LETTER: Santa Rosa teachers need a change

Dear editor,

As teachers in the Santa Rosa School District, we have been union members of Santa Rosa Professional Educators for 27 years.

In 2015, SRPE’s board chose to break ties with its state and national affiliates. This decision was made without telling any of the 1,900-plus teachers SRPE represents. 

Instead, nine members of the SRPE leadership chose to sever ties because of decisions (that) were made to offset its severe loss of dues-paying members in recent years.

When SRPE became independent, our immediate concerns were access to our teacher liability policy, losing our voice at the state and national level, and transparency regarding how dues dollars are spent.

We made the decision to review the financial records of our union to find the truth for ourselves. 

Before meeting with SRPE’s president and her attorney, we requested specific financial information in advance. When the meeting came to pass, though, simple documents like past tax returns were not provided. 

Nearly every question we asked was met with, “We aren’t required to provide that information.” 

Also, as we suspected, there was no proof that our liability insurance premiums were still being paid as SRPE had told members.

The experience for us was shocking and frustrating, to say the least.

We left that meeting questioning SRPE’s financial practices and transparency with its members. As a result, we filed a lawsuit to force SRPE to show us how they were spending our money — and we won. It was determined that we were unreasonably denied information we had a right to see.

Now, SRPE is spending more member dues to pay an out-of-town attorney to delay the court’s order to inform its members that it broke the law.

Blocking the truth once again is unconscionable and is an irresponsible use of dues money.

As many others have done, we canceled our SRPE memberships and joined a new organization — the Santa Rosa Education Association — which has successfully petitioned the state to conduct an election to challenge SRPE for the right to bargain for employees in SRCSD. 

We are hopeful for the chance to have a new union (that) can find ways to build bridges with the school board so that we can begin to regain lost ground and focus on the students we serve.

There is nothing more important in our schools that that.

It’s time for change, not more of the same.

CAROL POTEREK, CATHERINE WILSON AND MELANIE PETERS

Navarre

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This article originally appeared on Santa Rosa Press Gazette: LETTER: Santa Rosa teachers need a change