Kathy Evert, a fourth grade teacher at Mazomanie Elementary in the Wisconsin Heights School District, is one of a group of teachers from around the country invited to the White House for President Barack Obama’s celebration of Teacher Appreciation Day on Tuesday, May 3.  At the event, according to the White House, President Obama will recognize the National Teacher of the Year as well as other outstanding educators from across America.

Following the introduction of a UW-Madison faculty senate resolution of no confidence in UW System President Ray Cross and the Board of Regents, faculty around the UW System were vocal in their call for accountability at the top of the System.

Public school support staff perform work that keeps their schools running, work that is essential to the educational mission of Wisconsin’s public school system.  Unfortunately, this work is too often undervalued by school district administrations, who frequently ignore pressing issues that make it hard to recruit and retain the best school staff.  So, after five years of pay freezes, reduced take-home pay, and declining benefits, members of AFT local 4018, the Eau Claire Schools Classified Staff Federation, decided they’d had enough, and made plans to take their issues directly to the school board.

The first version of the employee handbook for the Ashland school district was created with extensive input from members of the Ashland Federation of Teachers (AFT local 1275) and the Ashland Federation of Paraprofessionals (AFT local 4232), with representatives of each union sitting on a handbook committee with the administration.  However, the following year, union members were surprised to see substantial changes made without any opportunity for employee input.  Members of both locals met to discuss the issue, and decided to organize their coworkers and take the issue to the next district school board meeting, where they would petition the board to re-form the handbook committee as a permanent working group.

When Wisconsin Republicans introduced legislation to remove key components of the civil service system, members of AFT-Wisconsin state employee unions quickly mobilized alongside other supporters of clean government, forming the Wisconsin Coalition to Save Civil Service.  Alongside their AFSCME union sisters and brothers, AFT-Wisconsin activists organized building meetings to spread the word about the importance of civil service to clean government and effective state agencies.