Tuesday, March 20, 2018

In Boston March 24th- March for our Lives, Advocating for Full Funding of our Schools

To    
Boston Teachers Union
eBulletin #30
March 20, 2018
March for our Lives Boston: March 24
Please join the BTU this Saturday as we march from Madison Park to the Boston Common. RSVP using this form
Dear BTU Member,
Last Wednesday, despite the snow storm and snow day, hundreds of students from across Massachusetts marched to the State House and lobbied legislators around two major asks:
We are proud to support the students in both of these demands.
Please join our BTU contingent for the March For Our Lives in Boston this Saturday. We will have members participating in the march beginning at 11 AM from Madison Park, as well as at the rally beginning at 2 PM in Boston Common on the corner of Beacon and Charles Streets. Please RSVP using this form if you would like to join us!
Poster making will take place after our membership meeting on Wednesday and from 9-10:30 AM in Madison Park's Cardinal Hall on Saturday morning. More information can be found on our website at btu.org/marchforourlives.
To advocate for full funding of our schools, we have also been busy meeting with legislators at the State House to support full reimbursements of funds lost to charters (Boston has lost more than $100 million over the last five years because of this), as well as legislation to change the 25-year-old funding formula and implement the Foundation Budget Review Commission's recommendations in SB 2325. Look out this week for a special bulletin with a link you can use to send a letter in support of full funding and safe schools.
We know we need funding for many needs, including behavioral health supports and social emotional learning. That's why our school psychologists, counselors, social workers, nurses and teachers have been testifying for several weeks at School Committee meetings. See this statement from a BPS school nurse on improved health services. Last week, they were also joined by students, parents and communities allies from the Boston Education Justice Alliance. This funding is one of the priorities in our contract package: Creating the Schools Our Students Deserve.
Our Membership Meeting, postponed from last week, will take place this Wednesday, March 21 at 4:30 PM. Please see the full meeting agenda, which includes a visit from City Councilor Kim Janey, and don't forget to sign up for childcare if you need it. In the event of another snow day, we will postpone. If there is school, we will have the meeting and make it efficient.
Have a great week!
EdCamp BTU & BPS

Join us Saturday Morning for EdCamp!


Join us this Saturday, March 24 from 8:30-11:30 AM for EdCamp BTU&BPS! EdCamp is a unique "unconference" form of professional development where those in attendance lead learning for one another according to their interests. Bring your ideas, your questions, your cool tools to share and your laptop. Register today, and see our flyer to learn more.
(We will conclude by 11:30 so attendees can go to the March for our Lives.)

Upcoming BTU Events & Committee Meetings


Unafraid Educators Meeting: TodayPlease join us today from 4:30-6:30 PM at Fenway High School. To RSVP, email Farah at fassiraj@btu.org.
Rally in Support of Raise Up Massachusetts: Today
Join us on today at 6 PM at the Cathedral of St. Paul (138 Tremont Street) to ask legislators to pass Paid Family and Medical Leave and a $15 minimum wage. RSVP.
New History Standards Feedback Session: TodayPlease join us today from 5-7 PM at the BTU. RSVP by emailing Jonathan atjrodrigues@btu.org. History and Social Studies Curriculum Frameworks changes feedback sessions: see more.
Black Caucus Paint Night at the BTU Lounge: Friday, March 23Please join us at 5:30. See the flyer and RSVP using this form
Inclusion Meeting: Monday, March 26Join us from 4:30-6:30 at the BTU. To RSVP, email Jonathan at jrodrigues@btu.org.
Restorative Justice Meeting: Monday, March 26
Please join us from 4:30-6:30 PM at the BTU. To RSVP, email Farah at fassiraj@btu.org.
Guidance Counselors Meeting: Tuesday, March 27
Please join us from 4:30-6:30 PM at BTU. Guidance Counselors deserve to have nationally recognized case load standards. RSVP with sltrotz@gmail.com.
Retirement Seminar: Thursday, March 29Please join us at 4:30 PM at the BTU for a retirement seminar for teachers, paraprofessionals, and all other school personnel. Learn more about the seminar, andplease RSVP. Please email Michael at mmclaughlin@btu.org with questions.
BTU Women's Rights Breakfast: Saturday, March 31Please join the BTU’s Women’s Rights Committee for their Annual Women’s Rights Breakfast on March 31 from 9:30-11:30 AM. This year we will be honoring State Senator Patricia Jehlen and Boston City Councilor Annissa Essaibi-George. Tickets are $25. Read more.
NEW -- ELL/SLIFE Committee Meeting: Monday, April 2Please join us from 4:30-6:30 PM at the BTU. RSVP by emailing Farah atfassiraj@btu.org.
NEW -- Statewide Para Conference: Saturday, April 7
Please join us on April 7 at the BTU for a PSRP Conference hosted by the AFT and the BTU. Join us for a day of training and a chance enjoy time with your colleagues. Read more and download the registration form.
Boston Area Educators for Social Justice Conference: Saturday, April 7The 8th annual BESJ conference will take place on April 7. Read more and register!
NEW -- Ansanm Nap Avanse / Forward Together: Saturday, April 7Join educators, parents, community members and the BTU Haitian Educators Committee for a vibrant conversation on how we can support our Haitian families in BPS. Connect with resources, know your rights and more. Read more and RSVP.

