Tales From The Classroom

(The Value of a Professional Association/Union)

by

James K. Aumack

For over the last fifty years, I’ve been a member of the NJEA/NEA. I started by joining the student version of this organization, as an ‘Education Major, while attending college, working toward a degree that would lead me to State Certification as an Elementary School Teacher in New Jersey. I was successful and taught for the next thirty-eight years in the inner city. While at college, I trained specifically for inner-city teaching with longer practice teaching situations, dealing with students that were academic non-performers and major discipline problems. These experiences prepared me to work in the most difficult and dangerous environments and it also guaranteed the likelihood of immediate job offers.

I accepted a position at an elementary school in the second-largest system in the State. I had offers in other communities but I stayed within the Jersey City School system for the next thirty-eight years at various schools and in various roles. It was during this time that I learned what ‘strength is’ as far as an Educational Association/Union is concerned. Strength comes from the leadership of an Association/Union and that strength trickles down to the rank and file of the organization. If the leadership is weak, so is the organization they lead.

My early dealings with our Association led me to the role of ‘Director’ for the school I was assigned to. This was long before cell phones and almost immediate communication with everyone via e-mail. The Director absorbed and then distributed needed information to their school colleagues regarding “Association Business.” This, of course, required many hours of meetings after-school at the ‘Union’ offices. An Association is very similar to a labor union as it provides many of the same services for the entire group. Its role is to protect and represent the membership in matters including the negotiation of contracts and also to provide legal advice and coverage in matters pertaining to the professional behavior of both education employees and the Board of Education, the employer. The Board of Education also has a team of lawyers, to represent them in these matters as well.

It was during my third year of teaching that I learned just how important it is to have a Professional Association behind and also guiding you. Our contract with the Board of Ed. was about to expire and a new contract was being negotiated. However, the Board couldn’t and wouldn’t agree to settle because the Mayor, who controlled the Board, wouldn’t agree to provide the funding that was necessary to settle the new contract. This, of course, was because the Mayor was heavily involved with a skimming scheme that required every and any new contract to have a ten (10%) percent cut off the top of any contract within the city, delivered to his office in cash. Of course, our contract was going to be in the millions of dollars and would really be a windfall for the Mayor. What he didn’t count on was that our Association wouldn’t agree to any of this nonsense! So, he wouldn’t agree to settle and we wouldn’t continue to work unless there was an agreement for the next contract. The last offer from the Mayor’s office was for a one-hundred-dollar annual pay increase, which we completely rejected.

The only thing that we could do was to stay home until the contract was settled which we did, all three thousand plus teachers and other school employees that would be represented by this potential contract. Needless to say, in New Jersey, public employees(which is what we were considered) aren’t allowed to strike. (This, by the way, is almost like slavery!)

The bottom line is that the strike lasted three weeks. The weather was near zero on most days and every one of the thirty-two elementary schools and four high schools had pickets, walking with signs protesting the Board’s refusal to settle on a contract. The freezing cold did not stop teachers from picketing their workplaces. The offer of a hundred dollars was a literal insult and the Mayor knew that. We angered him and his people. He hired and ordered, a past President of the Teacher’s Association and retired educator, to break the back of the strike. This person, in turn, ordered an interview of all of the Principals in the city, asking each of them to name the people picketing outside their school. His object was intimation, if he could intimate the teachers and Principals, he could possibly alter the situation to his boss’s benefit.

Thirty-one out of thirty-two Principals interviewed replied, “You haven’t washed the windows in the last ten years and I can’t see outside! I have no idea who’s picketing!” These men and women had enormous courage. The one Principal, mine, was appointed politically to her position, with the recommendation and support of and by a local City Councilman that she supported. If there ever was a political appointment, this was it! It’s been reported that she was asked the same question after they told her that they knew that she was not totally competent. Remember who was questioning her, a former teacher and a former JCEA President! He knew he could intimidate her as she was intimidated when was JCEA President. At this point she named every teacher, outside in the zero temperature, walking the picket line. The interrogator knew her weaknesses, as he played on them many times as a former president of the Association. This man, unfortunately like so many today, had no morals. As a result of this interview, all picketing teachers named by this Principal were arrested, via a phone call and charged with Civil Contempt. To be truthful, we all had contempt for this situation but we had no choice but to strike or cave in and allow the Mayor to control their profession and the lives of the children we taught. We were never served with a legal order. However, we were told that an order was published in a newspaper. A paper that we didn’t read.

