CFT United
CFT United
CFT United, previously named California Teacher, is the union’s flagship magazine that is emailed to all union members. The award-winning magazine contains union news and positions important to members, and covers major issues in each division of the CFT: PreK-12, Classified, Community College, University, and Retired. Browse stories by date here or by index.
CFT United is published regularly during the academic year. We welcome unsolicited articles, letters, and story ideas. Please send letters, submissions, or other inquiries to Publications Director Jane Hundertmark.
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Back-to-School Tour puts staff shortage in stark perspective
Dedication and inspired work of our members must be recognized
By Jeffery M. Freitas, CFT President
In early August, Luukia Smith, Lacy Barnes, and I ventured up and down the state on a three week Back-to-School: Forward Together Tour. We visited with early childhood educators, TK-12 teachers, classified workers, adult education teachers, and part-time community college faculty. We witnessed firsthand students learning in-person. We saw the incredible school communities our members have helped to build and visited campuses and classrooms to see CFT members in action.
Voters soundly reject recall of Governor Newsom
Members cite governor’s historic funding for public education and strong pandemic protocols
September 14 is not a day that California voters are accustomed to going to the polls, but this was not a normal election. A cynical attempt to recall Governor Gavin Newsom garnered enough signatures to go before voters in an election that cost taxpayers more than $250 million.
Answers to common questions about return to in-person
FAQ for teachers and support staff in TK-12 schools
Now that California schools have returned to in-person classes, teachers and staff on campuses up and down the state are having to navigate a new phase of the COVID-19 pandemic. In mid-August, the CFT held a tele-townhall meeting to connect directly with members and hear about your workplace concerns. Below are answers to the most common questions we heard from you.
CFT launches community schools training program
Governor Newsom funds innovative schools at highest level in nation
The CFT has launched a training program following Governor Newsom’s extraordinary allocation of $2.8 billion to expand existing community schools and establish new ones.
According to CFT President Jeff Freitas, “This is a national effort, and California now has the largest amount of funding in the nation for community schools. These funds will assist nearly 1,000 community schools in our state.”
Organizer pens bilingual children’s book teaching compassion, courage
Book Review
Review by Bill Morgan
For All/Para
Todos
By Alejandra Domenzain
There are children’s books that take complicated concepts and tell them simply, like Octavio Chow’s The Invisible Hunters. There are books about strong, determined girls — Wilhelm Steig’s Brave Irene comes to mind. Books like Friends From the Other Side, and Click Clack Moo! speak to the immigrant experience, and to the power of writing, respectively.
Classified members feel the love during Back-to-School Tour
CFT leaders provide encouragement, support for safe working conditions
CFT’s top officers embarked on a statewide Back-to-School Tour in mid-August as many classified employees and teachers headed back to campus in-person for the first time since the pandemic forced distance learning for California schools and colleges. The road trip included stops from North Bay Counties to San Diego County, in both urban and rural districts.
What’s on everyone’s mind? The return to in-person
From urban to rural, community college locals weigh in
Most faculty members, staff, and students at the state’s community colleges have been teaching, learning, and working online for more than a year and a half due to COVID-19. Many planned to go back to their campus in the fall semester, but after a brief period of hope that the virus was on the way out the delta variant emerged in the summer, and in many areas, COVID is surging again.
Back to the classroom, but no contract
Facing inequity, lack of COVID protections, 96% of UC-AFT members vote to authorize strike
As they have for the past two years, lecturers at the University of California continue their effort to get the administration to bargain a fair contract. The last agreement between the university and the University Council-AFT, expired on January 31, 2020. The union’s negotiating committee has met with UC’s bargaining team on 50 occasions, yet the four most fundamental issues are still outstanding — high turnover rates, lack of performance reviews, widespread uncompensated labor, and compensation itself.
You can help start an AFT retiree chapter!
Retiree division sets sights on organizing more chapters
For most of her career, Kate Disney taught engineering at Mission College in the Silicon Valley city of Santa Clara. Disney learned the ins and outs of the West Valley-Mission Federation of Teachers contract when she became a union rep in 2017. She was elected president of the local in 2019.
“You learn about different sections of a contract as you go through different phases of your life and career,” she said. “Certain portions are more important at different ages.”
CFT resolution recognizes Armenian Genocide
Find classroom resources to teach about the genocide
During World War I, the Ottoman Turks carried out one of the largest genocides in the world’s history, massacring 1.5 million Armenians. Turkey continues to deny the genocide, but the U.S. Congress passed a resolution to recognize it in 2019.
Looking forward to life, work, and union without COVID
Embracing opportunities the pandemic has brought forward
By Jeffery M. Freitas, CFT President
The last year and a half of my communications with you have told the story of the COVID-19 pandemic, our union’s early responses to the changes wrought by the virus, our diligence in keeping school communities healthy and safe, and the first glimmers of hope as vaccines became available and community spread began to decline.