BTU Members & BPS Students in the Spotlight


BPS Student Evelyn Reyes Addresses Legislators While Students from Across City Demand Gun Control
O'Bryant sophomore Evelyn Reyes was one of the student leaders of last's week March for our Lives action. Read and watch her powerful words, and see coverage of the march from the Herald.
BTU President in CommonWealth: Now Is the Time
Jessica Tang writes that lawmakers must heed the calls of Parkland students for gun reform.
Boston Educators Weigh In on Guns in the ClassroomCNBC dives into teachers’ reactions to President’s Trump suggestion of arming teachers.Reporters spoke with BTU member Yesenia Herrera, BPS Superintendent Tommy Chang, and BTU President Jessica Tang.

Professional Learning Updates & Opportunities


NEW -- Equity Protocols Training
The Office of Equity offers monthly Equity Protocols Training (EPT) in the Bolling Building. EPT gives BPS employees vital information about their rights and responsibilities regarding preventing and responding to bias-based conduct involving employees or students. All BPS employees are welcome. Registration is open on MyLearningPlan. Email gjung@bostonpublicschools.org with questions.
Arts Expansion Fund: Grant Applications Due TODAYThe BPS Arts Expansion grant applications are available through the EdVestors websiteand are due today, March 20, at 4 PM. New this year are Individual Arts Educator Grants of up to $500. For questions, please email artsfund@edvestors.org or call 617-585-5451.
Observation and Feedback Course The wildly popular Observation and Feedback course is for evaluators in BPS or those interested in becoming evaluators, including peer evaluators. Dates are April 10, May 1 and June 5 from 8 AM to 2 PM. Register on My Learning Plan. See the draft of thecourse outline and the flyer for more info.
Follow the BTU on Twitter

Hiring Updates and Career Supports


NEW -- Job Share Info Meeting: This ThursdayAny teacher bargaining unit or paraprofessional bargaining unit member interested in job sharing, please attend this meeting run jointly between the BTU and BPS OHC on March 22 from 4-6 PM at the BTU. Job sharing allows people to split a position for which they are qualified, earn half pay, sick days, and retain full seniority and health insurance and health & welfare benefits. For further info please contact your respective BTU Field Rep:CarenMike, or Colleen.
Teachers' Bargaining Unit Jobs Now PostedJob postings for positions in the teachers bargaining unit for school year 2018-19 are now posted on BPS TalentEd. Additional vacancies will be posted on a rolling basis.Please read more on the BTU website. Please see the new staffing FAQ for common questions.
Resume and Job Search Supports: March 29
Hiring season has begun! If you need to spruce up your resume or get help with the process, join us for our next session on Thursday, March 29 at 4:30 at the BTU. Please sign up so we can plan for attendance.
Accelerated Community to Teacher Applications: Due March 31Interested in becoming a teacher in BPS? The Accelerated Community to Teacher (ACTT) Program is a part of a strategy to increase the diversity of exemplary educators. BPS paras and subs are encouraged to apply. All materials must be received by 11:59 PM on March 31. Apply online, and visit their website to learn more.
Artifact Lounge: April 4Our Peer Assistants and PAR Consulting Teachers continue their series of drop-in support sessions on in-demand topics. Sign-up on My Learning Plan or just stop by the Artifact Lounge on April 4 from 4-6 PM. Drop in for support in selecting and uploading artifacts and in writing rationales.
Need Mentoring for Licensure?Sign up for BPS Online Mentoring (BPSOM) to fulfill the "50 Hour Requirement for Professional Licensure." Beyond your first year of induction support, the Massachusetts DESE requires that you receive an additional 50 hours of mentoring in your 2nd/3rd years of teaching to be eligible for your professional teaching license. BPSOM Spring Session #3 beginning Monday, April 2 is now up on MyLearningPlan. Contact Ailis Kiernan at akiernan@bostonpublicschools.org for further assistance.

