BROTHERS DEREK and Kyjuan Bolling no longer complain about going to Aspira Olney Charter School, and their great-grandmother Jean Bolling gives much of the credit to their teachers.
Kyjuan attended Olney when it was a district school and the environment was "awful," Bolling said. Now, Derek, 14, and Kyjuan, 16, look forward to going to school, they complete their assignments and have improved attitudes, she said.
"The teachers care," said Bolling, 75, of Olney. "The teachers have really helped them."
What Bolling doesn't like, however, is the way Aspira Olney administrators have treated the school's 187 teachers, guidance counselors and aides as they have sought to establish a union.
Teachers announced in March that they wanted a voice in the school community. They want due process when filing a complaint, structures for communicating with school administration and professional development, teachers say.
Messages left by the Daily News for Aspira Olney principal Jose Lebron and Alfredo Calderon, the chief executive of the charter operator Aspira Inc. of Pennsylvania, were not returned.
"We really do want to work with the administration for our school," said Amelia DeGory, 25, a ninth-grade world-history teacher.
The American Federation of Teachers, which is helping the teachers' effort, filed an unfair-labor-practice charge in April against Aspira Olney, claiming it interfered with employee rights under the National Labor Relations Act.
"The [Aspira] board and Calderon . . . refused to recognize us and refused to take a neutral stance toward their staff," said teacher Katrina Clark, 34, a ninth-grade English teacher.
The school, according to the charging document, allegedly threatened "employees that a vote for union representation would be futile" and threatened to lay off workers "as a direct result of union organizing," among other charges.
Teachers and the AFT believe that Aspira Olney or Aspira Inc. is using taxpayer money to stop the organizing effort.
A group of three teachers met with an assistant principal, who pleaded with them not to form the union because it would cost "$300,000 to $400,000" in legal costs, said one teacher, who asked that her name not be used because she feared recrimination.
The high legal bill would lead to school cuts and staff cutbacks, the administrator told the teachers
Source: Philly.com
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