How to Be Strike-Ready

Transcript

Transcripts are auto-generated.

Quentin: So being strike ready, it's not necessarily about the goal of getting to that strike, but it's about all of those efforts that you do that add just another brick on top of one another to add pressure for the district to come to the table and meet us at a place that is equitable.

Leah: That was for me encouraging to see how much togetherness we had this round with all three units working together.

Natieka : Hello and welcome to School Me, the National Education [00:00:30] Association's podcast, dedicated to helping educators thrive at every stage of their careers. I'm your host, Natieka Samuels. On March 4th, I bought a plane ticket to St. Paul Minnesota to interview educators on the picket line once their strike began one week later. But by March 5th, I'D canceled my plans because a tentative agreement had been reached and the strike was off. They say that the best way to prevent a strike is to prepare for one, and St. Paul's educators were incredibly prepared for their March 11th strike date. [00:01:00] So how did they successfully avoid striking while also having their demands met? On today's show, you'll hear from Leah VanDassor, president of the St. Paul Federation of Educators and Executive Board member Quentin Wathum-Ocama.

Ama about how St. Paul educators prepared for their strike and how you can use their example as a helpful guide for your upcoming negotiations. Thanks for joining me, Quinton and Leah. Let's have you both introduce yourselves. Let's start with you Leah. Can you tell me a little bit about [00:01:30] yourself, where you're currently working and what your position is?

Leah: I am actually right now working as a member on release with the St. Paul Federation of Educators. I'm the president. If I was working in a school, I'd be an eighth grade English teacher. That's what I did for 25 years in St. Paul before switching gears. So that's currently what I'm doing right now and all things that come with being president of a member-led organization.

Natieka : How about you Quentin?

Quentin: I am a academic support teacher at Maxfield Elementary of primary work with third [00:02:00] and fourth grade students using a curriculum called SIPs, which is a reading intervention curriculum, and I'm a member of the executive board of SPFE and served as an area cap for this latest round of bargaining.

Natieka : Leah, why did you decide that you wanted to become an educator?

Leah: I just have always known that I wanted to be a teacher. I really liked school when I was much younger. I had younger siblings. I would come home every day and play school with them and I really enjoyed that and I've known ever since I was in elementary school that I wanted to do this as my career. [00:02:30] So I actually had a double major in English and music education, so I got to do both of those things.

Natieka : Quentin?

Quentin: My dad was a teacher in St. Paul Public Schools for a long time, so education's always been a big part of my upbringing. But for me, I came back to education. I worked in organizing, was a community organizer, political organizer. I always enjoyed working with kids. One of my jobs was working for the boy Scouts after school and that led me into tiptoeing my way into this career [00:03:00] where finally I decided to go back to school, get my master's in youth development and kind of never looked back from the work that I used to do, which I definitely enjoyed, but just a lot of fulfillment in what I'm doing now.

Natieka : So recently St. Paul was planning to go on a strike and that's what we're here to talk about today is that process and how St. Paul was able to get strike ready but ultimately did not end up having to go on strike. So how often does St. Paul do contract negotiations?

Leah: [00:03:30] State statute in Minnesota requires that all local education unions bargain every two years and it's the whole state at once. So the whole state is bargaining for the 25 contract at the same time.

Natieka : And how has that gone? So bargaining every two years, does it just feel like once you get one contract done, the next one's about to begin?

Leah: Actually, yes. We were talking about this yesterday already for what's the next round going to look like and when will that work start and what will that work look like? So [00:04:00] it is basically a constant work we do.

Natieka : And how long had St. Paul educators been working without a contract before the strike was supposedly going to take place?

Leah: Our contract ended June 30th of 2023. So basically since then.

Natieka : That's a long time.

Leah: That's a long time. And actually in Minnesota there are still about a third of the locals are still not settled and they're all on the same timeline. So there's a lot of local still [00:04:30] preparing to maybe take that final action if needed.

