Tuesday, February 21, 1995
My partner in WASC-crime had urged me on Friday to bring my camcorder today so that we could videotape the faculty meeting to add to our welcoming tape for the visitation team, who will arrive on our campus in less than four weeks to study then report on our site’s worthiness of accreditation. On their first day here, Aimee (the chair of Chumash’s WASC--Western Association of Schools and Colleges--Leadership team) wants to present them with a kind of "This is Chumash" video tape (she also wants to make a bogus tape to show the faculty, for laughs). On Friday afternoon, after school had ended, she told me that she had asked our site’s video production teacher if he could have some of his students shoot the raw footage for the video so that we could edit it later. I balked a little at the idea of editing a video since I had put in easily over one hundred hours already this year on the WASC report, between editing sections of it, putting together explanatory multimedia presentations for the faculty, and helping to finalize the final report. Aimee, not exactly a technological guru, doesn’t understand the requirements of editing video; since I’ve taught video production myself, I understand the monumental task we--she--was setting before us. But she’s the boss, so I relented.
She knew that today--Tuesday--would be a faculty meeting, a perfect opportunity to shoot some footage for the video. The only problem was that the video production teacher had already left for the three-day weekend, Aimee was supposed to have jury duty on Tuesday, and that meant no way for Aimee to get the message to him. I said that I would bring my camcorder on Tuesday to shoot the footage. That agreed, we went our separate ways for the weekend.
On my way back to my classroom, I bumped into my newest colleague, a woman for whom I have the utmost respect. She is the mother of two former students from my Pleasant Valley High days, as well as the foster mother to a young woman with whom I went to high school. She used to substitute teach at both PeeVee and Chumash, where she earned the distinction as "SuperSub." Needless to say, when she went back to school to earn her teaching credential last year, it was a wonderful opportunity to pick up a great teacher. And we did, three weeks into this school year, when staffing projections did not turn out as last spring predicted. She and I worked hand in hand, teaching all of the English 9 courses. We worked out a beautiful program. At midyear, however, staffing changed again and since her major was as a language teacher, the Bilingual department snatched her up. She was disappointed to leave the English Department, but she was thrilled to teach language again.
On Friday, when I ran into Mrs. Daniels--while I call Aimee by "Ms. Hamm" in front of students and by "Aimee" in private, I feel deference and can only say "Mrs. Daniels" when I’m speaking to her (no matter the audience, even alone)--she asked if I had heard the scuttlebutt concerning Tuesday’s faculty meeting. Now I arrive at school a few minutes before seven in the morning, I teach the first three periods without a break until twelve-twenty, eat lunch in my classroom, then work the last period--my prep--either in my classroom or in the library at a computer terminal, so I’m not always in the loop for site gossip (I didn’t even know that the English 4 Honors class was going to be a combination 4/4H class until another English department member told me in the hall). So, when I heard this tantalizing question, I stated my customary, "No."
She shook her head and smiled. "Well, you know, Bill, we had a faculty meeting already this month...on semester prep day..." She let that hang in the air. But Friday being Friday, and my mind already on three-day break, I didn’t make the connection or respond. "Come on, Mr. Walters, you know that the Union contract says that we’re required to attend only one faculty meeting a month."
It was beginning to dawn on me. "Yeah..."
"So some members of our staff are boycotting the meeting, even telling some other members--new ones, like myself--that I should not attend."
"To hell with that shit." I replied, and she let out a relieved belly-laugh.
"Glad to hear someone finally say it."
I shook my head in disbelief. I couldn’t believe it; I wasn’t surprised (knowing my campus like I do), but I still couldn’t believe it. "You know, it’s this kind of shit that gives us a bad name, us and the union, too. We meet for an hour on a day we were all supposed to be on campus anyway. And people are getting bent out of shape."
Mrs. Daniels would have jumped in, agreeing, but I was building up a full head.
"Here we are, one month away from having a group of strangers come onto our campus and decide whether we’re doing our job well enough to warrant receiving accreditation for what we do, and we can’t even be professional enough to meet as a staff. Christ, this is ridiculous. This is the kind of thing that gets us no respect in the community. And it’s the union that does it. When the hell is the union going to stop acting like some blue collar protection agency and start acting like a professional organization. Total shit."
I shook my head. She smiled. "I knew I’d get a rise out of you."
And she was right. She knows how I feel about the union. I’m union, do or die. I’ve always said that I’m not afraid to strike, if that’s what it takes. I’m all for tough union negotiations. But I’ve also publicly bemoaned the fact that our union, with its ties to the AFL-CIO, remains a belligerently blue-collar organization, standing for, as Mary McConnell, our librarian, has said, "Equality over Quality." I’ve also said that we need a union that takes a stand more like the American Medical Association or the Bar, a strong PROFESSIONAL advocacy group. And this year, I was about to put my time where my mouth is; I was about to run for site representative.
I say about to, because only Friday morning a colleague of mine came into my class to ask if I was still interested in running for site rep. Here is a man who has been an advocate for change on this campus for longer than I have been here, a teacher up to whom both students and other staff look. He is also looking to go into administration one day and feels the need to understand the workings of the union so as to better help the plight of the classroom teacher. I’m all for that. And I told him that if he ran, he would have my support and certainly not my competition. For the next few hours, I felt pretty good about the union again.
So I went home Friday night, thinking that the Tuesday video shoot opportunity would probably be a bust, and I was right. Only half the staff attended the meeting today. Interestingly enough, one of the attendees was the current site rep, who had been telling people in the staff lounge only this morning that we did not need to attend, that it was only voluntary, and that it was ok--even better--not to attend. And there she was, sitting in the back of the library, reading a newspaper as the meeting progressed. I couldn’t help thinking that she was there to take mental roll of which teachers attended.
But what can they do to me? Hell, they won’t move on a shitty teacher, and they’re going to do something to me for going to a meeting?
I don’t think so.
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