After the walkout that occurred on Friday, May 10th, 2019 the group of students who organized the walkout came together to create focus groups to directly ask district administrators questions. Teachers then approached these students to ask for support in organizing the flow of the strike, gaining student and social media support, and from other districts. Senior Mia Balingit is one of the student leaders for the strike.
“I’m collecting donations from Castro Valley High School and Mount Eden High School who decided to support our strike. I’m working with other teachers to organize people and delegate jobs,” Balingit said.
Along with the creation of these student leaders, a few students stayed after the walkout to ask questions of a couple of district employees and Superintendent Arlando Smith in hopes of getting some answers. The organizers of the walkout were asking the Superintendent to come to where they were at to answer questions instead of standing off to the side like he was. ASB Board Representative Jocelyn Romero then ushered about 35 students into the Board meeting room to sit and talk.
However, Balingit noted that the meeting did not go the way the student leaders hoped.
“The Q & A was pretty much useless. Smith was circling around the information we already knew, and he made it a point to say that none of this was the district’s fault,” Balingit said.
Senior Victoria Sanders was one of the students in the Q & A and said that Superintendent Smith was asking the students, “Are you going to believe everything that your teachers tell you? It was like he was trying to influence students to not believe the teachers.”
“If a bunch of teachers are telling us something and only one person is telling us something different of course we’re going to believe the teachers. They’re the ones raising us pretty much,” Sanders said.
Senior Kelli Gutierrez added that, “He [Superintendent Smith] made sure we knew he wasn’t ashamed of how much he makes and made sure we knew he makes more than teachers.”
Many also felt that the members and the Superintendent were beating around the bush of a lot of the questions and putting the blame on anyone but themselves.
“He kept saying that the district isn’t the one forcing our teachers to strike and that our teachers are. But, when you really think about it they kind of are because if they can’t figure out a plan to give the teachers what they want, what do you expect them to do?” Gutierrez said.
“They tried to throw us off using professional terms that no one knew. Their answers to our questions were super general… anyone could have answered the questions the way they did,” added Balingit.
Sanders also said that Superintendent Smith was, “making the teachers seem like bad people. He was dumbing things down a lot and speaking to us like we were little kids.”
Gutierrez agreed with Sanders and stated that, “He even told a student they need to think before they speak which was really disrespectful.”
“They kept saying we were their priority, but they kept rushing us saying they had another meeting in San Jose. If we’re truly your priority and you’re really concerned about your students like a superintendent is supposed to be they would have stayed,” Sanders finished off with.
Questions still went unanswered after this meeting like what happens to the money the schools are saving by cutting summer school and laying off about 40 teachers. As of now, the District has only offered teachers a 1% raise over this year and next year which many see as a slap in the face to teachers who are working so hard and deserve so much more. Especially after this lackluster Q & A session, many don’t believe the District is doing enough for the teachers but instead putting the blame on their teachers and state officials. The strike is set for Monday, May 20th and you can help donate food or water to teachers at various New Haven schools at tinyurl.com/fuelfornhteachers.