What does CFT says about the recall? No, No, No!
Governor Newsom has proven himself during the pandemic and beyond
CFT has taken a position on the right-wing recall of Governor Gavin Newsom: Our union is urging members to vote “No” on this expensive and distracting political stunt. The Gubernatorial Recall Election will be held September 14, 2021.
Roomers and Zoomers — four locals, four reopen scenarios
Mostly vaccinated, educators boldly facing transition to in-person
Salinas teachers manage Roomers and Zoomers
Teachers at the four middle schools and five high schools represented by the Salinas Valley Federation of Teachers went back into the classroom on April 27, with options for families to remain in distance learning.
State Auditor calls out failed Calbright online college
Audit cites high drop-out rate, mismanagement, shady hiring
Out of 904 students enrolled since 2019, only 12 graduated, and more than 40 percent dropped out. There’s no discernable strategy for spending the more than $175 million it receives in state taxpayer funding. No system is in place to support students. Shady hiring practices have led to people being selected based on personal or political connection rather than ability.
Free City! The story of CFT’s epic campaign against the ACCJC
BOOK REVIEW
Free City! The Fight for San Francisco’s City College and
Education for All
By Marcy Rein, Mickey Ellinger and Vicki Legion
PM Press, Oakland, 2021
Reviewed by Fred Glass
Early in 2017, as City College of San Francisco’s five-year fight for its life drew to a close, I was attempting to convince a reporter from the Chronicle of Higher Education to write a summing up story. He said, “Someday someone really needs to write a book on all this.”
Job security still on the table for UC lecturers, members vote to authorize strike
UC-AFT keeps the pressure on for fair continuing appointments
Update: On June 1, UC-AFT members voted to authorize a strike, with a “strong majority” of nearly 7,000 members turning out for the vote, and 96% voting to authorize a systemwide strike should the UC Office of the President fail to meet UC-AFT’s collective bargaining demands.
Retiree chapters serve as vaccine finders
Support members and parent unions during the pandemic
The retiree chapter of the AFT Guild in San Diego usually does monthly yoga and meditation classes, as well as getting together for walks and union meetings. Now though, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, members haven’t been getting together in person, chapter President Susan Morgan says.
Governor’s May Revision proposes highest level of education funding in California history
Legislative Update
California began the previous budget year with a looming recession forecasted due to the COVID-19 pandemic, and a projected $54 billion deficit. However, due mostly to the inequitable recovery of the stock market, profits from Silicon Valley, and high-income earners that did not lose their jobs, the state now has projected a $75.7 billion surplus.
Pandemic underscores essential nature of classified work
Custodians, health aides hold strong; unions help members get vaccinated
Throughout the COVID pandemic, CFT members from early childhood centers to community colleges have shown how essential classified employees are. During the past 15 months, techs helped power an overnight transition to online learning, custodians learned how to hit back at the coronavirus, and health aides are now on the front lines of reopening schools.
Berkeley classified employee dodges eviction, buys home, thanks to new law
Housing for families not corporations — social justice is served
Jocelyn Foreman is a take-charge problem solver who has helped hundreds of Berkeley families keep their kids in school during medical, economic or other emergencies. Foreman is legendary and beloved. Only a handful of people knew she was also homeless.
Khalil Gibran Muhammad on racial justice
“Good will is not a substitute for good work”
A history professor at Harvard’s Kennedy School, who teaches classes such as Race, Inequality, and American Democracy and the former Director of the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, with his work featured in the New York Times’ 1619 Project, and Ava DuVernay’s documentary about mass incarceration, 13th, Khalil Gibran Muhammad s
Delegates pass wide range of resolutions — from their homes
Condemn anti-Asian violence, support wealth tax, mandating healthcare for part-time faculty
At this year’s CFT Convention, several resolutions provoked a lot of discussion, especially considering the attendees were virtually raising their hands to be acknowledged from their living rooms, rather than on the actual convention floor. Some of these included condemning anti-Asian violence, mandating healthcare for part-time faculty, reforming Social Security to support teacher retirement, supporting the PRO Act to increase union organizing, and maintaining a list of retirees to contact.
Two educators receive Women in Education Awards
Inspiring females lead the way in making workplaces better
Kati Bassler, the president of Salinas Valley Federation of Teachers and Linda Delp, UCLA Faculty Union, shared this year’s CFT’s Women in Education Award, given for promoting the rights of women and issues of gender equity in the workplace.
Cathy Campbell honored with Ben Rust Award
Berkeley leader speaks to importance of women in union leadership roles
Long-time Berkeley Federation of Teachers president and CFT Vice President Cathy Campbell, the winner of the CFT’s highest honor, the Ben Rust Award, opened by thanking classified employees and teachers for all they had done to keep students safe, get them food, and make sure they could learn during the pandemic.