Natieka : And what were some of the effects of working without a contract for that long? Maybe it's not totally noticeable from the outside, but maybe internally, how are the members feeling about working without a contract?

Leah: I think there's some frustration. I think there's a feeling of this is the pattern that the district tries to not finish a contract until they absolutely have to. There's a feeling for some folks that we should have been getting [00:05:00] a higher pay rate or some changes in our work conditions since last year in July, and that won't happen because back pay goes only to January. So they feel like they've been shorted some of their wages and their benefits because of that. And that's always a difficult balance as to what does that look like moving forward and how do we honor the fact that people have been working without a contract for the last eight months.

Natieka : So when we're going into this round of contract negotiations, [00:05:30] I would like to hear from both of you what you feel the primary demands and changes that St. Paul educators were looking to get this contract.

Quentin: I think there was so much. We've been really fortunate with our last few rounds of bargaining to make some really important gains. In our contract and really be, I would say, a leader in how we bargain really for that common good that I know folks have been talking about. Our big win from our last contract was class sizes [00:06:00] and getting that into the body of our contract, and so those are what we've been fighting for previously. But really this time coming into a really tough year in terms of teacher shortages, inflation, it felt much more bread and butter where people were really... They saw healthcare costs increase. They've seen neighboring districts get significant raises in terms of wages with our democratic trifecta here in Minnesota, investing millions of dollars in education for the first time of the generation. And a lot of it was for my [00:06:30] members and the folks I hear from in my building, just being fairly compensated for the work that we do and recognizing that the challenges of an urban district deserve fair compensation, especially with all this money coming in.

But there was also a lot of other things that came up in this contract as well, and we got a lot of wins in terms of look at special education supports. We look at conversations of bringing community back into buildings [inaudible 00:06:52] to site councils. So there was a lot of really great things in our contract, but at the end of the day, we've done some really, really great organizing [00:07:00] in our union, but it was bread and butter issues because we are all feeling a little bit of a hurt right now with inflation and other things going on and-

Quentin: But it also says something about how you were respected and viewed, and I think that is really what a lot of our members... They wanted to feel that the district was valuing them. And sometimes decisions been made over the last few years where they may not feel that. So that dollar conversation became very, very personal for a lot of our folks.

Leah: Quentin really summed it up quite well. That covers a lot of the material. I want to add [00:07:30] on that there is an educator shortage and we know that and that retention of our current educators. He mentioned that it's not just that it's also recruiting new folks, but retaining the folks that we have in our district who are committed and have dedicated themselves to the students and families in St. Paul, I think is invaluable and helping the district understand that the time was... It's now.

Like Quentin said, respect our educators to show that they're wanted here and that they're valued [00:08:00] and it's not just one more contract that we can just check off our list and move on. St. Paul Federation of Educators changed our name in 2018 from teachers to educators because we do represent all licensed staff, which includes counselors, librarians, social workers, psychologists, nurses, et cetera, and our school and community service professionals and our educational assistants. So there's three different groups within our union. And so all three of those contract groups [00:08:30] saw huge gains and that respect for all those different teaching and educating professions within our union were really reflected around this time with our districts meeting our demands for those areas.

Natieka : Were there a lot of differences in the demands or desires from the teaching side of things and the education support professional side of things, or were you pretty aligned and working as one?

Leah: The demands are not always the same, but we do work as one. And one of the things the [00:09:00] district was trying to do, which we did not allow, and we know that our members would've struck over this as well, which had nothing to do with pay or anything really, was only licensed staff are required to bargain every two years. And they were trying to say that the other two units would bargain every three years, which would break our union apart and we were not going to have that and nobody was going to have that. Everybody was staunchly on the side of, we are going to strike over this. We are all one.

That's how that kind of shook out. That was one [00:09:30] thing, and there were some other demands. Our EA's got a different accrual rate so that they could have enough time to use at winter break and spring break to not have to use personal days or sick time or go without pay during those times. The district is pushing the winter break to be longer and longer. It's up to two full weeks, but folks were only getting paid for maybe seven days. They were the only group in our district who were not paid for the Christmas day holiday. So there were some other things that came up, but that was [00:10:00] for me, encouraging to see how much togetherness we had this round with all three units working together.

