The Brownsville Independent School District Board of Trustees has postponed its meeting scheduled for Tuesday until 5:30 p.m. Monday, Nov. 7.
The postponement came after the teachers union Brownsville Educators Stand Together planned to express opposition at the meeting to what it says is redundant administrative work being forced on BISD teachers.
Despite the cancelled meeting, BEST AFT, the local affiliate of The American Federation of Teachers, said it would hold a rally at 5:30 p.m. Tuesday across the street from BISD offices at 1900 Price Road in response to grievances on the matter.
BEST AFT members earlier filed grievances concerning data cards and data walls, the maintenance of which the union maintains amounts to extra duty forced upon teachers.
According to the union, data walls contain business-size data cards that have student information, such as grades and benchmark test scores. Teachers periodically move the cards according to how students score during the school year, with virtual data walls recently implemented.
However, all the information found on these cards and walls can be found in other reports already required of the teachers. Prompted by the grievances, the redundant paperwork has been ruled in violation of the Texas Education Code, the union stated in a news release.
Union leaders say they continue to receive reports from teachers who have been instructed to continue with this additional work. BEST AFT leaders have received reports from 12 separate campuses across the district, with concrete proof of these tasks still being pushed on already overburdened teachers, the release states.
“Even though the administration continues to state that they are in compliance, we have documentation that there has been a violation of the ruling at several campuses,.” Patrick Hammes, an activist and organizer with BEST AFT, said in an email to board members.
“Our goal is to get board members to take decisive action on ensuring data card responsibility does not fall on the teacher,” said Esmer Garcia-Barajas, an elementary school teacher and member of BEST AFT’s Issue Advocacy Committee. “We want them to enforce, by greater means, BEST AFT’s Level 1, 2, and 3 grievances on the issue.”
