Building Membership

January 2005

Stop, Look, and Listen

Cookies and Doritos? Exotic destinations? You can't pass up this road trip. Hitch a ride as the Utah Education Association re-connects with members.

By John O'Neil

The Utah Education Association (UEA) latched onto the concept and made it even cooler. What if the vehicle of choice was actually an RV? And instead of going somewhere frivolous, like the Transamerican Museum of Beeswax, you journeyed to the places members worked, got to see a slice of their lives, where they hang out?

The latest UEA Road Trip, a fall staple for three years running, rolled to a stop recently after putting in 1,198 miles visiting schools across the state. Over two weeks, UEA staff and leaders, working with local leaders and UniServ folks, pulled off a Road Trip extraordinaire featuring 14 appearances of the Cat in the Hat, 26 schools visited, and too many donuts and soft cookies to count.

As they wheeled the 28-foot cruiser from the red-rock plateaus of Southern Utah to the mountain-ringed suburbs of Salt Lake City, the intrepid Road Trippers found Utah educators facing challenges head-on and reinvigorating their union.

Bursting at the Seams

In Stansbury Park, a bedroom community of Salt Lake City where new developments dot the landscape at the base of the Oquirrh Mountains, school construction simply can't keep pace. Carol Robertson, a fifth-grade teacher at Stansbury Elementary, said overcrowding has cramped teachers and students alike. "The faculty room's been converted to a kindergarten classroom, and we meet in a closet," she said, and in the lunchroom, "the kids have to put their trays sideways to eat."

Teachers at Viewmont High School in Bountiful also were feeling the strain of budget shortfalls and higher class rolls. Science teacher Barbara Progess said her classes are getting larger and she is teaching fewer sections of electives like astronomy. Despite rising student enrollments, four teachers had recently been involuntarily transferred, with another five in the offing, added building rep Dan Linford, "We're seeing many cuts, including some, like the AP humanities program, that have made Viewmont a special place," he said.

Federal Mandates Add Strain

In the southern leg of the trip, which passed through small towns like Hurricane, St. George, and Kanab, educators gave ample testimony to the mischief caused by NCLB, especially the requirements for highly qualified personnel. With fewer staff available, rural teachers often double up, teaching courses outside of their primary specialty. But that puts them at odds with the highly qualified provisions of NCLB.

And it's not just teachers bearing the brunt. In Minersville, Beaver Education Association President Alan Wood told Road Trippers that an outstanding classroom aide who served the district for 12 years recently left because she was not deemed "highly qualified" under NCLB.

NonStop Testing

At other stops, members related the fallout from NCLB's testing and accountability provisions.

The Road Trip crew visited Midvale Elementary School in Midvale, a Title I school with a large contingent of ESL students. Some of the students who show up in first-grade teacher Cassie Hill's class don't yet know their letters. Hill wishes NCLB were flexible enough to recognize the progress her students make throughout the year. "I asked to work here, because I love the diversity," said Hill. "I have one student, Pablo, who loves learning so much that he thanks me every day. But our school didn't pass Adequate Yearly Progress, so no matter how hard my kids work, they're considered failing. It really hurts morale."

John Helliwig, a science teacher at Copper Hills High School in West Jordan, also pointed out the excesses of testing. "I'm a conservative, but when it comes to NCLB, I have problems with the amount of testing and the time it takes away from learning," he said. For example, a school can be considered failing simply if a few students in one of the subgroups tested don't show up on test day. "I like the idea [of NCLB], but if I have two students who are chronically absent, how can I be accountable for their not being there?"

Hey, Climb Aboard!

Rusk quickly had a thought: could Slagowski identify a few kids responsible enough to take care of an instrument if the money could be raised through UEA's help? Slagowski liked that idea and, as Rusk listened to his concerns and walked him through some of the benefits offered by UEA, he opened up to joining as well. By the time the last pizza boxes had been cleared away, he'd become UEA's most recent member.

Reaching the Newbies

That sentiment is shared by other new teachers, Rusk said. "They're not worried about retirement, or about being sued—but they do want to know how to pass the Praxis test, how to improve, how to bring their students up to AYP. They want professional information."