Natieka : Quentin, how did you feel like the general, let's say landscape felt? How were the members in general feeling? Were people feeling really hopeful and like, yeah, this is going to go great, or were people kind of expecting the worst? Was this going to be a particularly fraught bargaining year in the minds of most members?

Quentin: I don't think it was. I think early [00:10:30] on and to the credit of our bargaining team, our bargaining team put together some really aggressive and progressive proposals that really got members excited. I think for us, what I saw SPFE do was really get to the bread and butter, meat and potatoes of things that were important to members, pay, healthcare, restorative practices, all of these things, and really doing it in a way that was aspirational. So I think from our end, the posturing of us as SPFE, we've always were doing it kind of very asset based, [00:11:00] and as we got closer and farther in to the bargaining cycle, when we saw that the district was slow walking us, it was kind of like, we are angry. We are ready to take action. It was kind of that rageous anger. I would say the energy I think throughout this in my building and other buildings that I helped organize in, the vibes were good. I don't know how else to put it. The vibes were really good throughout.

Natieka : I want to talk a bit about each of you and how you first got involved with the union because obviously you're here, you had a lot of involvement, [00:11:30] not only in just this action, but in the past. So Quentin, let's start with you. How did you first get involved with the union?

Quentin: I was a CAT in... Oh, man, 2020. I've worked in St. Paul schools on and off since I came out of college. So initially when I was a paraprofessional in SPPs, I was in our Teamsters union. I saw a lot of the organizing work that SPFE was doing that I wasn't a part of just because I was a Teamster. So I was always [00:12:00] kept my eye on SPFE from afar. And then from there, working with just gotten more and more involved. I'm an organizer by heart, so when there's opportunities to have conversation with colleagues, have conversation with family and community, that is something that's like my bread and butter, that's a big part of my day job. So there was those opportunities like, "Oh, you should do this. You should be our CAT person." I was like, "Okay." Really from there, it's kind of just snowballed for me as I've gotten more and more involved. So this is something that's really enjoyable for me and luckily I had [00:12:30] some colleagues who did encourage me to get involved.

Natieka : So Quentin, can you actually explain what a CAT is? I was going to ask later, but you've already mentioned it, so let's get into it.

Quentin: Well, our CAT is our contract action team. So we have our bargaining team who are at the table doing the work. Our CAT are folks in each of our buildings who's really job working with the stewards in the building as well. But their job is particularly to be that kind of conduit around bargaining. So if that's getting people plugged in when we're in a public session of bargaining, [00:13:00] encouraging folks in the building to engage, if that's filling out petitions, if that's just keeping people up to date on what's going on, they are really that focal building level organizing specialist kind of very narrowly focused on the contract cycle. So we work to identify one of those in every one of our buildings and programs across SPPS.

We use a model where we have area CATs who organize CATs at each building and really, really try to keep it... Just have that ability to, on a dime, [00:13:30] be able to engage our members, activate our members, and inform our members about what's going on. And that's a model that we've had for some time now, and we've continued to grow the model and expand it and make tweaks. And that's a big reason why we were so successful this year is that we had a really organized field team who were just in their buildings having conversations, moving things back and forth, bringing information to the bargaining team, to our e-board when it needed to be. And it was just really, really impactful and powerful for us and how we were able to [00:14:00] move things forward with this contract.

Natieka : Thank you for defining the terms there. Leah, can you talk to us about how you first got involved with the union?

Leah: So I started teaching in St. Paul in 1996, and I can't remember exactly when I became a building steward, but I was a building steward for a lot of years. There needed to be somebody on a committee that was connected to the union, so I was like, "I'll do that." And I wasn't really paying attention to what was going on in our union really much beyond that. And then [00:14:30] in the late 2000s, 2010, right around the time I think that Chicago Teachers Union went on strike, we also as a union started to shift our focus to more of a social justice work that had not been done before. I grew up in a mining town in Montana, so I saw what trade unionisms were like and what that looked like, and I didn't know there was another way to be in a union.

