Christian Herr: With our school closing in June, Chavez Prep educators deserve adequate severance
Teacher Appreciation Week felt strange at Chavez Prep Middle School this year. Our kids were fantastic, as always, and our school-based administration was really thoughtful and supportive. However, considering that the board of trustees that oversees our school is choosing to leave us stranded without health care or salaries this summer, it’s hard to say that we really feel fully appreciated.
In my six years at Chavez Prep, we’ve had five principals, five assistant principals and five CEOs. Every year, we’ve been sent back to the drawing board in order to meet some new vision, which is inevitably tossed by May. Every fall there’s a new face standing in front of our students and their families, many of whom cited this specific issue as they left in droves. So, in an effort to build consistency, the educators at Chavez Prep formed a union in 2017.
Bargaining was slow, but we made progress. Chavez Prep was recognized this fall among the top 10 charter schools citywide in terms of PARCC growth. We have a principal who is really effective. Data projections predicted a higher-than-average enrollment bump next year thanks to our gains on the DC Public Charter School Board’s Performance Management Framework. All told, we were excited about our future — perhaps more than we had ever been before.
Then, in late January, we found out that Chavez Prep was closing — when a reporter from The Washington Post called us for comment about it. We scrambled to find schools for our rising ninth-graders before the Feb. 1 lottery deadline for high schools, and then to find schools for our rising seventh- and eighth-graders in time for the March 1 middle school deadline. Once everyone was safely matched up somewhere, we considered what this meant for us as staff members. The vast majority of us will miss two paychecks between jobs. We face a month without health care coverage. The bargaining representatives for the Chavez Schools Board of Trustees, which also governs two other Chavez campuses, have told us that the board could easily afford to provide us with a package that would resolve these issues, but has chosen not to do so.
Is this how we’re shown appreciation for our continuing commitment to Prep despite our board’s inability to develop any long-term stability in our building? Is this how we’re appreciated for having chosen to be underpaid while foolishly trusting that any money saved was being spent on services for our students — despite the fact that student-facing services have been repeatedly cut or eliminated? Referencing the current DC Public Schools salary scale, my decision to serve these students has cost me — gulp — over $70,000 in salary over the six years I’ve worked at Chavez Prep. That’s not even factoring in the longer workday here (although, somehow, we have a shorter average daily instructional time, with Chavez Prep students released at noon every Friday while staff stays until 4:30 p.m.). We could have abandoned ship in January to take temporary jobs at DCPS in order to avoid salary and health care gaps entirely, but we didn’t. We didn’t want our students spending the entire spring with substitute teachers. Doesn’t that deserve some sign of appreciation?
One of our teachers became a parent in the fall yet stayed at Chavez despite its anemic parental leave policy, trusting that it would offer stability for her new family. Some of us have children with medical needs; others have significant medical needs ourselves. Several of us are single parents. And, fun fact: Teachers between jobs aren’t eligible for unemployment in DC. Should our families have to suffer because we placed our trust in an organization that didn’t deserve it?
The Chavez board pays the TenSquare Group just under $140,000 of taxpayer money each month for advice and a minimal amount of direct services to our schools. The transition-assistance package we are proposing — which would ensure that no Prep staff member who remains through the end of the school year would go without salary or health care coverage between jobs — would cost significantly less than that. If boards like the one that closed Chavez Prep really appreciated educators like us, they wouldn’t put our families at risk when schools are suddenly closed due to no fault of our own. If that means a financial hit for a for-profit consulting group like TenSquare, which has most certainly never been underpaid, so be it.
Christian Herr, a teacher at Chavez Prep Middle School for six years, was the lead organizer of Chavez Prep’s successful union effort. He has been a member of the contract bargaining team since the union’s formation in spring 2017.
About commentaries
The DC Line welcomes commentaries representing various viewpoints on local issues of concern, but the opinions expressed do not represent those of The DC Line. Submissions of up to 850 words may be sent to editor Chris Kain at chriskain@thedcline.org.
Comments are closed.