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Fighting for Their Jobs

Union leaders claim teacher-activists targeted by school district

By Neela Banerjee

Carrying roughly-scrawled signs which read, “Justice for teachers is an integrated fight,” some 50 teachers, students, and parents came together to support civil rights activist and teachers’ union leader Yvette Felarca, who was recently terminated from her job as a substitute teacher in the Oakland Unified School District.

Gathering outside one of the most heated school board meetings of the year, Felarca and her supporters protested what they consider to be a politically-motivated attack on Felarca in direct response to her struggle for affirmative action.

“This is not a matter of defending one person,” Felarca declared into a megaphone on the steps of the school district headquarters. “It is a matter of defending a movement.”

Felarca has been a substitute teacher in Oakland for the past five years and was elected to be an executive board member of the Oakland Education Association (OEA) last year. As a long-time member of the Coalition to Defend Affirmative Action and Integration and Fight for Equality By Any Means Necessary (BAMN), a radical organization based in Berkeley and Ann Arbor, Mich., Felarca identifies herself as a leader of the “new civil rights movement.” Felarca and other BAMN members claim that they had an important role in the recent reversal of the University of California regents’ ban on affirmative action. They cite as one of their key achievements the March 8 Day of Action, which brought thousands of people together in Berkeley to demand the reversal.

Tania Kappner and Yvette Felarca, two teachers in Oakland whose jobs have been threatened, reach out to educators and community members outside a Board of Education meeting June 13. Kappner and Felarca claim the district is trying to unfairly rid itself of activists and agitators. Photo by Neela Banerjee.

Felarca and fellow teacher Tania Kappner, an English teacher at Oakland Tech high school, were targeted for attacks soon after the May 16 regents’ meeting, where the ban on affirmative action was reversed.

Kappner, also a member of BAMN, had planned a field trip to San Francisco to attend the regents’ meeting. She had to go to the meeting without her students because the trip was canceled at the last minute.

“It was too bad that the students couldn’t go because they were being denied a victory,” Kappner said. “They then tried to say that I didn’t have the right to go even though I got a substitute and this was a planned trip.”

When Kappner was sent a letter of termination about a week after the Regents’ meeting, students and parents rallied around her. Within another week, a petition with over a thousand signatures was delivered to the school board.

“They tried to trump up a bunch of false charges on her,” Felarca stated concerning Kappner’s near dismissal. “They tried to charge her with insubordination as grounds for firing.”

Felarca called Oakland Tech Vice Principal Marty Price to defend Kappner. During this conversation, the administrator threatened to take away Felarca’s job as well. One day later, Felarca received a letter of termination.

“Just two weeks before that, the district issued me a letter in which they assured me that I had a job for next year, so this was clearly a change in policy,” Felarca said. “They gave me no explanation of why they fired me.”

According to union president Sheila Quintana, the district decided in May to investigate Felarca’s union activities. This occured because Felarca was alleged to have put union election materials in staff mailboxes for the May 15-17 union elections. This supposedly is the reason behind Felarca’s termination.

“That is completely, 100 percent legal,” Felarca said. “The union has a right to go about their own internal democratic process without management interfering in our affairs.”

Other teachers and union members spoke out at the rally about how the district’s firing of Felarca is just one of the many ways they target and harass union members.

“A disproportionate number of the teachers transferred are union reps; some had angered their site administrators with their strong advocacy,” OEA secretary Craig Gordon said. He said the district needs more teachers like Felarca who oppose such “quick fixes” as standardized testing and police in schools. Gordon also pointed out the manipulative timing of the district, which chose to fire Felarca at the end of the year when support from students and parents would be more difficult to garner.

Felarca’s attorney, Jodi Masley, filed a discriminatory practice charge with the Public Employment Relations Board and met with administrators in the district.

“Their claim is that they can do whatever they want with a substitute teacher, that they can fire one without any reason, “ Masley said. “This is not true. There can be no discrimination on any basis; race, sex, or the fact that she is a union leader. We are going to prosecute this to the fullest extent.”

“I think they are attacking us because of the victories that we have just won, because we are trying to go in there and make changes happen, real integration,” Kappner said.

Felarca and Kappner were the subject of an April 20 East Bay Express feature, “Class Struggle,” which criticized BAMN for their tactics and motives. Even though the article was mostly negative, it did on many levels talk about how Kappner and Felarca have a fiery and undying enthusiasm that the district direly needs.

Last week’s school board meeting focused mainly on the issue of bringing Oakland Police into the schools. Present were many teachers, students and parents to express their views about the issue.

“See, you can really see how this is all connected,” Felarca said at the meeting. “Teachers like [Kappner] and I are here to fight for equality and justice, and they are trying to get rid of us. Meanwhile Jerry Brown and the Board are bringing in police and trying to create military schools.”

Felarca has gathered over a thousand signatures in support of her reinstatement. She, other teachers, and union members continue to organize around this issue.

Oakland Tech sophomore Rachel Crawford was one of the many present supporting Felarca at last week’s school board meeting. She had also been vocal on behalf of Kappner. She called attention to what was most important in all of this. “I don’t care if they are political activists or not. It is just that they are good teachers and we need those here,” Crawford said.