Shared Goals, Shared Work: A Local Case Study of Collaboration

• In Event: Joining Forces: The Potential of Union-Community Organization Collaborations

Abstract

While the national unions and national community organizing networks are building the theoretical and practical infrastructure to support these emerging relationships, there are a handful of cities around the nation in which union locals and community organizations are building local collaborations. This presentation will share a case study from a mid-sized metropolitan area with two school districts. In this area, a local community organization is in the process of developing a grassroots education reform agenda.

Their goal is to “build a powerful community of parents, teachers, and students who work together to achieve our vision of excellent public schools for every child in every neighborhood.” As the organization embarked on this journey they found allies in the local teacher unions, who offered resources to support the community led effort.
This presentation by a leader of the community organization and a president of a local union will share lessons and challenges from the early stages of this relationship.

Specifically, the presenters will discuss the first stage of the community organization’s work: partnering with a research organization to design a parent survey that informed the development of their policy platform. The survey served multiple purposes: to assess the education concerns and priorities of their membership (primarily low income parents of color), to build the organization’s leadership and membership base by engaging in the development of the survey, collection of data, and building a research driven platform for action. As the organization began to develop the survey they reached out to the local unions, both for potential fiscal support and to explore the potential for collaboration. The union leaders responded with great enthusiasm – they realized that as much as the survey would be useful to the community organizations, it could also help the union and teachers better understand the concerns of the families they serve.

As the project developed, so did trust between the community organization and union. Ideas about potential survey questions led to excellent conversations between parents and teachers; thinking about how to release the survey findings led to development of meaningful strategic partnerships; and ultimately the process of working together led people to realize that their common ground lies in creating high quality and more equitable schools and school systems in their communities. These positives were also matched by very real challenges in building a collaboration. These presenters will share their successful first year of working together as well some of the very real hurdles to effective collaboration and how they continue to work through them. In addition the panelists will share findings from the parent survey, the organization’s policy platform, and how both were used as tools for community and union organizing in this metropolitan area.

Authors

• Steven Fletcher, Minnesota Neighborhoods Organizing for Change

• Mary Cathryn Ricker, St. Paul Federation of Teachers/AFT

• Michelle Renee, Brown University