I believe that there were eighteen teachers charged similarly, found guilty, and sentenced to 30 days in jail at the Hudson County Penitentiary, and twenty days were suspended. The teachers that were members of the negotiating team, were sentenced to 90 days in jail with 60 days suspended. The case was appealed to the State and the U.S. Supreme Court, which decided they wouldn’t review or hear the case. Knowing that if they agreed with the teachers, which they may have, they’d cause an entire upheaval of State of New Jersey Law regarding public employee job actions. This attitude needs to be changed because it represents almost slavery at the will of a Master/Politician. The New Jersey law assumes that Boards of Education will negotiate a contract fairly, which almost never happens. Politics absolutely always interferes.

I was the first teacher to enter jail, probably the first teacher in New Jersey, and at my own request. The reason I wanted to get this over with was that my wife and I were married for two years and joyfully, we were expecting our first child. That baby was to be born and I was to be jailed, near but well before her due date. However, mother nature has a way of taking her time regarding newborns. In no way was I going to not be there, for her and our new baby. So, I arranged to go to jail, all by myself, early. I suspected that the high courts wouldn’t hear our case. So, rather than deal with that, I decided with my wife, to surrender and enter jail, before she was due. The very first inmate that I met in jail, was one of my students. His first comment was, “You got a smoke for me, Mr. A?” My response was, “What are you doing here?”

He responded, “I heisted a car last weekend and got caught!”

That experience with him is another complete and totally true story.

During this time, the Federal Authorities were watching the progress of this case carefully. Our work atmosphere and this city were considered to be the most corrupt environment at the City leadership level, since Rome! After the sentences were served, the Federal Investigators asked us what we knew and how and when did we know it. They were told that it was common knowledge on the street that ‘kickbacks’ were happening on a daily basis, as there were contractors that wouldn’t do business with the city because of this 10% of the total cost of a project. They wanted nothing to do with this situation. This was as natural as breathing in Jersey City. Teachers had friends and relatives in the major building and contracting businesses. They knew why their contacts in this valuable trade, wouldn’t go near a Jersey City request for proposal(RFP). The Federal Authorities considered this information carefully and considered its source. They wanted to know more about ‘kickbacks’ to get a contract and this is what brought this mess to its ugly head. What was known and how was it known? What possessed elementary and high school teachers, to walk into this disaster? The honest truth is that Jersey City teachers were no longer going to work for less pay and at the same time be required to kiss the mayor’s “south end”. We wanted what was fair for our profession and nothing was going to stop us from a fair and negotiated contract!

A few short years later, a new school, #15, was built on Stegman St. in Jersey City. Two years after it was opened to students, the sidewalk approaches to the school started to crack, with grass growing through the cracks and teachers getting ‘sick’ with lung ailments and more. Suspicion caused the staff to call in OSHA, against the spoken wishes of the Administration, to check for contaminants. The first thing they did, as OSHA representatives walked in the front door, was to turn on and operate Geiger Counters. These went off, like a fire alarm indicating that there a radioactive contamination somewhere in the building.

As it turns, out, the entire building was back-filled at the end of construction, from the sidewalk to the foundation, about ten feet wide and six to ten feet deep, for an entire city blocks all around the building, with radio-active backfill dirt. The school was radio-active and teachers were getting sick because their offices were in the basement. This is the area where the mortar joints between cinder blocks, started to actually melt. So far, at that point, no child was affected to our knowledge. (However, years later…God only knows!

The soil for the back-fill around the foundation of this new school building was obtained from the area around the old Kellogg Plant, on Rt.440 in Jersey City. This plant was ordered closed years before by the EPA, because of radioactive contaminates. It was part of an effort, during WW2, to paint dials for fighter plane cockpits, that glowed in the dark rather than being illuminated via electric light that might aid the enemy in locating the plane. All of the women that worked there painting these dials with numbers, died of mouth or throat cancer. It was their custom to place a tiny paintbrush in their mouth, on their tongue, before they placed the brush into the paint, to accomplish a neat readable numeral, on the new dial. This, of course, was the avenue that introduced a cancer-causing agent into their systems. That entire building and soil were contaminated. The dirt to backfill the school was taken during the night from this site…it was “free” that way and somehow nobody saw this happening.

This also made up for the 10% kickback but, this contaminated soil likely killed many innocent people. The Federal Authorities indicted the Mayor and the entire City Council after they investigated all of the City contracts going back ten or more years. They also looked at the contractor that constructed the school building. The Federal Authorities brought in a team of twenty auditors that went to work reviewing the contracts on the city books, going back ten or more years.

