- Teachers, workers and students shut down DPS in 2001 to protest in Lansing; they stopped then Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick’s plan for charter schools
- Stop dismantling DPS—Defend Public Education as a Right!
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Stop Cheating Our Students Out of Their Education
- Treat DPS Teachers, Parents, and Students with Respect and Dignity
- Our Children are Not For Sale—Save Dr. King’s Vision for America
- Stop the Continued Threat of Immediate Layoff—Rescind the “Special Authority” Letters Now
The chaos that greeted teachers, students and parents at the beginning of this school year has been deliberately inflicted by the high-handed, destructive corporate methods of Robert Bobb and his lackeys. Hundreds of teachers who got layoff notices in June had not had those notices rescinded by the beginning of school.
Hundreds of teachers were forced to interview for their own jobs, and even after agreements were reached between teachers and principals, were forcibly moved by Bobb to other schools. Other teachers received “special authority” letters instead of bona fide rescission of their layoff notices, leaving them open to layoff on a two-day notice.
Replace “Miss Vacancy” with a Qualified, Credentialed Teacher in Every Classroom, Restore All Substitutes’ Salary and Benefits, Fully Staff Counselors and Return Special Education Teachers to Their Students.
Dozens of special education teachers have been forced to teach general education classes and their special education students have been dispersed into general education classes, where their teachers have no special education experience. Countless teachers are being forced to teach outside their subject areas. Six special education teachers are needed at Kettering West Wing, the special education program for severely disabled students. How many other teachers are missing? We know that at least some highly qualified teachers of physics and math who received layoff notices, did not wait for the chaos to engulf them on the first day of school—they were scooped up by other districts that were happy to have them. The cost to our students’ education cannot be calculated.
Oversized classes, some third-graders in the same classrooms as eighth-graders, an internet-based attendance system (“Zangle”) without sufficient computers in teachers’ classrooms, while teachers are being required to take attendance every hour of the day—the list of abuses and absurdities goes on and on. Substitutes have been unilaterally busted down to the lowest status, forced to take a 30% pay cut, and to lose all health care and other benefits. Full-time teachers will also pay a price, as substitutes refuse to work for DPS, and more teachers are forced to give up their prep time so they can cover absent teachers’ classes. Students will lose the benefit of teachers’ prep time being used to improve instruction.
School counselors have been laid off, leading to endless scheduling problems for students and teachers; teachers are facing extended days without pay, as they are being told to come to school early and leave late, and parents are being told that no one will talk to them if they come to school to straighten things out after repeated phone calls go unanswered—these are among the many, many reasons we must fight to get rid of Robert Bobb once and for all.
Build Independent, Mass Actions of Teachers and the New Youth-Led Civil Rights Movement to Save Public Education
Our fight to defend public education in Detroit has united the vast majority of our city. Together, we defeated a second mayoral takeover of our district. Judge Wendy Baxter will very likely declare Bobb’s hostile takeover of DPS academics an illegal act. If we increase our resistance to Bobb’s abuses, we can speed his departure from our city. To win our fight, we need to build the new civil rights movement and take independent actions, uniting students, teachers and our whole community.
If your school has a lot of “Miss Vacancies,” if your special education student has been mainstreamed without a proper IEP, if your school has less counselors and more scheduling problems, if your classroom is overcrowded, or taught by a teacher not certified in the subject area, call us, and let’s organize the fight to stop these abuses.
Defend Public Education/Save Our Students
Equal Opportunity Now/BAMN
For more information, call 313.645.9340 or email marquette6@hotmail.com
(Finney High is located at 4180 Marlboro, near Mack & Chalmers (the old McNair Building)
