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Banned from the classroom... for a library field trip Anti-union administrators in Greenburgh 11 are at it again 
posted: May 6, 2005 PICTURED: Jennifer Cole with 4-year-old Kayla and 1-year-old Sophie. UPDATE JUNE 21: Greenburgh 11 district drops charges against union activist Imagine getting thrown out of your classroom for accompanying your students to the public library. That's what's happened to Greenburgh 11 teacher Jennifer Cole, who awoke to a 6:30 a.m. phone call March 15 telling her not to report to work. An administrator told her she was suspended immediately - exiled to write lesson plans off campus, pending the outcome of a lengthy 3020-a disciplinary hearing. As if that wasn't enough, the administration callously prohibited Cole from dropping off and picking up her two daughters, 4-year-old Kayla and 1-year-old Sophie, from the Little Village Day Care, an on-campus center where they have been since infancy. "Jennifer's horror story is just the latest in a series of union-busting activities," said Greenburgh 11 Federation of Teachers President John Goetschius, who was one of 17 teachers suspended by the administration in 1994 and 1995 for protesting contract and disciplinary disputes. "When Jen started to shake things up - to try to bring the union back to life on campus - that's when they came at her with the hammer." Greenburgh 11 is a public school district created by a special act of the state Legislature to serve emotionally disturbed boys who live at a non-profit child care agency, Children's Village. Formerly an orphanage, the 150-acre campus overlooking the Hudson River is a residential treatment center serving mostly inner city kids sent there by the courts. Union leaders say the administration's decision to file disciplinary charges has nothing to do with Cole's professionalism or educational expertise - she's had seven years of exemplary evaluations and worked magic with a number of hard-core kids. Her real crime? Union activism. "They've wasted millions of taxpayer dollars trying to crush the union over the last decade," said New York State United Teachers President Dick Iannuzzi. "They should be investing in students' education, not lawyers and litigation." Idealism Until her suspension, Jennifer Cole worked for seven years as a teacher at Greenburgh 11, arriving at the Dobbs Ferry campus years after the labor dispute began - an idealistic young teacher eager to make a difference. For her first couple of years, she taught social studies at the high school building, earning tenure in February 2002. That fall, she began writing articles in the union newsletter, Unity, calling attention to practices she felt were unfair: a new teacher who was thrown into a classroom with too many kids; a principal who failed to back up a teacher on sick-day issues; how the federation didn't have a contract while administrators received 6 percent raises. The articles so infuriated the administration that the principal and deputy superintendent started writing "rebuttal" letters that were distributed in staff mailboxes.
In spring 2003, union leaders, most of them still stuck in area libraries for years pending the outcome of their disciplinary cases, approached Cole about becoming a union building rep. She believed she could make a difference and agreed. The job included initiating several grievances on class size and compensation issues. In June 2003, on a day Cole voluntarily stayed after school to help grade Regents Exams, her principal told her she was being reassigned to Wolfe Cottage, a self-contained unit with 12 boys in grades 6-10. "I felt betrayed because I really enjoyed the high school kids and felt I was doing a good job," Cole said. "But they wanted to get me out of the main building. They like to isolate anyone who might be a troublemaker." Determined to meet the challenge, Cole didn't fight the reassignment to Wolfe Cottage - which she soon realized was understaffed and lacking a program. Within a few months, a new program supervisor changed everything. "He hired staff, instituted behavior management and we started having team meetings including cottage staff, program experts and other educators," Cole said. "He turned the place around: he was even named 'supervisor of the year.'" One ingredient for the turnaround was a student reward system created by the cottage supervisor and social worker, Cole said. Rewards for behavioral and academic success ranged from where you were seated to who gets dessert first to trips to the movies. The boys wore uniforms and expectations were clear. "Once the program started working, my whole job changed," Cole said. "These kids became like a second family. I'd make them birthday cakes for their birthday - and for many of these kids, that was a big deal." On Thanksgiving, she, her husband and two daughters joined the boys and some of their families for a turkey dinner. Meanwhile, Cole worked to build union involvement. More people started attending monthly meetings and participating in social events and service such as the Making Strides Against Breast Cancer walk and a regional food drive. The negotiating team increased to nine members; 12 people volunteered for the Health and Safety Committee. "I have always stood in slack-jawed awe of Jennifer Cole," wrote David Demnitz, editor of the newsletter, a former music teacher whose work days are spent in a library awaiting his disciplinary case. "With a demanding job and difficult family responsibilities ... she voluntarily takes on a leadership role made dangerous by the practices of our employer." Field trip In the summer of 2004, the Children's Village staff of Wolfe Cottage initiated a Friday afternoon visit to the Dobbs Ferry Public Library for boys who earned the privilege. When the Wolfe Cottage social worker asked Cole to help the boys pick out books and do research, she thought nothing of it. When librarians initially questioned the boys' residency, Children's Village provided an explanatory note on Children's Village letterhead so that each boy could obtain a library card. Cole viewed the program as a key part of the cottage's behavior management system. In lesson plans submitted to the administration, she called the program DEAR, short for Drop Everything and Read. Cottage staff discussed the program at weekly meetings, deciding which boys would go. Those left behind were tutored or made up work they had missed. "At first, the librarians were wary, but after a few visits the boys really worked on their social skills and proved themselves," Cole said. "They learned how to use the Internet, how to find books and had opportunities to research careers" - something that wasn't available on campus. "It worked on so many levels," said Cole. "They learned to read for pleasure." Cole never had an inkling there was a problem with the library visits. In fact, the social worker who helped create the program has since been promoted. Suddenly in February, seven months into the program, principal Sandy Strang phoned Cole and ordered her to stop going on the library visits. Cole immediately complied. Strang's objection was that she never knew about the program - a claim union leaders dispute. Then, on March 15 (the "Ides of March," Cole can't help calling it) came the phone call at dawn telling her the district was seeking to fire her for failing to get permission for the trips. She was suspended immediately. After a dispute with the district over access to campus to drop off and pick up her daughters at day care, the administration and union agreed to let her work out of home instead of a library. "It was worth it to settle the dispute without more complications," Cole said. "But this takes my daughters away from wonderful caregivers and the place they have grown to love. My 4-year-old has been going there since she was 14 weeks old." Cole is being represented by NYSUT attorney John H. Jurgens in her 3020-a case (named for a section of state education law). She is charged with misconduct constituting incompetence, neglect of duty and insubordination. She is also charged with changing the "educational program" for the students without permission. "Incredibly, they're trying to fire a teacher over a library field trip initiated by the program's directors," said Jurgens. The union has filed a notice of claim with the Public Employment Relations Board, charging the administration with union animus - something the union says is par for the course there. In 2002, after a jury verdict and settlement, Greenburgh 11 agreed that it would pay $1.5 million to seven union members to compensate them for pain and suffering, and to the union for the district's attempts to undermine its representation. (See timeline in sidebar.) Meanwhile, supporters have started a letter-writing campaign to the new CEO of Children's Village and state lawmakers to fight Cole's dismissal via a Web site, www.wesupportjencole.com. At NYSUT's Representative Assembly last month, hundreds of delegates signed postcards urging state Education Commissioner Richard Mills to step in. Cole joins a roster of five other union activists who remain exiled from campus for the past 11 years at a cost of more than $17 million. Visits to the public library, meanwhile, are over for the boys. "Stop the waste of taxpayer dollars at Greenburgh 11," the postcard says. "This money would be better spent providing the children with the quality education they deserve." - Sylvia Saunders |
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