by Carmen Rose Ward, President, Alachua County Education Association
I will always be a unionist but on June 30 I’m passing the torch on being the teacher union president. I have served as a teacher union president for fourteen years: six years for LCEA (Levy County Education Association) and eight years for ACEA (Alachua County Education Association) from 2018 to 2026. On July 1, Dr. Crystal Tessmann Hall will succeed me as the ACEA President. Our great union will survive, and I hope thrive for the workers.
I started working in the public school system at Kimball Wiles Elementary School as an EDEP after-school activity leader in 1989. Most of my counseling and classroom teaching was at Williston Middle School in Levy County which was incredibly progressive in the late 1990s. It was an encouraging learning/teaching environment that valued unique teaching philosophies and fostered teacher creativity. Student-centered teaching made social skills important and human connections integral. It was an amazing era in education.
However, it wasn’t perfect. In the 1990s, we were so underpaid! My union building rep suggested I be a part of a demonstration at a school board meeting for a 3 percent raise. I went — we didn’t get it! But I did — I totally got it! I felt the solidarity and I realized that using this power was the only hope we had. I was inspired by the union leaders and staff that spoke truth to power. My union rep encouraged me to take her place, and I said yes to being a building rep.
The union is where we can save public education from privatization; we still are fighting against the privatization of our public good. My favorite union quote from Mother Jones: “Someday the workers will take possession of your city hall, and when we do, no child will be sacrificed on the altar of profit!”
Although she was referring to the exploitation of children in child labor, students are pawns in the for-profit education schemes. Florida’s vouchers are gutting public school funding and destroying education experiences for thousands of students in a multitude of ways. It is our union that understands that teacher working conditions are student learning conditions and we all deserve better funding and more respect. It is the unions that have been the biggest defenders of public education. This is why I am deeply union.
The many diverse voices make a union strong, and we are bastions of democracy where the workers are empowered and supported. We are the organized voices of workers who are free, loud and championed. It has been such an honor to represent the public-school educators in our community. I have been in solidarity with wonderfully grateful union siblings. It has been so rewarding to be there and be united even in struggle.
We sure have had some struggles: increased violence and underfunding, pandemic fears, threats of ICE, attacks on LGBTQ students and teachers from the state, attacks on union certifications from the state. But we are still standing strong and united.
The workers that make the public school system function deserve so much recognition and respect. We must continue to stand up and speak up together. I recognize that workers together can change this world for the better and our impact is multiplied when the work that is being done is literally about improving our future generations. Unionism is the antidote to divisiveness.
I was elected on May 19 to be the President of the Retired ACEA unit and I am honored to continue to serve the community of educators. There is a lot that the retired educators can do to support education and the active union members. It will be my goal to encourage this support among the community of ACEA retirees. I am retiring, but I’m not retiring my unionism.