So I was always a member of our union, but not really participating. But when we shifted gears to that social justice [00:15:00] work, that was something that I wanted to be a part of, and I started becoming more involved and I started going to meetings and watching what was happening. I was a CAT. I loved being a CAT member. That was one of my favorite jobs ever. And then I did other things and I got on the bargaining team. I've been on the executive board. There was some shifting in the officer group, so I ran for vice president in 2020 and was elected as vice president.

So it just sort of grew from that. And then because of COVID, we needed to pivot quickly. So [00:15:30] I actually was on release as vice president doing some work with our district specifically around how to get back in buildings safely and what was being done and how that would look. And then the president retired, so I was like, "Okay, I'll run for president." So I mean, that's how I got to this point, but it's just been kind of got myself involved and then just kept growing from there.

Natieka : Thanks for listening to School Me, and a quick thank you to all of the NEA members listening. If you're not an NEA member yet, visit nea.org/whyjoin to learn more about member benefits. [00:16:00] All right, so as far as your specific roles within this contract negotiation season, Quentin, can you describe what your role was in all of this, this year?

Quentin: So for me this year I was identified to serve as an area CAT, so I was responsible for my school and three other schools, including our large high school in the district. So that was identified pretty early on for me, and I was super excited about that. And [00:16:30] really what my role and some of the things that I was working on is it was really working with folks on the ground in our buildings to just what they needed in terms of the organizing efforts that were happening. Something that we did pretty early on as we were getting ready for this field campaign, as we got in deeper in the bargaining and we know that the district was still walking us, we started taking some actions in our building, including petitions. We had a really important wage petition. We actually did at some point, did a strike petition.

And my job, a lot of it was working with staff and [00:17:00] figuring out what the barriers were for them to getting signatures, what supports they needed. And as we got later into our contract campaign, we started doing some actions, walk-ins, walk-outs. We had all these things. So my job was one to be that second layer of communication, reiterating the needs that our awesome staff had been putting together so that our organizing staff and just being that second layer support. But I think additionally on top of that is a lot of what I was able to do was to troubleshoot and brainstorm and be that person for a lot [00:17:30] of our buildings this year. It was stressful at times. It was a lot to deal with, but a lot of it was just having conversations or helping people walk through conversations about how to get people to yes.

Natieka : All right. Leah, how would you describe your role? I mean, I'm sure as the president there's a lot, but how would you describe your role in all of this?

Leah: As I was listening to Quentin speak and also thinking about how am I going to answer this question? I know that this podcast is about being strike ready. So I don't know if we can stress enough how important it is to have a strong field. [00:18:00] Sure, we've got our work we're doing at our bargaining table, and sometimes my role is just to be a go-between between the district and our bargaining team. Sometimes I'm a cheerleader for all the work that gets done for everyone else. We really value the fact that our members do the work and we credit member work with our wins all the time.

I'm one person and I don't get listened to all the time, but when there's 400 people standing outside your office screaming, you can't ignore them. And that's the difference in [00:18:30] having this work shift and have our district really focus on the fact that we had support with our membership and families and community and this was not going to go away. And so I think preparing ahead of time and be thinking about what pitfalls might occur is part of what my job is as far as what is my role in that, is coming up with all the disasters that could possibly happen and then coming up with a way to make sure they don't ever happen.

Natieka : And so this could be a huge question, so I'm going [00:19:00] to try to break it down to maybe the top ways that you feel SPFE prepared for all of this, but knowing that you are working without a contract for so long and then you had voted to strike and it was going to begin on March 11th, 2024, what are some of the ways that you prepared, maybe let's say a week before, a month before? What were some of the top ways that you think that prepared you for if the last resort happens, and there's a strike, we're ready, but [00:19:30] if we get a TA, which you fortunately did, here's how we're going to do it?