In addition to the extra sessions for newbies at the UEA conference (where veteran teachers shared their time-tested tips), UEA reaches out to preservice teachers. Hundreds of student teachers have participated in "mock interviews" at UEA headquarters with Rusk and others helping them clarify their teaching approaches and polish their interview skills. "We coach them, and they get to know us as people," Rusk said. "Once they're in the classroom, we go right back and say, we need you as a member."

Of Cowboys And Community

Misleading rhetoric about public schools—circulated by pro-voucher groups and spread through conservative talk radio—has put Utah educators on the defensive the past few years. So UEA built in Road Trip events to help teachers connect with administrators and community members.

At the stop in Kanab, for example, educators, parents, and community officials mingled and munched pizza, enjoying performances by cowboy poet (and retired teacher) Hal Hamblin and student fiddlers. In Hurricane, a hotdog fund-raiser brought in $2,800 to help pay medical costs for local principal Dan Spendlove. The message undergirding such efforts: working together, we can make public schools even better.

The point wasn't lost on Davis County schools Superintendent Bryan Bowles, who began teaching in 1974 and retains his UEA membership. At a celebration of reading at Eagle Bay Elementary in Farmington, Bowles tag-teamed with Rusk, giving a stellar rendition of The Cat in the Hat to several hundred squirming, giggling kids. Bowles, who commands a sprawling district that stretches from Salt Lake City to Ogden, said afterward that the Road Trip "helps us to feel like a family. They're going a very long distance to make us feel closer. That's worth wearing yourself out to do."

Connecting Face-to-Face

When the Road Trip finally rolled to a stop, what did it amount to? Beyond the numbers (see "Tour Ticker," left), the Road Trip accomplished something much more lasting: it presented the human face of UEA and reaffirmed that the Association is attuned to the issues members face, Rusk and others said.

"As tired as you get, it's worth every minute," said Rusk. "Many of the people we talk to like their local, but they may be leery of the UEA and NEA because we're so removed from them—especially in the rural areas. So it's a big deal when UEA shows up. And when we meet them face-to-face, people say, 'Hey, you're just like us.' It's something you only get when you sit across the table; you can't get it from an e-mail or a flier in a box."

And since there's no way folks can share an RV for the better part of two weeks and not accumulate an album's worth of silly snapshots, the UEA trip generated more than its share. Like the scene at the motel in rural Panguitch when weary road-trippers were handed flashlights along with their room keys upon checking in. (The town's power, it turned out, was to be shut off for repairs that night.) Or the reading celebration at one elementary school where students clamored to give a high five to the Cat in the Hat—all except one, that is. She wouldn't go near the Cat, whispering in utter seriousness, "I saw the movie, and I know he coughs up a hairball."

—Additional reporting by UEA Communications Director Mark Mickelsen

Utah ESPs Take a Stand

Fed up with staff cuts and disrespect, members of Utah's largest ESP organization vote for affiliation with NEA.

Times are changing. By a vote of 97 percent, USEA members opted last May to affiliate with NEA—and then got right to work building on the new partnership.

"We're already seeing results," says Nan Kirkpatrick, a school food service employee and outgoing USEA president. "Our representatives are already receiving ESP training from NEA, and dispirited school employees who know the strength of NEA are getting excited and joining USEA."

To join NEA, USEA needed a helping hand from its long-time ally, the NEA-affiliated

Utah Education Association (UEA), which represents teachers. USEA wished to remain independent of UEA and affiliate directly with NEA, but UEA's constitution precluded the establishment of other NEA affiliates in Utah. In short, both USEA and UEA had to take action to make affiliation a reality.

 "We've tried other affiliations, and we've tried to go it alone," says Kirkpatrick. "But we need the kind of voice on the job that only a strong and resourceful national organization can give us. And NEA is that organization."

Pate says the partnership will make a world of difference for him and other ESPs.

"I know what it's like to try to build our membership the old way," adds Pate. "I've had to try to sign up school workers who'd seen RIF [layoff] after RIF that we couldn't stop. I think many of those same workers now believe, as I do, that we'll have a real voice in education throughout this state as part of NEA."

—Matt Simon