(C) Verite News New Orleans This story was originally published by Verite News New Orleans and is unaltered. . . . . . . . . . . Unionizing teachers at New Orleans French immersion school seek charter board recognition [1] ['Katie Jane Fernelius', 'More Katie Jane Fernelius', 'Verite News'] Date: 2024-01-24 A group of employees of New Orleans charter school Lycée Français De La Nouvelle-Orléans announced last week that they have organized a union and are seeking formal recognition from the school’s governing board. Organizers say the move comes after six months of organizing across the school’s three campuses, which covers pre-school through high school, where they secured support for the union from a supermajority of 74 employees. The Lycée union will be affiliated with the United Teachers of New Orleans (UTNO), which represented teachers across the city prior to Hurricane Katrina, the subsequent state takeover of city schools and the shift from traditional direct-run schools to charter schools. For several years, none of the city’s charter schools was unionized. But that has slowly changed since 2013, when teachers at Morris Jeff Community School announced the formation of a union. Currently, seven schools, including Lycée, have organized with UTNO. According to organizers at Lycée, frustration with school leadership had been mounting after administrators reduced benefits and froze wages during the last year. However, the desire to organize went beyond material concerns: organizers say that they did not feel included in decision-making at the school, especially as it impacted their students. “Nationwide, there’s a teacher shortage; there’s burnout,” said Sam Fick, a pre-kindergarten teacher who has been with the school for 12 years,since its second year of operation. He and his colleagues began talking last summer about the possibility of organizing a union. “So, the question is, how can we make our school someplace more sustainable so people can start careers here and become great educators and really build community?” In a statement, school Superintendent Dr. Chase McLaurin suggested that the school’s administration was skeptical of voluntarily recognizing the union, though the decision will ultimately rest with the school’s board of directors. “While we are completely open to working with our staff on innovative ways to improve and strengthen our school, we generally see interjection of a union between administration and staff as complicating efforts at communication,” the statement said. ”We welcome the opportunity to learn more from our faculty about how we can make Lycee Francais the best working and learning environment for our school family. Lycée Français De La Nouvelle-Orléans is a French immersion school founded in 2011. Today, it has over 900 students and a faculty and staff of nearly 100 people. Due to its unique inclusion of French curriculum, the school regularly hires teachers from Francophone countries, including France, Belgium and Senegal. Jonas Delpuech and his wife, who are French, teach in the elementary school. Both of them are on J-1 visas, temporary visas used for educational exchange programs. Delpuech felt it was important to help organize the union, especially for his fellow international colleagues who may have difficulty getting another job. “Unions give respect and dignity to us as teachers,” Delpuech said. “Just like the branches of government give checks and balances and share power, unions are almost the same in a school.” The organizing effort had been underway for about six months, but last week a core group of organizers finally delivered their statement to school leaders asking for voluntary recognition of their union on Thursday (Jan. 18). “We read our statement, and asked them to voluntarily recognize us,” Fick said. Although teachers and students almost exclusively speak French at the Lycée, the statement was written and delivered in English, Fick said. “Not everyone at the administrative level speaks French, so we wanted to make sure everyone understood what we were saying,” Fick added. That same day, the faculty also filed their union representation cards to the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB). According to the filing, the union will include “teachers, ESS staff, interventionists, counselors, social workers, nurses, and parent community [liaisons],” but it does not include teaching assistants, paraprofessionals, custodial staff or administrative staff. If the school’s governing board voluntarily recognizes the union, then the administrators and staff can begin the process of collective bargaining. If the administration does not recognize the union, then the NLRB will determine an election date, where all eligible teachers and staff will vote on whether to join UTNO. For decades, UTNO had been the only union representing teachers in New Orleans, and, at one time, was the largest union in the state. However, in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, the state took over most of the city’s schools in late 2005. In early 2006, the Orleans Parish School Board terminated over 7,000 teachers in the city, a group that was predominantly made up of Black women. Those developments resulted in the end of collective bargaining in the city’s schools, for a time. However, teachers at charter schools began to form their own unions just a few years later, linking up with UTNO, beginning in 2013 with the Morris Jeff union, which inked its first contract with the school’s governing board in 2016. By then, several other charter-school unions had organized, and one, at Benjamin Franklin High School, had finalized a contract. Several charter boards at first resisted recognizing teachers unions, including at Lusher Charter School (now the Willow School) and International High School. Teachers at International High School petitioned the NLRB to hold a union election. The school’s governing board pushed back, arguing that charter schools were not subject to NLRB jurisdiction. A federal appeals court ruled against school leadership in 2018, paving the way for other charter schools unions to organize and collectively bargain. In spite of the administration’s initial reaction to the union, faculty remain hopeful that the board may choose the route of voluntary recognition. “Everyone’s goal is for it to be the best school that it can be,” said Fick. “We believe in democratic values, so we want to make those decisions together. When we make decisions democratically, it means there’s going to be more buy-in… But ultimately we all want what is best for the students.” Related Stories Republish This Story Republish our articles for free, online or in print, under a Creative Commons license. 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