The front lawn of Huron High School flooded with a sea of blue on Wednesday evening. Teachers and their families arrived one by one, each toting colorful signs and a new sense of urgency – their main concern being to demand transparency from the board of education in regards to the AAPS budget.
“When we fight, we win. But we gotta fight. We gotta fight,” said Anne Jackson, a newly retired union nurse from the University of Michigan Hospital, where she worked for 40 years.
Not only a union member, Jackson is also a 1980 graduate of Huron High School, and her children all went to AAPS schools. She was one of over 500 at the pre-board meeting rally on May 8 at Huron High School, which was full of energy and chants of “Talk about the budget!” and “We are not the problem.”
The BOE announced in March a shortfall of $25 million in their budget. A full detailed plan to make cuts has yet to be released to the public. However, the school board did vote to allow superintendent Jazz Parks to distribute pink slips.
“The administration is pulling all kinds of crazy stuff, and not being very transparent about what happened to all the money,” Jackson said. “As a nurse and union member, the most important thing to me is the safety of my patients. And the most important thing for union member teachers is the quality of education for their students.”
The rally consisted of four speakers: Ann Arbor Education Association Union president Fred Klein, Thurston teacher Allie Dey, Pioneer teacher Sean Sabo, and Washtenaw County County Commissioner for District 8 Yousef Rabhi, who pumped up the crowd with animated speeches and songs. The crowd was fiercely responsive, waving their signs and singing along to Solidarity Forever by Ralph Chaplin, a popular union anthem.
Daniel Crowley, an eighth grade language arts teacher at Forsythe Middle School, is a member of the action team that organized the rally.
“We have a real dedicated core group of teachers in the district who were just devastated by this news of layoffs,” Crowley said. “And I think one of the things that we wanted to do was just talk to people and figure out who is interested in getting involved in organizing our agenda, in response to these kinds of dictums we were given.”
Teachers began to become engaged and create media teams and educational wings to build an organization that ensured teachers could be educated and organized enough to fight for the conditions that would be best for students.
“Ultimately, the goal is to create a coalition or a connection between people that care about education,” said Crowley. “I want teachers, parents, community members, and ultimately students to be in that room, hearing the kinds of conversations that are being had, and being trusted and given the voice to say: ‘We don’t agree with that, that’s not in our best interest.'”
The energy continued into the board meeting, which began with immediate disagreement. During trustee Susan Baskett’s motion to approve the agenda, secretary Jeff Gaynor made an amendment to include conversation about the budget. After discussion, Baskett spoke out about “surprises” and accused Gaynor of “pandering to the audience,” sparking an uproar in the auditorium. Eventually, the board voted 5-2 to discuss the budget with Baskett and president Torchio Feaster voting against the motion.
Yousef Rabhi, who is also the legislative Director of the Michigan Nurses Association, holds a similar viewpoint.
“An injury to one is an injury to all,” said Rabhi in regards to the importance of solidarity. “We want to make sure that our public schools are the best possible schools that they can be. And that’s not possible if you know nurses are being let go and laid off, and they’re cutting some of the lowest paid employees at schools.”
In Rabhi’s eyes, it isn’t possible to maintain quality public schools while this is happening, and it is therefore to the benefit of his constituents to fight for the best possible support for teachers.
The next board meeting is May 15, 7 p.m. at 3700 Earhart Road.
