PEP Popping: The Play’s the Thing Plus Jones/Casey Pre-PEP Debate and Mulgrew on Mic Check

Casey claims Ed Notes criticisms of the UFT leadership is reason for UFT refusal to go along with the coalition.

Below is my column in the Feb. 17, 2012 edition of The Wave: www.rockawave.com (modified from the original) along with a short video demonstrating the UFT double or triple switch before and during the PEP.  It begins with me following Leo Casey handing out leaflets to Occupy DOE activists urging them not to go in to the PEP but to join the UFT in a march to an alternate location and a debate between Brian Jones and Casey about what seemed to be a change in the UFT position that they would go in initially to support the People's mic and then walk out and march to the other school. Instead there were rumors the UFT was using scare tactics to tell people that there might be violence and arrests which Brian alludes to but Casey denies. Also that buses were being diverted away from Tech. It ends with Mulgrew using the People's mic and the buses coming back an hour into the meeting. Honestly, people truly cheered the UFT on its turnaround at the end of the day, me included. I'm a wus.

http://youtu.be/sYiDN1tpP3U 
 

Gotham Schools' Goeff Decker also shot some of the same footage from a different angle and put up about a minute of it http://youtu.be/LCaLougjqLs.

I'm working on a more extensive video that shows how I confronted UFT officials and how they reacted plus the ODOE folks directly challenging the UFT with union songs. And a video that captures the intensity of that evening inside the PEP. You also should check out the video Darren made of politicians trashing Bloomberg at the UFT press conference across the street. Check the post below this or http://youtu.be/LCaLougjqLs.

Don't get me wrong. In fact ODOE in the end did decide to walk out and so in some ways the UFT and ODOE came together. 

I need to do an analysis of exactly what went on that day but the fact that Casey attempted to blame me was a blatant attempt to get my fellow activists to use a decision by the UFT for a number of reasons (like they wanted to separate themselves from ODOE as a way of showing Bloomberg they were "reasonable") that have nothing to do with me to pressure me to tone down my critiques of Unity. Actually, he has tried this with a bunch of people I know (sort of how can you hang with that lunatic type of stuff) and in fact I have tried to bend over a bit in their direction when I'm told I am going too far. 

All day on Feb. 9 as I heard that they were going to work with ODOE I was giving them creds --- until they changed position in a memo from Leroy Barr at 2:45. You should read that post if you haven't to get the feeling on the ground at 3:30PM: Occupy and Stay! Don't Walk Away as UFT Changes Plan...

Ok, enough of that --- here's the column.

PEP Popping: The Play’s the Thing

By Norm Scott

Setting:  Thursday, February 9, 2012, 5-11PM

Brooklyn Technical HS, housed in an 8 story fortress like building in Fort Greene on Dekalb Avenue. A very tall antenna sits on the roof – a landmark you can spot from far away. There's a double level balcony in the auditorium, one of the largest in the city schools. The Panel for Educational Policy will be meeting to vote to phase out 23 schools. Over 2000 people will fill the space to say “no” to school closings.

The Players

Tweedie-Dees and Tweedie-Dums:  Anyone connected with the NYCDOE.

Panel for Educational Policy (PEP):  Bloomberg puppet dominated board of education with 8 mayoral appointees and 5 borough president appointees. 

Occupy DOE (ODOE):  a coalition of forces and offshoot of OWS aiming to take over the meeting by holding its own meeting using the people’s mic to give people from closing schools a chance to speak on their terms by drowning out the audio from the amplified sound. The ultimate goal is to force the Panel to hold the vote in such chaos they violate the open meetings law, provoking a possible court case to invalidate the vote.

Coalition for Educational Justice (CEJ): an Annenberg Institute backed coalition of community organizations, organizing parents and students at a number of closing schools. They will march to Brooklyn Tech and join ODOE in the use of the people’s mic with students from closing schools playing a major role.

UFT (playing the role of Hamlet):  To go or not to go into the PEP or march instead  to an alternate site, that is the question. Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer the slings and arrows of those ODOE and CEJ people who enter the PEP to challenge the forces of the vassals of King Bloomberg or to take arms against a sea of closing schools and by opposing end them. Unlike Hamlet, the UFT takes a halfway position. At first they say they will go in with ODOE and CEJ and then walk out en masse with the hope everyone else goes with them four blocks away to an alternate site where they have 600 seats reserved. ODOE, CEJ, the NAACP and other groups allied with the UFT are balking, saying they don’t intend to leave. The UFT will flip-flop – more than once as the evening goes on.

Dmytro Fedkowskyj: Queens borough rep appointed by Borough President Helen Marshall who has was often silent on the ed deforms under Bloomberg but has been increasingly vocal.

