As the City of Minneapolis finishes its first week of the teacher and ESP (education support professional) strike, it is clear that the MPS Board of Education and the workers who make schools function are far apart. Families should expect an extended time without school for their children.
While families, community and the MPS Board of Education (BoE) would very much like our classrooms open, they cannot function without teachers and ESPs. These workers will not return until the primary demand of raising ESP pay to 35K a year with at least 90% on a full time schedule is met. Other important demands include lowering class size caps, increasing mental health supports for students, and making teacher pay more competitive with surrounding districts.
Under the current pay, benefits, and hourly structure for ESPs there is a 25% vacancy rate and a revolving door for the filled positions. Schools cannot safely and effectively educate our children without the labor of ESPs. Under this current structure ESPs make about 24K per year. ESPs are the glue of schools. Their jobs are intense, require a lot of flexibility, and are physically and emotionally demanding. There are few who would work such a demanding job for that wage. The fact that MPS is vehemently saying no to such a reasonable wage request, speaks volumes about how little they care about their employees or about safe and stable classrooms. At the end of the day you cannot force people to work for less than they are willing, and we are living with the result of an extended strike and closed schools.
If we want this strike to end, the Minneapolis community must demand that MPS negotiate terms that will bring workers back to the classroom. The MPS bargaining team is composed primarily of HR and finance staff. These are not people who understand how classrooms function. Their perspective is through a business/legal lens and the fact that they are calling the shots in the negotiations underscores a lack of urgency from the district.
While much of the energy to reopen our schools has been focused on MPS Superintendent Ed Graff, it is time to shift all energy to the MPS BoE. A resident of Edina, Graff plays a CEO role for the district; he is not invested in the district or the community. However, Graff works for the Board. It is those 9 elected directors who can change the course of this strike. At this point the Board has not been at the negotiating table. They do not appear to be involved at all.
Most of the directors have deep ties to the DFL party, the same party whose non-BoE elected members have been attending strike pickets and posting photos on their social media claiming to support the teachers and ESPs. This is deeply problematic yet presents an opportunity for our community and families to apply pressure. MPS says there is no money to fund safe and stable schools. The Unions have published data showing otherwise and those numbers were released BEFORE the projected $9.25 BILLION State budget surplus was announced. It is absurd to claim that we cannot fully fund schools.
Tell DFL members to stop posing for picket line photos and to start pressuring their fellow DFLers on the BoE. Ed Graff will move to another district in the next few years but these electeds and the DFL will still be here; they will own the results of this strike. There is a choice now. Either MPS suffers more than it already has (more students and teachers fleeing the district) from an extended strike or we create safe and stable schools that can thrive going forward by meeting the primary demands of the people who make our schools run.
-Theresa Stets, MPS Parent (Roosevelt, Sanford, & Keewaydin)