Community Events & Opportunities


NEW -- March BPS Science Social: This FridayJoin us for the first Science Social of the spring this Friday, March 23 from 3-7 PM at Dorchester Brewing Company (1250 Mass Ave, Dorchester). Appetizers will be generously provided by the UMass Boston COSMIC office. See the Science Socials website for details.
NEW -- Self-Care, Many Voices: A Mindfulness Workshop for Educators: SundayEducators are invited to attend this mindfulness workshop for educators. Reserve your spot.
NEW -- Teacher Residency: National Museum of the American IndianThe Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian has launched Native Knowledge 360°, a national initiative to promote improved teaching and learning about American Indians. Apply to their Teacher-in-Residence Program by March 30. Read more, and see the application.
NEW -- Workshop: Building and Sustaining a Movement with Popular EducationBTU members are invited to join the US-El Salvador Sister Cities Network April 6-8 for a workshop in Cambridge on how to use popular education in our work. See the flyer.
Online Resource: Youth in FrontOver 100 volunteers created this new online resource, Youth in Front, for youth and adults seeking advice about youth activism. Please take a look and share!
Teachers See the MFA for Free
Teachers in New England receive free admission to the MFA every day.
Testing Charade Author Speaks in Boston: March 22Come hear Daniel Koretz, author of The Testing Charade: Pretending to Make Schools Better, on Thursday, March 22 at the Church on the Hill, 140 Bowdoin Street. Register.
New Teachers Retreat: July 13-15
Are you a teacher in your first three years? Join us at Keene State College for reflection, learning, and planning sessions as well as time to relax. Apply by April 2. Contact Ali atastewart@bostonpublicschools.org with questions.
Rett Syndrome: BTU Family Raising Money to Support ResearchTracy Freeman, a 5th grade inclusion teacher at the Sumner, is raising money to support research into Rett Syndrome. Can you help to fund research for a cure? Or join them for a Character Lunch on April 8: see the flyer.
School Nurse & Teacher Running Marathon to Support the MatherDonna Airosus and Katie McCosker are running the Boston Marathon for the first time to raise money for the Mather. Support their run online today, or join them this Saturday, March 24 at the Blarney Stone (1509 Dorchester Ave.) from 5-8 PM.

New Benefits for BTU / AFT Members


The AFT recently announced new programs available to members, which include 
free college -- students can enroll in this online distance-learning program with no costs for tuition, fees, or e-texts; mortgage program from Amalgamated Bank: this home financing program offers competitive interest rates and discounts on mortgages and refinancing; and Accidental Death & Dismemberment: all working AFT members have $5,000 of ADD coverage. Read more on the BTU website.

Obituary


We are sorry to inform you that retired BPS teacher Mary MacLellan died on March 6. She was beloved by students and staff at the Emerson and Hurley Schools. A funeral mass will be held on April 10 at 10 AM at St. Agnes Church (51 Medford Street in Arlington) with interment following. Mary was generous with her time and money, so in the spirit of Mary’s kindness and in lieu of flowers, donations can be made to the charity of your choice in the name of our friend and colleague.
On behalf of the BTU, we send our condolences to Mary's friends and family.

