Letter from a Madison teacher

[mzteris]

Madison School District preparing hundreds of teacher layoff notices
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Dear ****** Community Members;

This evening our family decided to spend a night in the Capitol. We have been demonstrating to defend our human and working rights for the past 10 days along with scores of fellow working class brothers and sisters and many new friends. Many things have been said and done to divide us. Much is at stake.

I find myself dealing with surges of intense emotions because as we get closer to the final vote, the realities of the consequences are starting to sink in. We have been assaulted with accusations of being loafers and money-hungry, selfish, greedy, and violent. Many teachers are scared. Many are questioning what we will need to do to survive financially and professionally.

Some of you probably believe that we deserve to experience this kind of pain. That's your right to feel that way. On the other hand, many of you and others around our community have been very supportive and encouraging. Some of you have joyfully joined us in protest.

I have been a Madison teacher for 20 years. I appreciate your heartfelt support. We all do. But before this battle draws to a conclusion, I want to leave all of you with one last thing to think about if you’re still undecided about where you stand and what, if anything, you are considering to support the protest or the bill. It's my story about **** School, how it came to be, what and whom it has taken to sustain and grow it.

**** began with an idea, to create a new experience for our community's families. It started with two Madison teachers and a Madison school secretary, my wife, **** and myself. In fact most of the original planners were MMSD teachers. Despite strong resistance by school administration and many doubters in the education community, the founders persisted. What motivated us, was you! When we spoke with community folks, an amazing thing happened. Lots of people got very excited and started to help.

It took three years of solid community organizing and thousands, yes thousands of hours of selfless work by hundreds of folks who were driven by the vision of a special school. Weekly leadership meetings, monthly community meetings, countless hours of individual work; writing proposals, budgets, talking with school district leaders and the press, researching best practices in education, etc. We fought with all that we had and added the new skills we had to learn to make **** a reality.

Many of you remember D****** , another district teacher. For the first 7 years, together, D***** and I led the charge. Over time, D*****’s body took a great toll and she was forced to retire. Anyone who was involved with the Site Leadership Committee or attended Board of Education or ******** meetings can appreciate the impact that D*****’s leadership skills and passion had on advocating for our school and families. Remember?!

Since 2004 when ****** opened our doors, the efforts required to implement, sustain and grow ***** intensified. Excited teachers signed up because they were drawn to the vision of our school. What they soon realized, however, was that ***** was no ordinary school. Because of the uniqueness and newness of our model, teachers put in extraordinary hours creating new curriculum and meeting with their parents to explain the different program. In addition because of the community foundation of our charter school, other hours were devoted to organizing monthly meetings addressing parents’ concerns, leading summer programs, negotiating with district administration, advocating parent concern’s with the school principal. Yes, this has been a community effort. But it is also a fact that we could not have been successful as we are without the combined efforts of parents, teachers, the principal, and community leaders in **** (many of them were/are teachers as well.)

We are nearing the end of the seventh successful year of *****. We are accomplishing wonderful academic outcomes, while building a community educational environment that is not experienced in any other Madison school. The success of our school has inspired district officials to expand ****** models in all high school attendance zones, into middle school and now a high school program.

But now, the future growth and the quality of the education we have grown accustomed to at our school is seriously threatened by not only the Budget Repair Bill, but the Governor's expected cuts to public education in the anticipated budget.

People can argue for the need for serious cuts to education and forcing teachers to share more of the financial burden of the realities of this economy. All I ask of you is to please consider the roles and contributions that teachers have made to create, sustain and grow the beautiful experiences that all of our children, and now hundreds of Madison families that we may never meet, are too.

Please remember that none of this would've been possible without teachers who have and continue to give of themselves, above and beyond contract hours with little thought of benefits and retirement, to create this special place we call *******.

At dramatic times like these, I hope we can appreciate what it has required to start, build, sustain and improve such a special opportunity for our children. Please consider what a destructive impact the passage of these two proposed bills will assuredly have on our teachers and our school.

I want to finish this long story with this. This evening I spoke with a ***** parent who has worked diligently and selflessly as a parent leader in the Site Leadership Council. We share diametrically opposed political views on almost every issue, but we stand firm together with our love and commitment to ******. I urged her to think about ******** and recall all the energy and passion that teachers have invested to create and sustain an educational experience that I know she is very appreciative of. I asked her that if she has an opportunity to speak to her friends on the other side of this debate to please take some time to express her own feelings and experiences with the teachers at ******** . (I also reminded the parent that however this current crisis turns out, that we will still be friends.)

Maybe you could do the same. Because in the end, I feel confident that if we earnestly take the time to listen to one another and allow the entire story to be told, with heartfelt honesty that eventually we can all come together and do the right thing for our children and these special places we call “Our School.”