The Mayor and seven City Council Members, were charged with embezzlement of Fifty $50 Million Dollars, which the Feds said they could prove without any doubt, and another Fifty Million they know was taken but they couldn’t prove it, because all those records were somehow missing. (What a surprise!) They were all found guilty and sentenced to 15 years in State and or Federal Prison.

John V. Kenny, successor to the most famous and successful crook ever in New Jersey Politics, Frank Hague, was charged with income tax evasion, as he never reported his share of the ‘kickbacks’ on his Federal Income Tax returns. He died in Federal Prison. Upon his death, a county employee that was in tight with J.V. Kenny, his personal boot liker so to speak, was found to have in J.V. Kenny’s office safe, over a six-figure sum of J.V. Kenny’s cash, in small bills. “Where did it come from?” he was asked. “How did it get there?” “Well, I couldn’t say!, he answered, “I couldn’t say, I have no idea!”

Through all of this, the NJEA/NEA was there to support and guide all of us, through the difficult decisions that had to be made. They were there with financial, legal, and emotional support and as it turned out, that first baby born after I was jailed, is now married with two children of his own, and both he and his wife are Master teachers. He’s a Teacher of the Handicapped and she is a Science & Math Teacher both at the High School Level. It’s interesting to note that my son’s father-in-law, his wife’s father, is also a teacher.

All of the jail records of the teachers jailed were expunged after the Mayor and almost the entire City Council was found guilty. Our behavior, although illegal by State Law, was proper under the circumstances. The courts couldn’t justify keeping those records because, in the final analysis, we were absolutely correct. Our actions, in a small part, led to the downfall of this string of evil political leadership. The then Mayor and his City Council were crooked and we were proved right, without any doubt what-so-ever!. All of our jail records were expunged although the Internet still carries the story and it doesn’t carry the final expunging and why that happened. The New York Times does maintain the records of this strike and the downfall of the Mayor and City Council.

The NJEA/JCEA, God Bless them, tried time and again to locate my wife, to provide support for her during the painful time I was jailed. I was sure that she wouldn’t be found, because we planned it that way. She had enough to deal with, with the father of her unborn 1st child in jail and her expecting the birth any day, possibly without his support. Fortunately, the baby was born after I served my time in jail.

I was working a summer program through Title I at the time we made the decision to be jailed early, so I lost a lot of pay for ten days not working. The NJEA picked up my salary for those lost days. I was also working on a Master’s Degree during this time and every one of my Professors gave me their blessing and told me to take my books to jail and read…I did just that. I’m probably the only guy that got straight A’s while spending a third of the classroom time in jail. I was thankful and continue to be, for their support.

In September of the next school year, I applied for a transfer to a Math Specialist position within the Board of Education. This was a new position, established to assist classroom teachers with those students that were not working up to par in math in their estimation. Standardized test scores, dictated which students were to be serviced by a teacher in this new position. This was wise decision on the Boards part. We all were places back in the same school where the Principal was the main cause of our arrest and jailing. Nearly half of her professional staff was jailed on her testimony. Teachers have very long memories.

This time period is also the birthplace of Computer Assisted Instruction(CAI) in the Jersey City School System, through the assistance of Dartmouth College located at Dartmouth Outreach House on Whiten Street in Jersey City. This was a Dartmouth College training center for those college students that were considering working in an urban Public Education environment. This connection allowed me to be trained in their computer language “Beginners All Purpose Symbolic Instruction Code” (BASIC) which was installed in my Math Lap using two terminals. From here, experiments in teaching methods using CAI as support were evaluated and those successful were put into practice.

The above is a true story that indicates what teachers and professional staff members in some local schools, occasionally have to deal with. The scenes described, chronicle what took place in Hudson County, the home of the political miscreants that settled in Jersey City and from there, controlled most of the entire State, for almost half a century.

In some cases, the described scenes are career ending, depending on the individual. In other cases, it should be made into a movie, to guide and help young people to explore the possibility of seriously considering becoming a teacher, as a life-long profession. This work isn’t for a sissy. You have to be able to take a verbal shot on the chin,(and sometimes a physical one) almost every day. At the same time, you have to be able and willing to return that shot to the giver,(unless it’s given by a child) with gusto. The last people standing are the winners and he or they will be surrounded and protected with love and respect, by their students and their parents! In my experience this is true.