Leah: Thank you for that question. It is a big one. The preparation for this potential strike started in 2012. It's an ongoing process we've added every year. Our first year that we had a strike vote was 2018. We learned a lot from that. We've had one every two years since then. And knowing what that's going to look like, knowing what preparation before strike vote, we had strike petitions that people signed as sort [00:20:00] of a temperature check, are people willing to do this? Having those one-on-one conversations and finding out what's standing in their way, what are some barriers to agreeing to this and what would keep them from wanting to go on strike for their students and their own jobs? It's ongoing. There's a lot of communication that was ongoing. There was a lot of communication in past years, even with other unions.

Quentin: I think a lot of what Leah said, I'm with you. We always say, right? And we mean it when we say it, that taking the decision to strike is not something we [00:20:30] take lightly. It is a huge decision. And when you think about all the organizing work and background work that needs to go in it, I think you can start to see that it is really getting a big giant machine moving. Early on when we knew that things were getting... Were moving, we're also not moving, we started having those conversations about... First we did a weights petition, our weights petition, we went out, we worked with our area CATs to really see where folks are at. Our weights petition was our first [00:21:00] test in mid-January to see, okay, people are talking or the people are going to put their pen to paper that this is something I'm willing to go to the bat for.

So that was our first thing. From there, that led the other conversations. We did a strike petition a few weeks later to once again to see where our members are at. If we can get our membership to fill out a strike petition, that means that if we need to get them to a point, God forbid, to a strike authorization, but we know that we actually have the numbers to do that. So a lot of that [00:21:30] work that happened for us early on was trying to really get our finger on the pulse of our members. And those two petitions in January really helped us understand where our membership was at. Just one by having the sheer numbers of folks who were signing on, but two, the conversations that were happening in buildings coming from those petitions. Because also those conversations, those one-to-ones CAT members were having, that really led to there.

So that's something we did early on. And then from there, it's starting to timeline and plan out, depending on your law, state law, [00:22:00] state statute, we have certain things that we had to be thinking about. So we really started to start thinking about if this is something that we're going to be serious about and that's something that we have to be prepared for, how are we gaming this out? How are we planning out when we need to take actions in terms of the CAT need to go out and have these actions? When do we need to be thinking about things that we need to take to our executive board to be prepared for? So for us, it was really early on, a month out, six weeks out, two months out was getting that pulse on the finger and starting to stand up all [00:22:30] of those systems that we needed that if we were going to go, we would be ready to go.

Because even getting to the point where you can get a yes on a strike authorization vote, that is a heavy, heavy lift for any union. And then from there, once you actually have that, yes, it is starting to figure out what that planning is, starting to figure out solidarity captains, strike building captain, having identification and doing those training. It's starting to figure out what our signage is, starting to figure out what do we need in terms of supporting our folks who may have financial need. Doing [inaudible 00:23:00], [00:23:00] how are we engaging community? How are we starting to engage our community to make sure that they are with us? Because we know that they're with us on a lot of these issues. They want to see their teachers get paid, they want to see their schools retain staff, rallies, right? As we got closer and closer as an escalating step.

Being strike ready is one thing, but for us it's consistent organizing. They continue to build the pressure and they continue to keep the visibility on the district. We had a big rally in February. We had another rally right before we were ready to go [00:23:30] that put pressure on the district. So being strike ready, it's not necessarily about the goal of getting to that strike, but it's about all of those efforts that you do that add just another brick on top of one another to add pressure for the district to come to the table and settle, to come to the table and meet us at a place that is equitable. And for us, those conversations began really early on and they were just one step at a time. But for us, big thing that we did, we timelined it out. We got a calendar, we said this is what we need to do.

