The Caddo Parish School Board has started off the year on the wrong foot. At the first School Board meeting of the new year, First Vice President Don Little made a motion that intends to limit your voice and your ability to select the professional organization of your choice. Red River United, like any other teachers’ union or professional organization collects dues through payroll deduction. Many employees also elect to make charitable contributions through payroll deduction or to pay for their insurance or retirement plans through payroll deduction as well. It’s a convenient, long-standing practice that’s available to employees at no cost, in all school districts across the state.
Mr. Little would like the Caddo Parish School Board to ask the Attorney General for permission to charge professional organizations, like Red River United, a fee for payroll deduction. He suggested that it costs the district $60,000-$70,000 to administer payroll deduction – a process as simple as making a note on a spreadsheet. Every district in the state manages to do this easily, at little-to-no cost. In fact, the cost, if any exists at all, has never been determined by any district. The only thing that has been determined is that the district stands to make money off of your dues. If Mr. Little is suggesting that it costs Caddo this much, then clearly, they are not being responsible with tax payer money. Moreover, Mr. Little stated that the process to deduct dues for insurance premiums or charitable contributions is significantly less expensive – even though it’s the exact same process!
Anti-public education politicians in Baton Rouge proposed legislation that would allow school boards to charge professional organizations for payroll deduction in 2018, but that legislation failed. It seems that Mr. Little is trying to circumvent the legislative process in order to undermine teacher voice in Caddo Parish specifically.
We know why Mr. Little wants to undermine our collective voice, right? He’s scared of all that we’ve been able to accomplish together. He knows that by coming together we are able to advocate for ourselves and our profession in a way that we could never do alone. In just the last year we have been able to push the school board and the administration in a number of ways that benefit teachers, school employees and students:
We ensured that the state wide pay raise would be used towards a $1000 lump sum payment in September. When the district used misinformation to forced K-6 staff to report 5 days early, we fought back to secure staff input for the 2023-2024 calendar. We pushed for some of the COVID funding to go towards stipends for all teachers and school employees. Red River United won a grant to build a Sensory Room for special needs students at Donnie Biskham Middle School. We pushed back against the Louisiana Department of Education when they forced special education teachers to use a broken eSER system and demanded that extended sick leave and maternity leave be available to all employees. Day in and day out we represent members who are hurt on the job or subjected to unfair treatment from their supervisors.
All of this work is only possible because teachers and school employees across Caddo Parish have chosen Red River United. In fact, the majority of Caddo teachers and staff are RRU members, but regardless of which professional organization you belong to, you should be worried about Mr. Little’s proposal.
When our district is facing so many issues, why is this the first priority for Mr. Little? Instead of attacking employee organizations who advocate for the employees, how about working with us to lift up the employees and rebuild Caddo into a district where teachers and school support staff are proud to work. There is a lot that needs to be done and we can accomplish so much by working together. Instead, Mr. Little seeks to pit us against one another.
The school board will vote on this measure at their meeting on Tuesday, January 17th. Some Red River United members already testified against this resolution, but the Board needs to hear from all of us.
Use the link below to email board members and ask them to vote NO on this ridiculous proposal.
