Richmond Teachers Support Forum
September 17 (Thursday), 2009, 7:00 PM
Richmond Public Library Community Room,
325 Civic Center Plaza, (Cross Street MacDonald Ave.)
Co-Sponsored by:
Progressive Teachers Caucus, UPWA, ASK Me 444, Richmond Progressive Alliance, S.W.A.T, (UC Berkeley), WCCCQE, (West Contra Costa Community for Quality Education)
The West Contra Costa Unified School District School Board has imposed changes to working conditions for certificated and classified staff. They have imposed furloughs to Local 1, and school administrators, fired 125 certificated staff, and 70 classified staff. The school board also closed three schools. In an email regarding school closures Antonio Medrano, (WCCUSD) school board member said, “The school, the students, and noise will be gone, (also litter, traffic, etc). I would think that you and your neighbors would like not having a school in your neighborhood. We are facing massive cuts to public education in our State and we need to present a balanced budget to the State by the end of June.”
Impositions in our working conditions means cuts in social programs, class size ratios that increase class sizes to 40+ students in elementary and secondary classes, furloughs, elimination of Kindergarten teachers preparation time, non-instructional funding (especially paying for consultants), and elimination of health benefits for dependents. Our own WCCUSD President and kindergarten teacher Audrey Miles cast the deciding votes to increase K-3 class size.
We know that teachers working conditions are your students learning conditions. Join Rank-and-File teachers, speak out and unite in solidarity with the Student Worker Action Team (S.W.A.T), and union members from the labor community to fight back against these attacks and to make public education a priority!
Partial Speakers List: Pedro Navarro, Richmond Teacher since 2005, Member of A.R.E. (Association of Raza Educators) Oakland Chapter, Diane Brown, Progressive Teachers Caucus, Claire Keating, S.W.A.T., Wendy Gonzalez, homegrown teacher and community advocate, Oakland Education Association representative, Charles Smith AFSCME 444.