Thank You for Reading


Please send your comments and questions to Jessica Tang, BTU President. Or call the BTU office at 617-288-2000. Request for bulletin additions must be received by Friday at 5 PM. Have a good week, and please check out the BTU website.
Thank you,
Jessica
180 Mt. Vernon Street, Dorchester Tel: (617) 288 -2000 Fax: (617) 288 -0024
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Massive “Time’s Up Wendy’s March” takes Manhattan by storm!

To 
Nearly 2,000 turnout in support of farmworkers’ Freedom Fast;

Best-selling author Glennon Doyle to farmworker women fasters: “There’s nothing more beautiful than using your freedom to fight for those not yet free!”

An unforgettable week of action in the heart of Manhattan, 110,000 petition signatures and counting, and media coverage fromNewsweek to The Nation lift Wendy’s Boycott to the next level…

A fast, when done in protest, is a call to arms. While eminently non-violent, it is a battle cry, issued in a whisper.
For five days last week, nearly 100 farmworkers and their allies fasted outside the offices of Nelson Peltz’s hedge fund investment firm, Trian Partners, at 280 Park Avenue in Manhattan. They did so because Wendy’s has not only refused to join the Fair Food Program — widely recognized as the only human rights monitoring program to have successfully eliminated forced labor and sexual assault in the agricultural industry — but has shifted its tomato purchases from Florida to Mexico, where slavery and sexual assault remain all too common, and workers are intimidated into silence by a culture of violence, fear and corruption. 

And they did so because Wendy’s is structured in such a way that Mr. Peltz is the single most important decision-maker in the company. Mr. Peltz’s Trian Partners is not only the company’s largest shareholder, but Mr. Peltz is also the Chairman of Wendy’s Board of Directors, his son and partners at Trian are members of the Board, and Mr. Peltz is the head of the Board’s committee on social responsibility. For all intents and purposes, Mr. Peltz is Wendy’s and Wendy’s is Mr. Peltz, particularly when it comes to the question of social responsibility and, specifically, ending violence against women.

And so, for five days, nearly 100 farmworkers and their allies fasted outside Mr. Peltz’s offices in the heart of Manhattan, broadcasting their call to action to all who would hear their demand: Wendy’s, stop sexual violence in your supply chain, now, by joining the Fair Food Program!

And on the fifth day, their call was answered. The fasters’ battle was joined by nearly 2,000 consumers, a crowd as, at once, fierce and joyous as any that has ever taken the streets of midtown Manhattan in protest. With a wildly successful “Time’s Up Wendy’s March,” the Freedom Fast came to a close, the fasters broke bread in a beautiful nighttime ceremony, and a new chapter was written in the story of the Wendy’s Boycott and the Campaign for Fair Food...
Coalition of Immokalee Workers
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Monday, March 19, 2018

The Roots Is The Toots: The Music That Got The Generation Of ’68 Through The 1950s Red Scare Cold War Night-The Smells, Ah, The Smells Of Childhood- Ida's Bakery

The Roots Is The Toots: The Music That Got The Generation Of ’68 Through The 1950s Red Scare Cold War Night-The Smells, Ah, The Smells Of Childhood- Ida's Bakery

By Allan Jackson

[Hell, it has been many years since I have used this by-line name having for most of that time used the moniker Peter Paul Markin who taught me, taught a lot of us who grew up with him in the Acre section of North Adamsville back in the late 1950s early 1960s, before he went off the rails, before he wound up with a couple of slugs in him down in Sonora, Mexico way after a big try busted drug deal. Today though I am proud to write under my own name especially since it was a struggle to get such recognition and since this Roots is the Toots project was one of a half dozen that I am proud to have been associated with in my long career.

