Brookline teachers swapped out their red pens and paper for bullhorns, drums and tambourines on Monday as the striking educators picketed and chanted outside locked-up schools.
Defiant members of the Brookline Educators Union launched their strike, causing all Brookline Public Schools to shut down as parents scrambled to figure out child care for their kids.
Meanwhile, the School Committee continued to urge the union to stop all strike activity.
The union and School Committee did not reach a contract agreement over the weekend, and the two sides planned to return to the negotiating table Monday evening.
“We’re doing this for those kids,” Jessica Wender-Shubow, president of the Brookline Educators Union, told the Herald after picketing on Monday.
“We cannot get the services delivered under the conditions imposed on us by the Brookline School Department,” the high school history teacher added. “You cannot expect a teacher to address the needs of an individual student if they have no time to do it. They finally hit a wall, and we’re not taking this anymore.”
The union has said the School Committee refused educators’ demands for guaranteed daily, free preparation time; time for colleagues to collaborate weekly; and substantive action on attracting and retaining educators of color.
The fired-up educators on Monday marched to Brookline Town Hall, where they played music and chanted.
The Brookline School Committee in a statement said the board was “profoundly saddened” that schools were shuttered because of the strike.
“As always, our primary concern is the impact on Brookline students and their caregivers,” the School Committee said. “We are seeing and hearing of children’s anxiety about this situation, magnified by memories of what they face during extended pandemic school closures.
“Our most vulnerable learners, including students in special education and those with disabilities, are disproportionately impacted by school closures; for some food-insecure students, school is where they receive their only meals,” the board added. “Caregivers are having to make emergency preparations for child care. We are working to address all community concerns in real time as much as possible.”
The committee has said its latest contract offer had included a 6% across-the-board retroactive raise for Sept. 1, 2020, to Aug. 31, 2023; an 8% raise for Sept. 1, 2023, to Aug. 30, 2026, with an additional 1% raise on Aug. 31, 2026. It also stated its commitment to staffing diversity initiatives.
“At our state mediation session last evening, we asked the BEU not to strike and they refused,” the School Committee said Monday. “We again call on the BEU to cease and desist all strike activity so that we can focus our joint efforts on bargaining toward successful resolution. Brookline students must not be the victims of this situation any longer than they already have.”
School Committee Chair David Pearlman has said sanctions may be imposed on the union, per a preliminary injunction issued by Norfolk Superior Court, which prohibits educators “from striking or threatening to strike.”
