Who are the San Antonio, Texas, school board members who unanimously fired four teachers?
On May 10, the San Antonio Independent School District (SAISD) school board voted unanimously to fire Rachell Tucker, a dual language kindergarten teacher at Highland Park Elementary School in San Antonio, Texas. The firing took place after Tucker had advocated for increased safety measures and the halting of in-person learning at her school amid the COVID-19 pandemic. Three other teachers were fired at the same school board meeting, and at least nine other teachers in SAISD have been pressured to resign, with these other victimizations taking place for unspecified reasons.
The firing of Tucker and other teachers demanding stringent safety measures takes place as the political establishment in Texas and across the US, backed by the corporatist unions, rush to fully reopen the economy in the pursuit of profits.
AFT President Randi Weingarten demands fully in-person learning at all US schools
On Thursday morning, American Federation of Teachers (AFT) President Randi Weingarten gave a one-hour speech that centered on demanding the full reopening of all US schools this fall and promoting illusions in the Biden administration’s federal stimulus programs.
The speech underscored the corporatist character of the trade union bureaucracies, which Biden and the Democrats are integrating ever more closely with the state in order to suppress the class struggle. Weingarten, who sits on the Democratic National Committee (DNC) and nets an executive salary of roughly $500,000, embodies the upper middle class layer of union bureaucrats that are thoroughly hostile to the interests of the workers they claim to represent.
School districts across Texas implement massive austerity and cuts to staff
Despite the allocation of roughly $11.2 billion in federal funds ostensibly to support public education, school districts across Texas are cutting staff and closing schools. Over the past year, tens of thousands of teachers were forced to quit or retire early after the state government aggressively pressured districts to reopen amid the raging COVID-19 pandemic.
Across the state, huge numbers of these teaching positions are being left as unfilled vacancies, encompassing nearly all the major school districts. This mass attrition follows the expiration of the state’s hold on cutting school funding that was extended through 2020, following declines in attendance due to the pandemic.
Oppose the firing of Mitchell High School educators in Colorado!
The Texas Educators Rank-and-File Safety Committee demands that the Colorado Department of Education and the District 11 Board of Education immediately rescind the layoff of all teachers and schools staff at Mitchell High School in Colorado Springs.
Over 100 educators and staff members were notified in January that school administrators were laying them all off at the end of the school year and forcing any staff who wish to remain to re-apply for their own jobs. This is not just an attack on Mitchell High School educators, but a clear threat to all the state’s educators, as it creates a precedent for mass layoffs.