These are the organizing [00:24:00] actions we need to have. It's going to get adjusted. We worked off that calendar, we kept through that calendar with fidelity. We built on that. And as things came in, as additional supports came in, as that public support continued to build, how do we start to bring and wrap that all in and build that into our timeline? And I think that for us was what really was helpful. But it's building early on and getting your fingers on the pulse and understanding the timeline and understanding if this is our goal, it's a process, but you just got to build brick by brick.

Natieka : [00:24:30] So what did you win? What were you able to secure for your members?

Leah: We did win some great financial gains. On our first year of the contract, every sell in our salary schedule received a dollar amount. So it was $2.25 an hour for our hourly workers and $3,084 per sell for the SESPs and then $3,500 for the licensed staff. So everybody saw an increase of a dollar [00:25:00] amount. The people who were making less money saw a higher percentage increase there than the folks who are already making more money, but everybody got the same amount. And then for the second year of our contract, everyone is getting a 4% raise on top of that. So this really represents more than double what we've ever had as a contract win in the past. But the whole time I've been in St. Paul, this was a substantial amount and sadly, we still need to do more. The parts I don't have memorized, we also saw gains in contributions towards insurance premiums.

[00:25:30] Insurance is terrible for everyone and it's especially difficult for those getting insurance to cover their whole family. And that's true in St. Paul. So those gains were higher there. The EAs saw an additional holiday pay and then also accrual ratings that allowed them to not have to take sick time to just maintain. There was a lot of language around the spend caseload being reduced. We had maintenance and actually a little bit of an improvement on our English learner caseload work as well. The site [00:26:00] councils were added. We have mental health support teams. Quentin, am I missing anything that's popping to the top for you?

Quentin: Like Leah said, significant financial contributions we haven't seen in a generation. Usually my top lines for site councils we're really excited about seeing those back in action. I've actually already had my principal in my building get really excited to talk to me about that, spend caseloads and other things. So I mean, I think we really covered things, real significant gains for our members. Also, just pushing [00:26:30] back on some really toxic proposals that the district was pushing.

We made huge gains, restorative practices, getting a class size into the body of our contract. We saw a lot of attempts at bargaining and mediation for the district to really roll back completely some of those gains. So we have the gains that Leah had mentioned, plus most of the things that the district is trying to roll back, almost all, we slapped down. And I think that's huge for us that we moved forward and we didn't go back on the other things that we were [00:27:00] fighting for in 2020 and 2022 and beyond that and going back to all the way 2012. So that was a huge, huge thing. And some of those things really put members in the bad mood and we're so happy that we kept those on the contract and then made these gains.

Natieka : Yeah. And it's really important, I think, to not just focus on how much money people got or the improvements, but rather just not having things taken off and taken away is just as important a lot of the time. So I'm really glad that you mentioned that. How do you think that other states and districts, whether [00:27:30] they're the districts in Minnesota or outside, how can they use St. victory as an example, or not a template necessarily, but some guidance for how they can make sure that they're successful at their next bargain?

Leah: It is really important for every local to remember that every local is unique. And this is what's worked in St. Paul, and we didn't get here overnight. This was many opportunities for us to look at what we've done and what we can improve upon and what we could continue to do. [00:28:00] I think rather than looking at it as a template, I'd like to look at more as like a menu or a buffet. Here are all the different things that we tried. Here are all the different things that could be employed and the resources that you could find in other places. And then figure out where to start and what worked best for you.

Is it open bargaining to get more members involved? Is it deeper communications internally and externally so people know what's going on? Is it starting a CAT? It could be all those things or one of those things and then building from that. So I [00:28:30] think those are the important things to remember is that this is not going to work the same way everywhere based on where you're at with your membership in general. I think for sure, Quentin mentioned the one-to-one conversations cannot skip that step. People need to know what's going on, they need to have those conversations. And then building off of where can you go from there so people know what's happening. I think keeping your membership involved and informed is paramount in making this work.

Quentin: I think [00:29:00] that for us, I think we came with a broad arsenal of tools in our toolbox. And I think the takeaway is, like Leah said, recognize uniqueness of your district. I think also identify early on your strengths and weaknesses. Where in past bargaining campaigns have you felt where things have gone really well and where are some areas that you want to really intentionally plan around? And then I think for us, what was really helpful was putting things on that calendar and really thinking about that long [00:29:30] view. I think sometimes when you're in organizing campaigns, contract campaigns, sometimes it's like putting one foot in front of the next is all you can think about. We got to get this rally together, we got to get this action together. And sometimes we get a little bit lost in the thoughts because we're doing it to doing it because we're just trying to cobble together the thing that energize our members, put pressure on.

But it's always important really early on to take that step back and have that long view and be prepared for those possibilities. [00:30:00] And I think for us, that is what really made us successful. Our executive board, our area CATs, our staff really early on painted a roadmap of where we need to go and what are all these milestones that we need to hit before them. And for us in years past, I think that's why we were so successful in our organizing campaign. I think that was why we were so successful in engaging members. I think that's why we saw huge yes votes from our membership is because we knew the benchmarks [00:30:30] that we needed to hit to engage members to get them to yes and make sure that folks were ready to go if we needed to. For me, I'm in my school building at 7:15 every morning, welcoming kids, right? And then I'm doing this work on the side with our staff. Getting that calendar early on. It really, really was, I think a big tool for our success here as well.

Leah: I just want to add too to that is that it's not just about having the calendar of what's going to happen at each of these milestones, but the why of why we're doing it.

Quentin: Yes. Yes.

Leah: [00:31:00] And this is not transactional. This has got to be relational. This has got to be, why are we doing this work? What's the bigger thing here? And helping people see that this is not just one time and then we're not going to talk to you again, that this is ongoing relational work. And I think that that helps. And that's why we see a success now when it was a lot harder to come up with people to vote yes in 2020 when we did strike because people saw the work didn't end. The work was beginning, the work is ongoing. [00:31:30] Whatever that looks like is very important.

Natieka : All right. One last question is what are you looking forward to now that bargaining season is over, at least for now? What's coming up that you're really excited about? Leah.

Leah: I'm actually excited about our next round of bargaining to be honest, because we've got some new plans and some ideas that we're going to try out. But before that, I do have some conventions this summer that I'm kind of looking forward to getting a chance to go and see folks and do some different kind of work that's just a little bit different. We also have a year-round organizing [00:32:00] campaign that we're doing, especially with our EAs and SESPs. That's really gratifying and really exciting to talk to people that we don't always get to talk to and help them see their place in our union. So that could be a place where they can really focus in and find a way to be a part of their union that's not just a person in our union. They can have an active role in some of the work we do.

Quentin: I think for me, now that bargaining is over, one is getting through the rest of the year, it's that time. But really I do [00:32:30] some work with our COPE committee for SPFE, [inaudible 00:32:32] do presentations in April down in Chicago. I'm excited for some opportunities to have some of our local candidates here around this is important education, but even at a more smaller level, because we have the site council language in our contract, I'm already starting to have some conversations with my principal about what could this look like for my school and how can we just be better about engaging community and families. So I'm just really excited in my building. A lot of [00:33:00] that community engagement work is part of my bucket of work. So I'm actually really happy that I can kind of engage in that and that the contract helps actually supports me in doing the work that my building was already going to prioritize.

And now it just makes it a little easier for my principal to justify that work because you always have to do that. You always got to cross your T's dot your I's. So yeah, we're going to have some really great conversations with conferences and this spring about what community engagement looks like at my building. So I'm really, really excited about some [00:33:30] of the possibilities. We've already had some really good conversations with my AP and my principal, so that's something I'm just looking forward to. And I'm glad that our wins here kind of give me a little bit of a push-up to do it a little bit more aggressively.

Natieka : Great. Well, thank you so much to both of you for coming on the show today. I hope that anyone who's listening sees all that goes into getting through bargaining and the joy that can come from a well-prepared, well-planned bargaining season.

Leah: Thank you so much for having us.

Quentin: Yes, thank you. [00:34:00] Thank you.

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