The Action

5PM: The UFT, which originally was supposed to enter the PEP and join ODOE in making  noise and using the People’s Mic, changes policy.  Rumors circulate that they are diverting the buses from the closing schools away from Brooklyn Tech and sending them directly to PS 20 four blocks away where they would get to make statements about their schools to politicians. The UFT holds a rally across Dekalb Ave. from Tech in front of Fort Greene Park. Many schools on the school closing list  are there and some have mixed feelings between following the UFT lead in not going in or joining ODOE inside the PEP and using the People’s mic to have their say.

Occupy DOE sets up with their signs directly across Dekalb and starts serenading the people at the UFT rally with union songs. Some cross the street to lobby people to join them inside to help disrupt the meeting. ODOE distributes palm cards saying, “Occupy and Stay, Don’t Walk Away.” There is a mixed reaction as some say they would go in if the UFT said it is OK. At this point the UFT sticks to its guns and officials, including HSVP Leo Casey start passing out leaflets urging people affiliated with ODOE to not go in but go to PS 20 instead.  [See video of GEM/ODOE Brian Jones having a conversation with Casey about the actions of the UFT.

5:30: CEJ marching from Flatbush Ave along Dekalb arrives with masses of cheering students and everyone starts entering the auditorium past a massive police presence. The UFT is supposed to send in HSVP Leo Casey with 10 reps from closing schools in each borough to get to a mic and urge people to leave. It doesn’t happen.

6-8PM: The orchestra fills up and people are making lots of noise. “Whose schools? Our schools.” “What does democracy look like? This is what democracy looks like.” As the meeting starts, ODOE people and the students start shouting “mic check” and begin the people’s mic where one person makes a short statement and everyone repeats it. The space is so big much of what is said gets lost. Lots of people are not really clear on how to use this technique. Politicians get to speak first and when they use the amplified mic they are shouted down with chants of “use the people’s mic.” Some work their way through the crowd and join in with ODOE. 

Once it is clear that no one is leaving, the UFT reverses direction again and decide to stay. UFT sends emissaries to ODOE to say UFT President Mulgrew wants to use the people’s mic. They welcome him with cheers. The UFT sends the people back from PS 20 to Tech. Many in the upstart ODOE group feel they have won a pissing contest with the UFT Goliath.

Things get increasingly chaotic. The DOE cranks up the decibel level of the amplified sound which begins to drown out the people’s mic. People begin to speak at the regular mic. ODOE is in some retreat. Students decide to walk out and meet in the lobby where a student led people’s mic takes place with passionate statements defending their schools. They decide to go back in and continue the battle. Police block the doors. There is much pushing and shoving with charges that a lockout constitutes a violation of the open meeting law. Police stand aside. Students flood into the left aisle. 

Some in ODOE are getting worried the extremely volatile situation might lead to police overreaction and a decision is made to have one speaker use the amplified mic with a speech urging people to leave, an ironic twist given ODOE had been urging people to stay ‘till the bitter end.” But staying and listening passively to each 2 minute plea to save a school, only to know that the PEP will vote to close them anyway is just not in the DNA of many ODOE people. Most people leave with just a few hundred left to harass the PEP as they vote to close the schools. The meeting drones on for hours with speakers pouring their hearts out in 2-minute segments about why their schools should not be phased out.

The finale

Before the meeting ends at 11PM, the panel members from the boroughs force Dennis Walcott and other DOE officials to justify the closing of schools. It is here that Queens rep Dmytro Fedkowskyj comes up big, real big. Fedkowskyj questions DOE officials Dennis Walcott, Marc Sternberg and Shael Polokow-Suransky with an intensity and seething anger not seen before, forcing them to defend the concept that closing schools is a solution. Fedkowskyj makes a passionate statement (nycpublicschoolparents.blogspot.com/2012/02/dmytro-fedkowskyj-on-why-he-voted-no-on.html) , joining the Bronx, Brooklyn  and Manhattan reps who also stand firm in defense of the schools in their boroughs.  In the end all four vote against the closing of every school. Only the Staten Island rep stands with the eight Bloomberg panel members. The remnants of ODOE heckle and boo as the vote is taken.

As the audience files out, James Eterno, union rep from Jamaica HS, who sat through the same kind of vote to close his school a year ago, says, “No matter how many times I come here and see the PEP vote to shut down schools, it never stops the hurt. It’s like watching a death in the family.”

Postscript: Monday, February 13

Queens Borough President Helen Marshall (who has often supported Bloomberg or been mostly silent on education issues) and Fedkowskyj host a hearing at borough hall for the eight so-called “turn-around” schools in the borough faced with closing in the next round where at least 50% of the teachers will be replaced, vowing to push back against the DOE, which has been accused of holding these schools hostage to force the union into agreeing to a plan to evaluate teachers based 40% on one test score a year. Gotham Schools reports, “Marshall often clapped and cheered as she listened to dozens of teachers and families defend their schools. Occasionally she even interjected to describe how her respect for teachers developed over years of working as an early childhood educator.” Is it possible the message is seeping through? That handing total power over the school system to one person is a very dangerous thing?