Birmingham teachers union leader ‘shocked’ by Woodfin critique

Birmingham teachers union leader ‘shocked’ by Woodfin critique

Birmingham’s teachers union president is pushing back against recent comments by the mayor about city schools and local educators

Birmingham Mayor Randall Woodfin, while acknowledging there are good teachers and administrators working hard for students in difficult circumstances, said Tuesday that any teachers who aren’t pulling their weight should just quit.

He cited Birmingham City Schools’ recent grade of a 72, or a ‘C’, on the latest state report card – slightly lower than last year’s score of 73. Woodfin acknowledged progress in some schools, but said that a ‘C’ is “not good enough.”

“My initial reaction (to the mayor’s comments) when I heard was that it’s not true,” Richard Franklin, president of the Birmingham Federation of Teachers, told The Birmingham Times in a recent interview. “…it just shocked me. [Woodfin] used to be president of the [Birmingham] school board …. and knows what educators have to go through.”

Before being elected mayor in 2017, Woodfin was president of the Birmingham City School Board while it was under state intervention. The district had a rating of ‘D’ at the time.

At Tuesday’s press conference, Woodfin said the district’s progress was a personal matter for him. He attended Birmingham City Schools through the eighth grade, and his mother and stepmother also taught in the system for several years.

He had also started a mentoring group for middle school and junior high boys in the city. During his address Tuesday, he recalled asking students if they were satisfied getting C’s. If they were, it meant they were either lazy, doing the bare minimum or didn’t care, he told them.

The same goes for employees of the Birmingham City School system, he said.

“If you are a teacher in the Birmingham City Schools, and you are lazy, and you’re doing the bare minimum, and you don’t care anymore about the children that come to your class, please resign,” Woodfin said. “Please retire. Please leave. We don’t want you. That’s pretty direct. Some people may get mad at me for saying that, but it needs to be said.”

In a statement last week, Superintendent Mark Sullivan said several schools had made progress, but the district had more work to do to help support struggling learners. The district doubled the number of schools receiving an ‘A’ grade’ and had nine schools increase a full letter grade on their ranking, he said.

In his address Tuesday, Wooodfin did give credit to several local schools for improving their scores and giving teachers support to do their jobs well. He said it’s not about blaming or pointing fingers, but accountability.

“It’s important that we say the good, the okay and the bad out loud,” he said.

Franklin told the Times that Woodfin should focus on offering solutions rather than criticism. He cited several other factors affecting school performance, including teacher shortages, attendance issues and violence in the community.

“We’ve been having a national shortage of teachers before COVID and a lot of people who have left the profession. They aren’t sorry workers. So even when he says ‘resign,’ that sounds good but that’s not going to solve the problem. And that’s what I want the conversation to get bigger with – solutions.”

Franklin also questioned the level of support the district was getting from the city to help support homeless and chronically absent students. According to the latest state data, 23% of Birmingham students had missed 18 or more days of school in the 2022-23 school year.

“No one from a principal all the way down to the teachers can address that,” Franklin said, referring to the district’s attendance rates. “That lies with the parents, and when their family members or friends are being killed, the school system is one of the first places that offers support with this.”

On Tuesday, Woodfin said that parents were just as responsible for getting their kids to school, echoing a challenge he issued months ago when he warned parents that they could be arrested for truancy. Later, Jefferson County District Attorney Danny Carr said he would not prosecute parents because it would just make the situation worse.

Franklin also called for more financial assistance from the city, beyond property taxes, to support smaller class sizes and more support staff.

“I do know he cares,” Franklin said, ‘but I think the context and the way he said it is wrong when you tell people to ‘resign.’”

“It’s a partnership with the families,” he told the newspaper. “The first thing I’ll ask the mayor to do is to start meeting with the superintendent (Sullivan), the city council and the school board and get into conversations about what they need.

“To just lay it at the feet of teachers as to why some of our schools aren’t performing, I don’t think it’s fair … in any profession, you have people who can do better.”