Update: The Brownsville Independent School District has rescheduled its Tuesday, Nov. 1 Board of Trustees meeting to 5:30 p.m. Monday, Nov. 7. The educators union plans to rally at 6 p.m. Tuesday, Nov. 1 across the street from BISD’s Central Office, at the 2300 block of E. Price Road in Brownsville. The original story of the planned protest appears below.
BROWNSVILLE, Texas (ValleyCentral) — An educators union in Brownsville will rally Tuesday against excessive administrative work they say has been pressed upon teachers.
Brownsville Educators Stand Together, an affiliate of The American Federation of Teachers, has filed three grievances over redundant administrative work and will now go to Tuesday’s Brownsville Independent School Board meeting to demand a stop to the extra duties.
The union will “demand the professional respect and due process they have been denied,” according to a news release.
The complaint follows district-wide grievances over “data cards” and “data walls,” union officials said, explaining that the data walls are contain business-card-size data cards that have student information, such as student grades and benchmark test scores.
“The grievances came after the extra duty of maintaining the ‘data cards’ fell upon teachers,” union officials said in the news release. “These cards are periodically moved by teachers according to how the students score throughout the school year – most recently there have been virtual ‘data walls’ implemented.”
The work is excessive, the union explains, because “information found on these ‘walls’ can all be found in other reports already done by the teacher. In the wake of these grievances, these pieces of redundant paperwork have been ruled to violate the Texas Education Code.”
However, the union says teachers to be instructed to do this additional work.
“At the time of this release, BEST AFT leaders have received reports from 12 separate campuses across the district, with concrete proof of these tasks still being pushed on already overburdened teachers,” union officials said.
The union will rally in support of teachers, demanding the extra administrative work end, at the Tuesday’s Brownsville ISD Board of Trustees meeting, which starts at 5:30 p.m.
An item was requested to be placed on the agenda regarding this matter, the union said. However, the agenda posted for the meeting did not appear to list the matter as an agenda item. Agendas must be posted publicly at least three days prior to a board meeting.
“Our goal is to get board members to take decisive action on ensuring data card responsibility does not fall on the teacher,” said Esmer Garcia-Barajas, an elementary school teacher and member of BEST AFT’s Issue Advocacy Committee. “We want them to enforce, by greater means, BEST AFT’s Level 1, 2, and 3 grievances on the issue.”
The meeting is scheduled to start at 5:30 p.m. Tuesday at 1900 E Price Road in Brownsville.
