Columbia isn’t the only school with factions fighting for greater faculty representation.
After a whole lot of red tape and sticky politics, teachers at the bilingual New York French-American Charter School won unionization. The school’s board denied the faculty’s request for unionization, but when faculty went to the city’s Public Employment Relations Board, they were granted the privilege to join the United Federation of Teachers on March 14.
Spectator Staff Writer Avantika Kumar writes in today’s paper:
The decision was not without controversy. The school’s founding administration—the school opened in September 2010—fought unionization, alleging that some teachers were coerced into supporting the decision. PERB found no evidence of coercion.
Unionization is rare for charter schools, because they start and run with an extra amount of support from the community. From the get-go, teachers are supposed to have more representation.
But in this case, many faculty were uncomfortable with what they said were arbitrary hiring decisions and frequent rule changing. Now, if future issues arise, the union will keep teachers from having to self-advocate.
This situation is an interesting parallel to what’s been happening at Columbia.
