Oh What a Year!
By Camille Zombro, SDEA President and
Marc Capitelli, SDEA Vice President

Call us political junkies. Cap was tempered by his President being killed when he was in eighth grade, the greatest American civil rights leader along with the President's brother being killed the year he graduated from high school, and the odyssey of Vietnam lasting through his years at Cal and beginning teaching.  Camille cut her teeth on Reaganomics and Prop. 13, attended the funeral of her elementary principal (who was shot down at school) in the second grade, watched Los Angeles erupt into a modern bread riot in 1992, and saw the impact of the first generation of crack babies in her first years of teaching.  It could have left us total cynics about American politics, but there was, and still is, a small candle that is still alive and glowing within us. These people and events represented hope and great challenges, but what we have come to discover, in the 40 odd years since (for Cap), is that the hope for our country does not come from our investing it in one person to do something for us-but from each of us accepting the challenge to do our part.

What a year this will be with political elections and promises, new school board members, and our entire contract potentially up for bargaining. As this goes to press the California primary (#1) is only a couple of weeks away. If you are into politics at all, this is going to be a great year. There's the rub. Not enough of us are "into politics."

As we lay out our plans for bargaining a new contract this year, a key component is YOU! Your involvement in politics is essential. Don't tell us educators should not be involved in politics. Anyone that still says that is peering through the looking glass at a landscape that doesn't exist. We live in a world that is touched daily by political events. Politicians, not the needs of our students, decide how much money will fund the important work we do in our classrooms. Our classrooms are laboratories for political experiments. We, and our students, are the lab rats who are supposed to dance to the Pavlovian bell of NCLB: test scores.

What does it really take to be involved in politics? Let's say that we are going to be involved in Basic Citizenry 101 and we want an A. The standards  to be proficient  include voting in the general ballot elections, voting in two of our union elections, writing one political letter, postcard or email each month, attending half of the school site union meetings and going to our "Day of the Teacher" party each year. We input this into our work-o-meter and find out that it would take 22 hours of time to do all these activities. On a per diem basis that works out to 3.6 minutes per day, 25 minutes a week, or 1.8 hours a month. 1.8 hours to be a basic good citizen and some of that actually would be watching TV or listening to radio news that we already do. This is looking doable! We figured three hours, including drive time, for the "Day of the Teacher" party, which is a gimme, so we can make API.

And this year's Bargaining Campaign, beginning with the upcoming Listening Sessions, will probably add another 4 hours to your calendar. Not a bad investment when you consider that your input will direct our bargaining proposals. Your influence will pressure our employer to achieve our bargaining goals. And your time spent will solidify the ties that bind all of the over 8,000 of us together-and all that leads to better working conditions for you and a better learning environment for our students.

We invite you to participate in our union's elections. Write or call our elected officials. Give voice to your thoughts and ideas with our union and our politicians. Cast your ballot, maybe run for an office!

Is it worth the effort? You need to decide if making our country, state, city and union politically healthier is something you value. It is to us. We believe that our job (working conditions) and our students learning conditions are related to each other. We believe that the application of our unified power can improve both of those. We believe that who sits in the legislature and the statehouse can be changed by us being active. We believe that the Congress and the White House deserve to have the representatives of all the people-and that means US. We believe a healthy electorate from our union through national elections is a good thing. This we believe.