Teachers union candidates win Jefferson Parish School Board majority
The high-profile battle for control of the Jefferson Parish School Board reached a climax Saturday when candidates backed by the Jefferson Federation of Teachers regained a majority of the nine seats. Melinda Doucet andRicky Johnson, union picks in the 2nd and 7th Districts, defeated business-backed opponents in the runoff elections, putting organized labor candidates in five seats on the board that takes office in January.
Their victories mean that the union achieved the voting bloc that business activists won in 2010. For 2015, Doucet and Johnson join Ray St. Pierre, Cedric Floyd and Marion Bonura. The business-backed slate is comprised of Larry Dale, Sandy Denapolis-Bosarge and Melinda Bourgeois. Mark Morgan, the union-endorsed board president, has emerged as the swing vote.
The races was closely watched and financed by the American Federation of Teachers, and its president, Randi Weingarten, cheered the outcome on Twitter: "Public schooling won tonite" (sic). The national union funneled almost $650,000 into the races in recent months, with $200,000 of that coming just before the election.
Business interests, by contrast, contributed $400,000 to their candidates over two years. The spending disparity caused business leaders to charge that the national union was out to influence local politics.
Money wars aside, the two newly elected union-backed candidates have outlined their stances, to an extent, on key issues. Johnson has indicated that he would push for another collective bargaining contract with the union, after the School Board scrapped that contract in 2012. Doucet said she wouldn't push for collective bargaining, though she said teachers should be better treated.
Johnson has decried the board's move to close seven schools. Doucet has criticized its accounting practices.
No matter the politics, the School Board has some important decisions to make next year. Superintendent James Meza Jr. is on the verge of retirement, which means the search for a new leader is forthcoming. And a recent spike in Central American immigrant students has forced officials to find long-term funding and resources, especially for new students struggling to learn English.
The Jefferson Business Council's executive director, Tony Ligi, who has supported business-backed incumbents, said as much Saturday. "The bottom line, in whatever should happen, is we need to continue to improve the Jefferson Parish school system," he said. "Kids are depending on that."
Doucet and Johnson are not alone in their criticism of Meza and the School Board's reforms. Some teachers have loudly opposed the rejection of collective bargaining.
Ligi said that if a union contract is reinstated, he hopes for a "happy medium," chiefly one in which principals still have freedom to fire ineffective teachers. Teachers now work under individual contracts that are up for renewal at the end of each school Teachers union candidates win Jefferson Parish School Board majority | NOLA.com: