One of the things that was important for us during the period that we were just forming was getting a strong sense of who we were as a group. One key piece of that was to think about who we were in relationship to a Black city like Baltimore. As a group, we spent a lot of time talking and thinking about race. We knew that race equity and Black leadership were important qualities for us, but it took us a while to figure out what that meant, and specifically what about Black leadership in Baltimore was significant for us. We also needed to stay secretive and closeted for a long time because as a small group we knew that the people who were part of our initial group would have an outsized impact on how we would eventually be perceived. So, when establishing our own identity we tried very consciously to avoid being co-opted by strident leftists whose mansplaining alienated would-be allies; neoliberals who want to use market-based ideas to “improve” the union; and people whose animosity towards the union leadership was nothing but thinly veiled anti-blackness.
We used this slow period to also build relationships with each other, bringing food and drinks to book club gatherings where we read about similar efforts around the country. Developing trust was crucial because there is a long history of folks claiming to be supportive of social justice movements, and then turning elsewhere when presented with an opportunity to personally rise through the ranks. We were set on this not happening to us, and to building a solid community of educators that made decisions democratically. It meant we would eventually be comfortable saying, “Cristina, can you handle that?” “Natalia, can you represent us at this event?” “Corey, can you write up something on this issue?” Over time, we were able to rely on each other knowing that our team would handle it well, without having to peer over each others shoulders. Now we have a steering committee with seven people representing elementary, middle, high school, traditional schools, charter schools, teachers, para-professionals. Five of our seven members are people of color, and that is intentional.
We first had to develop our knowledge base, and that happened in discussions as well as reading together. By talking though, we realized that our working conditions were severe and we needed to address them. Teaching can be such an overwhelming and isolating profession that it’s easy to not even know what’s going on elsewhere in your school, much less across the district. Consciousness grew tremendously as a result of listening to stories from teachers around the city. Teachers of ESOL students explained, for example, their teachers work to protect their families from ICE outside of the building. These students were also being asked to take the PARCC test, and their teachers would be evaluated in part based on those results. We gained greater empathy for the work of the Black para-professionals, who shoulder a disproportionate load of the behavior management side of teaching with ⅓ of the pay.
There was also a lot of invisible work that we needed to do to build our own common knowledge base. In our group we did research on the history of underfunding, which allowed us to properly frame the facilities issue in the context of decades of state abdication of responsibility. Bouncing different potential ideas off of other teachers we knew allowed us to craft something quickly that accounted for a variety of perspectives. Talking on the phone with principals we knew gave us another angle when considering a solution that worked for all people on the ground in school buildings. Without this prior invisible work, we couldn’t have churned out such a thoughtful list of demands that caught on and allowed concerned citizens to channel their outrage into a tangible path forward.
That said, we feel that, in many ways the circumstances of teaching in Baltimore are the hardest that they have ever been, which gives limited energy for organizing, but the issues are so pressing that they need organizing in order to solve them. In January 2018, the temperatures dropped below freezing for days on end. There were schools across the city without heat. There were reports of teachers and students in classrooms with hats, coats, and gloves to make it through the school day. One teacher even launched a GoFundMe page to raise money for winter wear. This was a crisis. The school board got an earful from community members at their January 10th meeting, and still had no solution to offer. This was a great organizing opportunity for BMORE, we reacted quickly and it taught us how to do a campaign in a short period of time. Learning how to be public and loud was the last important piece of the puzzle that we started, and having an immediate outrage to respond to was a teachable moment.
We put out a set of demands in English and Spanish about the school temperature which asked for transparency, communication, a clear plan, and to close schools if the conditions were too cold for students and teachers. The district answered the demands, and eventually the governor stepped in to provide emergency funding. This campaign put us on the map, and got us working in coalition with many other groups around the city.
After the temperature crisis subsided, we returned to our October conversation about doing a Black Lives Matter Week of Action in Baltimore, like many other groups of teachers in other cities had done. We were all 100% behind the idea, and also terrified of taking on another project on our own. Committing to something that extended beyond our current capacity forced us to reach out in partnership to other groups we admired from afar. Originally, we thought we’d get some t-shirts and do a single event. The response from Baltimore Algebra Project, Dr. Lawrence Brown, a professor of public health at Morgan State University, and so many other individuals and organizations was so overwhelming that we ended up having an entire week’s worth of events. One key event was our Black Teachers Matter panel discussion at a local elementary school. At it, we showed this video, which conveyed the loss of Black teachers in our city which stands now only at 40%.
The week garnered enough positive attention that people now know BMORE. With our name on the map, other groups are now reaching out to us, eager to partner, and inspired by the work we’re putting in. This makes us think BMORE can be the kind of group that connects the dots between the people on the ground doing real work in the community, and lift up the voices of those who are traditionally and systematically ignored.
The ongoing challenge that we face is the nitty gritty of organizing. We are getting a lot of attention, but we are still figuring out what this means. We have been embraced by Black-led community organizations, but we need to expand our base of teachers. We need more teachers to actually show up for meetings and the work. There seems to be general support, but not consistent energy to move folks to add an additional obligation after the school day. In many ways, we need to remain true to what we started, and continue to build relationships with teachers as much as we can. We can’t let our visibility distract us from that. It took CORE (Chicago’s social justice teacher caucus) years before they were ready to take over their union leadership, which they did in 2010. We have to take a page out of their book, and continue to do the challenging work of organizing. We also have to recognize that the work is slow. If we just got everybody involved in BMORE, without considering that the people most likely to join up would be those with the most resources, time, and lack of discrimination on the worksite, we would be stuck with only liberal white teachers who over time, would create a white space that was no longer safe for educators of color to join and speak out at. We are very conscious of staying true to our original goal for Black leadership. After all, we are in a Black city.
Looking forward, we are looking nationally and locally to build our power in order to transform the BTU from a service union to a social justice union. We believe educators should be proactively leading the efforts to advocate for, protect and improve our profession AND the communities where our students live. Public education serves the common good, and labor unions do the important work of protecting it from exploitation and privatization. We understand that public education is a tool for liberation and essential to a functioning democracy.
We will work to counteract Baltimore’s history of structural racism by intentionally promoting the voices and leadership of educators of color within our group. We intend to amplify the power of the people through relationship building and providing educators the tools to organize their schools and communities.
In order to achieve this vision we are running delegates for election so that we can be represented at the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) national convention in Pittsburgh summer 2018 (we have 33 candidates on the ballot). Locally, we are planning a one day teacher organizing workshop as part of a week long coalition event commemorating the events of 1968, called Baltimore Freedom Summer. We submitted 850 petition signatures from BTU members to amend the BTU constitution to make voting more accessible. We are a regular presence at school board meetings and smaller work groups adding teacher voice to conversations around curriculum, teacher evaluation, and the recruitment and retention of black teachers in the district. Finally, we are in the planning stages of putting together a slate for the next Baltimore Teachers Union election, hoping to see the kind of change that Chicago saw in 2012.
