such as the requirement that the boys wear blazers and ties) make the school look good, but she wants more than a brochure-ready school. [Reporters note: She did not mention Urban Prep policies that make the schools graduation rate look good by failing to retain students from when they enter until they graduate. This reporter taught at Hirsch Metro High School, which received students who transferred out of Urban Prep.]
Chicago Sun-Times report on the Urban Prep protest. To supplement the limited in-person public participation at the board meeting, Reynolds presented a stack of letters from parents at all three Urban Prep campuses.
Some other speakers argued that firing unionized teachers goes against the mission of Urban Prep serve an economically disadvantaged community. James Thindwa of the AFT quoted Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.: You cant have civil rights without union rights. He said union jobs have been a ticket for many out of poverty into the middle class, so an attack on unions was an attack on the poor and the middle class.
Urban Prep student Joshua Mitchell said, I couldnt have won the Most Improved Student Award without Ms. Robinso, who was one of the teachers fired after the Urban Prep teacher voted to be represented by a union affiliated with the American Federation of Teachers. More students wanted to speak, but were turned away from the microphone by the charter schools policy of limiting public comments at its board of directors meeting. Substance photo by David R. Stone
Other unions were also represented in the crowd of supporters, including CTU, the the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW) and the Service Employees International Union (which represents or represented school security and janitorial personnel, many of whom lost their jobs when CPS privatized janitorial services at schools around the city).
Before the Urban Prep board meeting began, Chicago ACTS and its supporters held a rally and press conference outside the Englewood campus. After the public participation section of the meeting, various caucuses of union members and community activists met outside of the Englewood high school building to plan their next actions.
Comments:
By: David R. Stone
Charter school scams
Maybe the media is beginning to look more critically at charter schools claims, as Theresa optimistically says. But most such investigative reporting comes from unions friends, such as Labor Beat, In These Times, Ben Joravsky in The Reader and, of course Substance News.
No TV reporters covered the press conference and rally at Urban Prep. The Chicago Sun-Times reported on the event and interviewed some of the union teachers who were fired but every year the Sun-Times reprints Urban Preps press releases about its 100% graduation rate.
Even when the media take a close look at charter schools, their reporters usually dont have enough background knowledge to expose the full truth. Sure, they can spot a scandal (such as financial misdeeds at UNO charter schools) when government investigators make a federal case out of it, but charter schools are built on some questionable claims that go unchallenged in mainstream corporate media.
Even the claim that Urban Prep is a charter school (singular) is a scam. By normal definitions, the Urban Prep organization operates three schools, but they call it one school with three campuses. Using their definition, CPS operates one school with 664 campuses.
Why do charter school operators stretch the truth this way? Because when charter schools first came to Chicago, the number was strictly limited. To get around the cap, they created the legal fiction that each new school was simply another campus of an existing charter school. For charter school operators, this has the added benefit that teachers who work in different buildings and almost never see each other must come together before they can form a labor union.
By: Theresa D. Daniels
Forceful Pushback against Urban Prep
I'm glad that the protest was so succesfully organized. We need to be present when such an injustice is done to teachers who have just recently voted to unionize--and by a scam-artist school such as Urban Prep. The media knows better than to buy these "college acceptances" whole cloth as it pretends to. Excellent coverage here.