By Terry Lawler

Last summer, Val Pauls, president of the East Troy Education Association (ETEA), knew she was in for a challenging school year. Negotiations, already made difficult by an increasingly intransigent school board, would be doubly difficult unless she could find a way to motivate East Troy’s educators. “We had a lot of apathy among our teachers,” she said.

A solution presented itself last summer when the ETEA and the East Troy Education Support Professionals Association (ETESPA) agreed to participate in WEAC’s Effective Locals beta test. This one-year beta test is designed to help a local association foster member citizenship and engagement with and commitment to the association’s community, as well as provide quality services to its members. The only major stipulation was that all local affiliate groups in a district had to get on board. East Troy’s teachers and support staff agreed, and Pauls immediately began seeing results.

“The great thing about a beta test,”Pauls said, “is that the locals can set their own goals, try different things, and go in any direction they choose.”

Jack Clement

Val Pauls

John Linneman

One of the first things the ETEA decided to do was survey its members. Fran McNett, WEAC’s coordinator for education support professionals and a member of the Effective Locals Implementation Team, provided ETEA with a comprehensive survey designed to elicit members’ attitudes and perceptions regarding their local association, WEAC and NEA.

Jack Clement, treasurer of ETEA, said the survey confirmed his suspicions. “The results affirmed our concerns about member apathy and the lack of member participation in local activities. Only 43% felt that local association kept them properly informed and 53% admitted to not being active in the local,” he said.

Pauls, a middle school English teacher and Clement, chair of East Troy High School’s social studies department, were not dismayed.

“We saw this as an opportunity to revitalize our local,” Clement said.
ETEA and ETESPA started organizing.

Pauls and Clement were pleasantly surprised to see a lot of newer members step up and volunteer.

“Our Action Team is comprised mostly of first-year teachers,” Pauls said. “They told us that they wanted to help, to be informed. They said they could spread the message to other members. It was wonderful.”

ETEA stepped into action at the start of the school year. “We looked at our new teacher luncheon,” Clement said, “and decided to turn it into an orientation session.”

Pauls said it was a great idea. “We were able to provide our new members with a thick orientation packet that provides a great resource for the local, WEAC and NEA. In addition, we were able to provide a list of contact people, point out mentors, explain the mentoring process, and identify building reps. And, all of these things came about because of our work through the Effective Locals beta test.”

The result: “We made a great impression on our new people.”

Keeping in mind the members’ opinion on communication, ETEA and ETESPA started a joint newsletter, publishing once a month. Pauls also sends members a letter after every negotiation session with an invitation to e-mail her questions. At the high school, Clement offered to meet with new teachers to explain how their contract works and answer questions about terminology.

To provide additional solidarity, ETEA passed out buttons that read “Working in good faith without a contract” or “Working toward excellence in education.” ETESPA members started wearing buttons that read “We support teachers.”

All of this organization has had an unsettling effect on the East Troy Board. “They say they are disappointed that we are ‘involving’ the students in the negotiation process,” Clement said. “All we’re doing is wearing our buttons in the classroom.”

Building on the momentum they had started, ETEA encouraged members to show up en masse at school board meetings. “At the first one, we had about 22 to 25 teachers,” Pauls said. “But by the second meeting, we had more than 50. We stand as one when we address the board during the public comments portion of the meeting.”

In addition, ETEA encouraged members to come to negotiations sessions. At the first session, more than 50 teachers and ESP lined the hall outside the negotiation room, “holding signs which read the same as their buttons, patting ETEA negotiators on the back, and giving them vocal encouragement,” Clement said.

Pauls remembers, “The board president expressed disappointment that we had become so vocal. He asked that we ‘back off’ a little.” ETEA did back off at the next negotiation session, but nothing changed.

“The board’s attorney (a member of the Milwaukee Firm Michael Best and Friedrich) simply negated everything we offered,” Pauls said.

Clement printed up simulated checks made out to the school board and passed them out to members to emphasize how much money they would be paying back to the district if the teachers accepted the board’s current offers.

Despite the lack of progress in contract talks, East Troy teachers and ESP are building their solidarity.

“The July 4th Parade is a big deal in East Troy,” Pauls said, “and the teachers and ESP will be building a float for that parade together.” In addition, ETEA and East Troy ESP are investigating the possibility of becoming a joint local.

“Our ESP members are glad to support the ETEA members’ bargaining efforts and we look forward to working together more in the future,” said ETESPA President John Linneman.

Together, they have a lot of goals they want to accomplish. One of those is to continue creating a more positive work climate for all staff.

“Our new teachers came into this district during a difficult negotiations period,” Pauls said. “Some have resigned to pursue other interests; others are ‘shopping.’”

“We won’t see instant success,” Clement added. “This is a process that will take years.”

Still, encouraged by the results the Effective Locals beta test has produced so far, Clement said, “I’m surprised and pleased by how far we’ve come in such a short time.”

Posted April 28, 2006