COMMENT TO THE READER

When I look back, to be honest, there are things that I would do differently. However, I still would have done, most of the things described, much the same way. Over the years, working in an urban ‘inner-city’ environment, I’ve run into some serious, life-threatening problems. I’ve been physically assaulted several times. Most often by students that were incredibly frustrated or mentally unstable. This can happen in any school without regard to the school’s ethnic population or location. Recent school shootings verify this.

I was stabbed, in the thigh, by a sharpened ‘rat-tailed’ comb while breaking up a classroom fight between fourth-grade boys in my class. The boy with the comb got instructions from his father (who was in prison) on how to make this little weapon. He was at the bottom of this altercation and was about to swing his arm up with the comb and missed his opponent and got me in the leg(thankfully)because he might have actually killed the other student. I’d have a hard time explaining how that happened. Both of those boys are now dead, one from drug overdose and the other from AIDS, likely gotten from drug use.

I was assaulted by two adults, one a parent and the other a drug addict. The parent was going after a student she believed was responsible for hitting her child and she slammed me up against a wall using a heavy steel door. I signed a complaint and she was locked up for several days in the city jail until a court date and her lawyer were involved. She got away with time served and a public apology to me.

The drug addict was angry with me. I ran an educational non-profit corporation that was responsible for an After-School Daycare Program that fed a hundred fifty kids a hot dinner every night before they were returned home to their front door. This was my After-School Job. This was a State of New Jersey Grant to a ‘Private Non-Profit Corporation’ to provide after-school activities including homework help through the assistance of State Certified Educators.

Any food left over, I willingly gave to neighbors that were in need and asked for help rather than put it in the garbage. I caught this man several times, sneaking into the building and stealing food from the freezers. His object for stealing it was to sell it for drugs. I removed the food from his possession and escorted him to the door, warning him not to return.

Several weeks later he met me in the parking lot and caught me between two parked vans with a brick wall behind me. I couldn’t run or move anywhere and the van was locked and had to be opened with key. There was no time! This guy was ‘high’ I could tell. Every time he slashed at me with his knife, I jumped back and over-hand landed my fist on his head…there was no effect because he was ‘high!’ I was really a goner at that point. No place to go, to run, or to hide. No matter how hard I hit him, he seemed not to feel it.

Then it happened…one of the local alcoholics that I fed with some regularity, happened to be passing by, noticed what was happening and grabbed this guy from behind giving me time to unlock the van door and get in. He pounded the junkie to the ground several times and continued on his way. This man saved my life and I am forever grateful. I continued caring for his needs at every opportunity.

The next day, I employed the services of a J.C. policemanI knew, that was six foot six and carried a gun all of the time. We went looking for my assailant and found him on a corner, near a local bar, throwing dice on the street with several others like him. I ‘Identified’ him and my friend simply walked into the middle of the group, grabbed this guy by his neck and then proceeded to slam him on the hood of my car. He then picked him up and shook him until the knife fell from his pocket. He was then cuffed and notified that he was arrested for assault with a deadly weapon. I signed the complaint and he was then housed in the county jail until the court date with the Grand Jury. I testified at the Grand Jury Assembled, as to what happened. That’s all I could do.

Several months later this man was released because of time served to waitfor a verdict from the GJ. The verdict was that he should be released because of the time served. A year later, the same man with the same knife, killed his cousin, in the middle of the street, outside my after-school program building. He was sentenced to Prison for seven years for manslaughter. He was released three years later! Why I don’t know. Soon after that, he was found dead on the street. No one knows who did this but he was found dead with his head bashed in by a heavy blunt object, probably a baseball bat.

The law of the jungle took over and justice it seems was served. Without question, this was done by someone local. The local people know, how and why, things happen. They are very knowledgeable as to who and what is helpful to their community and what isn’t. They protect their own.

I worked every day in the deepest part of the inner-city and only once had a problem. People know who’s there, to help and keep their kids safe and they will protect these people when necessary when the law is unable to do so.

I worked in the deepest part of the inner city for thirty-eight years in the worse neighborhoods and never felt threatened, in fact, I felt protected and trusted by the residents. I visited homes when necessary and was always greeted with enthusiasm and a smile. Interestingly, now and again, I am still contacted by former students, now adults, with their own families. Payment for services rendered comes in many ways. It’s said,” a teacher lives a much longer life, in the memory of their students”.

Whoever said, “Teaching Is Easy” never taught in the inner city! Yes, I’d do it all again! That one wonderful smile, when understanding takes place, makes it all worth it.

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