300 Kenosha Teachers, Support Staff & Supports Picket School Board

About 300 Kenosha teachers and educational support professionals and their supporters picket outside the school district offices. A billboard across the street warns passersby that this is an "education danger zone."

As she and about 300 of her colleagues and supporters picketed outside Kenosha school district offices Tuesday evening (October 9, 2001), teacher Shar Burgin succinctly summed up their feelings:

"The QEO is killing us," says teacher Shar Burgin.

"The QEO is killing us," she said. "In essence they've docked our pay for the last eight years."

Burgin, a veteran teacher at Frank Elementary School, was not alone in putting much of the blame for the district's contract dispute on the 1993 Qualified Economic Offer law.

"It's the QEO," echoed Mary Dawson, a library media specialist at Pleasant Prairie School.

Teachers and support staff are angry and frustrated, Kenosha Education Association President Ellen Kupfer said in explaining why so many turned out to picket along busy 52nd Street for an hour before attending a school board hearing.

"We want the board to compensate us for all the hard work we put in to make sure we have great students and great schools in Kenosha," she said. "We want them to show they respect us by giving us a fair settlement."

Ellen Kupfer

Linda McManus

KEA and the district started negotiations last December, but after tentative agreements were reached the school district claimed an impasse and filed for mediation. The KEA, however, never felt the two sides were at impasse, Kupfer said.

On October 2, the district announced it had made an offer which it claimed provided combined 6.43% increases in salary and benefits. Kupfer said the offer actually amounts to salary increases of 2% for the first year, and that is offset by requiring members to pay 2% toward health insurance. And there is no increase the second year, she said.

The KEA has adopted the WEAC Statewide Bargaining Standards, which include salary increases of 3.4% per cell per year.

"We're trying to send the message that teachers deserve a living wage," Kupfer said.

That's a feeling that was repeated many times by teachers and support staff on the picket line.

Tremper High School English teacher Linda McManus said the QEO "has affected just about every aspect of my life" over the last eight years.

"I have a son going to college in four years, and I have no money to put into his college fund," she said.

KEA members have been engaged in a "work to the contract" job action since the start of the school year. That means they are not participating in activities that are not required by the contract. Most teachers normally spend considerable time in such volunteer activities as tutoring after-school classes, organizing special activities such as the ski club, chaperoning dances, and serving on before- or after-school committees. In addition, they are arriving at school just minutes before the required start time and leaving at the end of the school day. Typically, they would arrive early and often stay very late.

McManus, who has voluntarily taught Irish dance classes for the last 12 years, said she "feels awful" about not doing so this year. But, she added, it is important that teachers take a stand.

"Because of the QEO, I have not had a cost-of-living raise in eight years," she said.

"Schools are not operating normally," says library media specialist Mary Dawson.

Dawson, likewise, said she misses serving on the Site Council at Pleasant Prairie School, attending PTA meetings, and participating in other volunteer activities that she normally enjoys. Because of the contract dispute, she said, some student activities such as the "Battle of the Books," PTA Reflections program, and Halloween party are in jeopardy.

"Schools are not operating normally," she said.

Under "work to contract," she said, she arrives at school just five minutes before the 8:05 start time and leaves at 3:35, which is much earlier than normal.

But Dawson feels she must do something to protest the injustice she and her colleagues face.

The picketing culminated in a rally led by KEA President Ellen Kupfer and WEAC President Stan Johnson.

"I'm not keeping up with inflation," she said. "My husband's a teacher too so we face a double whammy. I'm finding we're going into debt much more."

Tuesday night's picketing was capped by an impromptu rally in which WEAC President Stan Johnson joined Kupfer on the back of a pickup truck and urged members to continue their battle in solidarity.

Repeating the directive issued last summer by Texas populist Jim Hightower at the WEAC Solidarity Ground Zero event in Whitewater, Johnson led the crowd in chants of:

"Agitate, agitate, agitate!"

Resource page on the Qualified Economic Offer law

Posted October 10, 2001