Union Urges Detroit Teachers to Return to Work After Second ‘Sickout’ Day
Detroit Federation of Teachers said it received assurances they would be paid after June
Detroit teachers protested in front of Detroit Public Schools headquarters on Tuesday. Their union Tuesday evening said it received a letter from the district’s transitional manager, assuring that teachers will be paid after June. PHOTO: BILL PUGLIANO/GETTY IMAGES
The Detroit Federation of Teachers urged teachers on Tuesday evening to return to work after effectively shutting public schools for two days, saying the union received assurances that teachers will be paid after June.
The teachers union was protesting statements made this weekend by the district’s state-appointed manager, who said it wouldn’t be able to pay teachers and other staff after June, or conduct summer school, if the state Legislature didn’t pass a $715 million package to restructure the district and erase its debt.
But by Tuesday evening, the union said it received a letter from the district’s transition manager, Judge Steven Rhodes, assuring the union teachers will be paid after June. In the letter, a copy of which was provided by the union, Judge Rhodes said the district would honor its contractual obligations to pay teachers and other staff.
“We’re happy to return to the classroom and finish the school year with our kids,” the union’s interim president, Ivy Bailey, said in a statement.
Judge Rhodes said in a statement that he looked forward to working with the union following the end of their two-day action.
On Tuesday, there was also progress in moving legislation forward. A a House committee passed measures that would include about $500 million to clear the district’s debt and about $33 million to fund the operations of a newly created district.
Gideon D’Assandro, a spokesman for Republican House Speaker Kevin Cotter, said the full House could take up the measures as soon as this week. He said he believed the Senate, which passed the $715 million package in March, would now be open to the House version.
Tuesday’s “sickout” was the 14th day during this academic year that some of the district’s schools were forced to close, said Michelle Zdrodowski, a spokeswoman for the Detroit Public Schools. She said 94 of the district’s 97 schools were closed.
Earlier protests by the city’s teachers focused on conditions in schools, including class sizes and the disrepair of some buildings that teachers said had become a health hazard.
The sickouts have drawn criticism from Judge Rhodes, as well as some lawmakers and Republican Gov. Rick Snyder.
Rep. Cotter called the sickouts selfish and misguided and said they only made it harder to move legislation forward. He said that more than a million hours of instruction have been lost due to teacher sickouts. “These egotistical teachers have lashed out at the children who rely on them and accomplished nothing but disrupting their students’ education,” Rep. Cotter said in a statement.
The union took issue with those comments, with Ms. Bailey saying teachers were being advocates for students.
“You cannot in good conscience ask anybody to work without a guarantee that they are going to be paid,” said Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, parent union of the DFT.
Judge Rhodes criticized the sickouts’ disruption to the families of the nearly 46,000 students who attend the city’s public schools.
“Many parents may have been forced to take a day off from work without pay,” Judge Union Urges Detroit Teachers to Return to Work After Second ‘Sickout’ Day - WSJ:
