Takeaways from ETA Listening Session with School Counselors

On Thursday, February 20th, 19 school counselors met with members of the Educators Taking Action slate to share what is going on for them in our schools and how the union can better serve them.

Major Takeaways

• WTU Contract is not being interpreted consistently for our School Counselors – At some schools people are being treated with respect and are able to work with their admin and wellness teams to do their jobs. But many are concerned with how administrators are assigning so many other duties – from morning and lunch duty to administrative paperwork – that it cuts in to their time to do their actual jobs.

• Within the union we need more space and opportunities for School Counselors to be heard – There needs to be clear pathways for counselors to advocate within the union around the WTU Contract, to DCPS to ensure that duties and contractual obligations are clearly communicated and reasonable, and within our buildings to make sure that we are supporting each other as fellow educators and not being pitted against each other.

• WTU needs to take action now - One simple fix that the WTU must push with DCPS right now is to ensure that 11 month employee start and end dates are placed on the DCPS calendar alongside 10 month employees. Those of us who are currently serving on the WTU Executive Board will be bringing that proposal to the table at our next WTU Executive Board meeting in March.

Educators Taking Action: Our vision supports all educators

• Open Negotiations to all members – before negotiations begin the union should do extensive work with members to craft contract proposals with all constituency groups. These documents should be shared and open for comment from all interested members to come to a consensus on what should change. Once negotiations begin all members should be able to see negotiations take place, have access to notes, and be providing regular decision making on what should be prioritized.

• Union Democracy – A transparent union that actively brings major decisions to membership and our existing bodies (like the WTU Representative Assembly) will better reflect what our members want. Activating committees, solidarity groups and more can provide more opportunities to tell the union what needs to happen and fight challenges as they arise.

• Organizing for Union Power – In order to win major changes to our contract the union will need to have built up strong relationships with each other in our buildings so that we are actively communicated and prepared to take action as a collective. This starts in our schools, where we can facilitate open conversations with each other, understand our collective pressures and work as a team to ensure that our existing contract is being enforced for all of our members and that we are ready to fight for better working conditions and benefits.

• Slate Representation - we are committed to having a member of the WTU Executive Board who is a Professional School Counselor who will regularly hold listening sessions with support from the WTU to follow up on action steps to ensure that the needs of our counselors are being met.

Next Steps

1. Read over our more detailed notes from our listening session and provide comments and feedback to make sure we captured it all (Link)

2. Sign up to receive updates from the campaign and volunteer with our campaign to make this vision a reality: https://www.eta4wtu.org/get-involved

3. Sign up for a 1-1 conversation with WTU candidate Laura Fuchs to talk more: https://calendar.app.google/TvJXyKvpCF5BtF8fA