Contact:
Yulye Hidalgo, Development and Communications Manager
Carlos Jaramillo, Chief Operating Officer
Contrary to what the CTU has stated, Instituto has never denied providing sanctuary protections for its immigrant students and employees. The only provision that Instituto pushed back on was the union’s request that members who lose work authorization have their jobs open for three years from the date of separation, which is unreasonable. The parties reached a sanctuary tentative agreement on February 2nd. To be clear, Instituto never denied providing sanctuary protections to its immigrant students, employees, or community members – we fiercely object to any such rhetoric. The union’s true intention with this proposal is purely economic.
The Union, on the other hand, has not been bargaining in good faith throughout this process, which is illustrated by the following facts:
- After 58 sessions, including the last 4 consecutive days (ranging 7-15+ hours each), the union still moved forward with their strike on February 6. Before concluding the parties’ bargaining session on February 5, CTU had already released several statements on its social media calling for a strike.
- The CTU chief negotiator admitted that the union wanted to get the deepest concessions from Instituto – beyond those reached with any other charter schools. CTU President Stacy David Gates even admitted that CTU’s proposals to Instituto were purely “aspirational.”
- CTU has engaged in trespassing, yelling at our Latina principals, racist rhetoric challenging the diverse leadership of Instituto and their women-of-color, highly qualified, labor law team. Their lies and dog whistle attacks are shameful. These types of attacks from CTU organizers are all too common, considering that their own president has even incited violence against principals.
- Spreading lies about Instituto’s financials, which are fully audited and reflect routine expenses such as utilities, security and the like for our students.
- Falsely claiming that we are not committed to bilingual education—despite the fact that we are leaders in this area. Also, lying about our compliance efforts on SPED laws when we are actively working with experts to correct the compliance issues caused by Union SPED members’ decision to collectively resign without notice at the start of the school year.
- Teachers used their classroom time with students to pressure them to skip school on February 6 instead of doing their jobs.
- The Union refused to meet during the summer or winter breaks. CTU stalling significantly delayed progress with negotiations.
We are here today because all CTU wants is more power to further their own political agenda—irrespective of whether teachers want them to push for a specific proposal. However, politics does not trump the best interest of our students. Our students do not deserve to be pawns in CTU’s political agenda. Education is a right and strikers should leave our students out of their politics.
To be clear, students have not been the focus of CTU’s bargaining team throughout the last 4 extensive days of bargaining. Their focus appears to be on political items and money. Instituto’s primary mission is to contribute to the fullest development of Latino immigrants and their families through education, training and employment that fosters full participation in the changing United States society while preserving cultural identity and dignity. Their attack on our mission is an attack on our Latino community, and our community will not stand for this.
Despite CTU efforts to block students and elderly clients from entering the school grounds for services, we had nearly 100 students in both of our high schools. Students who show up to school during the strike will continue to work on educational programming, academic support, ESL classes (particularly for our newly arrived students who lack a safe space during the school day other than Instituto) and social emotional learning. All students will also be provided warm meals for the duration of this unnecessary strike.
The parties are back at the bargaining table today and the Instituto bargaining team plans to reach a fair agreement. We remain committed to bargaining in good faith and urge the union to reconsider their tactics, as we believe their admitted goal of shutting down the schools harms our students, staff and community.