Educators at the Codman Academy Charter Public School in Dorchester announced on Tuesday that they are organizing a union, which will include more than 60 staff members.
“We’re unionizing Codman Academy CPS so that we have a voice at the table to build a safe learning environment that celebrates creativity and holistic development for our students, community, and educators,” said Marcus Parker, a third-grade teacher at Codman Academy, in a press release. “Our students deserve the best, and we know that by unionizing with the Boston Teachers Union, we’ll have the power to win them that.”
Codman will be one of three independent charter schools represented by the Boston Teachers Union, including the Neighborhood House Charter School, which joined the union in February. Statewide, nearly half a dozen independent charter schools have unionized, according to the Massachusetts Charter Public School Association. Some of those schools, like Pioneer Valley Performing Arts Charter School in South Hadley, belong to major national labor unions, like the United Auto Workers and the Teamsters.
Boston Teachers Union President Jessica Tang said organizing a union can help these schools codify best practices and other things that help educators feel supported, which ultimately creates more stability for students.
“When the teaching conditions are such that the educators are leaving every year and there’s high turnover, it’s really hard for the educators to have sustainability and stability for their students,” Tang said. “Every single educator who’s come to unionize with us says that we want our schools to be successful, and we believe our students deserve better.”
Tang said one of the union’s concerns about charter schools is that if they are built on an unsustainable structure and expectations, it is going to cause increased burnout.
“I am actually not surprised that increasingly more charter [schools] or educators are reaching out because we have, as teacher unions across the country, really been at the forefront of advocating for what our students need,” she said.
Tang said a lot of the union’s contracts have improved school conditions by providing more social workers and school psychologists and improving and expanding special education inclusion and resources for multilingual learners.
“I do believe that a lot of charter educators have those same values and beliefs and want to fight for those same things,” Tang said.
“The employees at Codman Academy CPS look forward to working with Codman Academy CPS administration to negotiate a collective bargaining agreement that addresses these issues,” said a Boston Teachers Union spokesperson in a press release.