Without going into to details which my old friend Jack Callahan has probably filled you in on already after I authorized him to speak on my behalf when I was in so-called exile to bat away the silly rumors that have accumulated around my exit, my purge from my position here I do feel that I am entitled to express my concern over the fact that is series was initially re-issued without my knowledge. That is what enraged me and led me to contact Sam Lowell and try to get this situation rectified. And by stages it has been as current site manager Greg Green whose work I admired when he held the same position over at American Film Gazette has graciously consented to let me run the rest of this series under my own name and make comment as I see fit about each piece. As my initial offering I don’t want to spend much time on this slice of live piece below about the old neighborhood, the old Acre section of North Adamsville where a number of us associated with this publication came of age and which drove much of the action of the series but on its place in my personal pantheon.            
I mentioned above that this is one of about one half dozen series that I have been associated with over the years that are hallmarks of my career. This is maybe not number one on the list, probably the series that I did long ago for the East Bay Other and The Eye two publications now long gone as have most alternative newspapers spawned in that time. That series concerned the fates of a bunch of fellow returning Vietnam War veterans who could not adjust to what we called “the real world” and wound up creating alterative “communities” down in the riverbeds and along the railroad tracks in Southern California. Guys who would certainly qualify as members of the “brothers under the bridge” which Bruce Springsteen made a song about some years later. That one was personal as well as journalistic and I think the guys who spoke their stories out appreciated what they were able to do to heal a little.

In the pantheon though this series ranks number two and without getting into a nostalgia trip which supposedly got me into more hot water than necessary early last year it is a rather remarkable “slice of life” run of sketches which covered everything from puberty to public nudity and then some wrapped around serious devotion to rock and roll music which saved our lives in that hard scrabble time. Plenty has been written and portrayed on screen about the middle class aspirations of the 1950s “golden age” in America which around our way was a myth, didn’t pan out. In that sense this was a unique experience. In another sense this also represented something like a “youth nation” culture which for a little while at least transcended classes until the middle and upper class youth went back to whatever they were going to do before they stopped for a minute. We on the other hand mainly wound up in Vietnam or fucked up in some other way. That part has come out too.

On the question of my role in the production of this series I either wrote the bulk of the sketches, assigned a few and edited every single piece with a very hard red pencil to turn them a certain way and while there was some collective efforts this one reeked of my sweat for a few years. Like I say I am proud to have my name on this one. To put paid to this sketch below I can still smell those bakery smells mentioned just like I did when I returned to the old neighborhood to soak in the milieu. Heck still can smell the smells from when I was a kid looking for a vagrant oatmeal peanut butter and jelly sandwich. Allan Jackson]           
 ********
There are many smells, sounds, tastes, sights and touches stirred up on the memory’s eye trail in search of the old days in North Adamsville. Today though I am in thrall to smells. The why of this thralldom is simply put. I had, a short while ago, passed a neighborhood bakery here on the St. Brendan Street that reeked of the smell of sour-dough bread being baked on the premises. The bakery itself, designated as such by a plainly painted sign-Mrs. Kenney’s Bakery- was a simple extension of someone’s house, living quarters above, and that brought me back to the hunger streets of the old home town and Ida’s holy-of-holies bakery over on Sagamore Street.

Of course one could not dismiss, dismiss at one’s peril, that invigorating smell of the salt air blowing in from North Adamsville Bay when the wind was up. A wind that spoke of high-seas adventures, of escape, of jail break-out from landlocked spiritual destitutes, of, well, on some days just having been blown in from somewhere else for those who sought that great eastern other shoreline. Or how could one forget the still nostril-filling pungent fragrant almost sickening smell emanating from the Proctor &Gamble soap factory across the channel down in the old Adamsville Housing Authority project that defined many a muggy childhood summer night air instead of sweet dreams and puffy clouds. Or that never to be forgotten slightly oily, sulfuric smell at low- tide down at North Adamsville Beach, the time of the clam diggers and their accomplices trying to eke a living or a feeding out of that slimy mass. Or evade the fetid smell of marsh weeds steaming up from the disfavored Squaw Rock end of the beach, the adult haunts. (Disfavored, disfavored when it counted in the high teenage dudgeon be-bop 1960s night, post-school dance or drive-in movie love slugfest, for those who took their “submarine races” dead of night viewing seriously. And I do not, or will not spell the significance of that teen lingo race expression even for those who did their teenage “parking” in the throes of the wild high plains Kansas night. You can figure that out yourselves.)

Or the smell sound of the ocean floor (or dawn, if you got lucky) at twilight on those days when the usually tepid waves aimlessly splashed against the shoreline stones, broken clam shells, and other fauna and flora turned around and became a real roaring ocean, acting out Mother Nature’s high life and death drama, and in the process acted to calm a man’s (or a man-child’s) nerves in the frustrating struggle to understand a world not of one’s own making. 

