Members of the CEA attend the School Committee meeting to express concerns they are seeing in the school district including violence.
Photo credit: ChicopeeTV
CHICOPEE — For the second consecutive year, Chicopee educators spoke out during public comment at the May 21 School Committee meeting, sharing stories of students being physically abusive toward teachers.
Almost exactly a year ago, the School Committee meeting was standing room only as faculty from Chicopee Public Schools used the public comment portion of the meeting to express their concerns with the way students are acting.
Multiple members highlighted several events where students were verbally and even physically abusive toward teachers.
This year, multiple educators and the daughter of a teacher expressed similar stories.
Belcher Elementary School kindergarten teacher Lynn Legiadre stated she has come before the School Committee multiple times expressing the same concerns, but that she will continue to do so for all the staff in the district who constantly reach out to her.
“I have gotten inundated with emails, phone calls, face-to-face conversations with other staff from not only my building but other buildings because they know that I stand strong for the health and safety of our staff and I’m fighting for it,” Legiadre said.
Although she expressed that many people are focusing on contract negotiations and a living wage, health and safety are also important.
Legiadre said, “I know [for] a lot of people the focus is money, money, money, a living wage. That’s super important, that is top of my priority list, but not coming to work every day knowing that you’re going to get hit, kicked, bit, scratched and, yes, I’m talking about elementary school, I’m talking about early elementary school. I am talking about teachers and staff who are too afraid to stand up here and tell you what is happening for fear of what will happen to them in retribution for that.”
She also advocated for the implementation of a health and safety committee or “people that actually listen to us and respond to what we’re saying” is needed.
Legiadre knows that she and other teachers love what they do but “it’s really hard to teach when chairs are being thrown and then they just get brought back to the classroom. It’s also hard when children are in the classroom swearing or saying other derogatory comments that have no place in the classroom, no matter what age, particularly early elementary.”
Samantha Bukowski, daughter of Eileen Bukowski, a special education teacher at Belcher Elementary School, shared an emotional message advocating for more support for her mom and other teachers.
She stated, “I just wanted to come up here and say that I’m tired of my mom coming home from school every day exhausted and covered with bruises, bites scratches and she’s even come home with a concussion. My brother and I, we want my mom and all other teachers to be safe at their school.”
Physical education teacher at Bowe School and CEA Co-Vice President Kait Moss said that although there were not hundreds of people in the audience, multiple people joined remotely or expressed they are all fighting for the same three things: health and safe schools including a joint committee to address workplace violence, fair wages for teachers, vice principals and Unit B members and a living wage for education support professionals.
Chicopee Education Association President and Chicopee High School science teacher Ben Eisen used the theme of “respect” to address the concerns of teachers, but also address the current contract negotiation disputes between the city and the CEA.
“Respect is understanding and honoring another’s feelings, thoughts identity and/or traditions. When an employee has to have multiple jobs to make ends meet, this does not show respect. When an employee gets assaulted and they are told, ‘It’s just part of the job,’ this does not show respect. When people do not want to come work in Chicopee, this is evidence that there is not enough respect,” Eisen stated.
Eisen also expressed he is trying to stay optimistic and said, “Let’s take those scenarios and turn them around. If an employee gets assaulted, they should begin with the support, time and resources to deal with it, both physically and mentally. If an employee is working a full-time job, they should be able to afford to live.”
CEA member coordinator Gina Potorski-Dahl used Memorial Day weekend to metaphorically compare a group of veterans to a group of teachers.
She explained, “My grandfather was a veteran and the one thing he used to say to me constantly was, ‘if you’d like to know how the war is going, don’t ask a general, ask a solider.’ This right here is your metaphorical force of education. All of them. Every single last one. Furthermore, you have three soldiers who sit every week at those lovely meetings for negotiation and they need to be listened to. There are in fact soldiers, hopefully for us. They come to those meetings, they listen to us, they understand what we’re saying.”