Moreover, I know I do not have to stop very long to tell this retro crowd, the crowd that will read this piece, about the smell taste of that then just locally famous HoJo’s ice cream back in the days. Jimmied up and frosted to take one’s breath away. Or those char-broiled hot dogs and hamburgers sizzling on your back-yard barbecue pit or, better, from one of the public pits down at the beach. But the smell that I am ghost-smelling today is closer to home as a result of a fellow classmate’s bringing this to my attention awhile back (although, strangely, if the truth be known I was already on the verge of “exploring" this very subject). Today, after passing that home front bakery, as if a portent, I bow down in humble submission to the smells from Ida’s Bakery.

You, if you are of a certain age, at or close to AARP-eligible age, and neighborhood, Irish (or some other ethnic-clinging enclave) filled with those who maybe did not just get off the boat but maybe their parents did, remember Ida’s, right? Even if you have never set foot one in old North Adamsville, or even know where the place is. If you lived within a hair’s breathe of any Irish neighborhood and if you grew up probably any time in the first half of the 20th century you “know” Ida’s. My Ida ran a bakery out of her living room, or maybe it was the downstairs and she lived upstairs, in the 1950s and early 1960s (beyond that period I do not know). An older grandmotherly woman when I knew her who had lost her husband, lost him to drink, or, as was rumored, persistently rumored although to a kid it was only so much adult air talk, to another woman. Probably it was the drink as was usual in our neighborhoods with the always full hang-out Dublin Grille just a couple of blocks up the street. She had, heroically in retrospect, raised a parcel of kids on the basis of her little bakery including some grandchildren that I played ball with over at Welcome Young field also just up the street, and also adjacent to my grandparents’ house on Kendrick Street.

Now I do not remember all the particulars about her beyond the grandmotherly appearance I have just described, except that she still carried that hint of a brogue that told you she was from the “old sod” but that did not mean a thing in that neighborhood because at any given time when the brogues got wagging you could have been in Limerick just as easily as North Adamsville. Also she always, veil of tears hiding maybe, had a smile for one and all coming through her door, and not just a commercial smile either. 

Nor do I know much about how she ran her operation, except that you could always tell when she was baking something in back because she had a door bell tinkle that alerted her to when someone came in and she would come out from behind a curtained entrance, shaking flour from her hands, maybe, or from her apron-ed dress ready to take your two- cent order-with a smile, and not a commercial smile either but I already told you that.

Nor, just now, do I remember all of what she made or how she made it but I do just now, rekindled by this morning’s sough-dough yeasty smell, remember the smells of fresh oatmeal bread that filtered up to the playing fields just up the street from her store on Fridays when she made that delicacy. Fridays meant oatmeal bread, and, as good practicing Catholics were obliged to not eat red meat on that sacred day, tuna fish. But, and perhaps this is where I started my climb to quarrelsome heathen-dom I balked at such a desecration. See, grandma would spring for a fresh loaf, a fresh right from the oven loaf, cut by a machine that automatically sliced the bread (the first time I had seen such a useful gadget). And I would get to have slathered peanut butter (Skippy, of course) and jelly (Welch’s grape, also of course) and a glass of milk. Ah, heaven.

And just now I memory smell those white-flour dough, deeply- browned Lenten hot-cross buns white frosting dashed that signified that hellish deprived high holy catholic Lent was over, almost. Beyond that I draw blanks. Know this those. All that sweet sainted goddess (or should be) Ida created from flour, eggs, yeast, milk and whatever other secret devil’s ingredient she used to create her other simple baked goods may be unnamed-able but they put my mother, my grandmother, your mother, your grandmother in the shade. And that is at least half the point. You went over to Ida’s to get high on those calorie-loaded goodies. And in those days with youth at your back, and some gnawing hunger that never quite got satisfied, back that was okay. Believe me it was okay. I swear I will never forget those glass-enclosed delights that stared out at me in my sugar hunger. I may not remember much about the woman, her life, where she was from, or any of that. This I do know- in this time of frenzied interest in all things culinary Ida's simple recipes and her kid-maddening bakery smells still hold a place of honor.