Public Schools, Climate Disasters, Workers’ Control
When teachers’ union president Ray Cummings told the superintendent that her plan could put students in danger, he brought together problems of excluding workers from critical decisions and schemes to use climate disasters to privatize public schools.
On May 16, 2025, a tornado tore through predominantly-Black north St. Louis, killing 5, and leaving thousands of homes, businesses, and schools either destroyed or with roofs ripped off. A month later, many buildings still had blue tarps covering them as the only way to protect them from the hot summer downpours.
Without consulting the teachers’ union, School Superintendent Millicent Borishade outlined a policy to relocate from seven damaged buildings to other schools, which were selected based on “bell schedules, proximity from the original schools, space utilization, athletics, and principal input.”
Upon learning of the proposal, Ray Cummings, president of the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) Local 420 in St. Louis, wrote to the superintendent that it could result in serious conflicts between students.
He explained that there is often mistrust between students from different neighborhoods. Cummings warned that violence could easily erupt when such groups are crowded together.
Missouri AFT President Carron “CJ” Johnson told me during an interview that she agreed with Cummings that Borishade’s proposal “threatens to create unsafe conditions by consolidating students from different areas into overcrowded, unfamiliar environments, heightening tensions and security risks to those who may not be wearing the right color shoes for that neighborhood.” She also emphasized that St. Louis already has problems with school buses and that the administration should not exacerbate the transportation situation.
But the superintendent’s plan would crowd Yeatman-Liddell Middle School into Gateway Middle, which has a capacity of 658 students. Their combined total would be 737 students. Johnson pointed out that “Dunbar Middle School never should have been closed, and if it could be reopened, it could accommodate students from Yeatman-Liddell or any other school that would be able to enter it.”
The capacity of Miller Career Academy is 1013 students. A similarly dubious aspect of the superintendent’s measure would be transferring students from two damaged schools to Miller, which would bring its enrollment to 1,253.
Superintendent Borishade relocated from Seattle to St. Louis in 2023. AFT’s president, Johnson, said that the superintendent “is not in tune with students, families, or workers. She is not listening to people on the ground. She is not changing her narrative to fit with the people of St. Louis.”
One of the major concerns for Cummings and Johnson, as well as other union members and parents, is that schools severely affected by the May 2025 tornado may never reopen and that the buildings could be sold to charter school operators. For years, pro-privatization groups, such as the “Opportunity Trust,” have provided funding to those advocating for charter schools in St. Louis. They try, and often succeed, in electing candidates to the St. Louis Board of Education) who typically advocate closing as many public schools as possible. Others run for the School Board to win approval for their own charter school.
Privatizers push hard to open charter schools in Black neighborhoods, claiming that Black parents must choose charter schools if they want their children to learn how to read. The two great ironies of this argument are that (a) those advocating such charter school schemes are typically white and (b) there is no evidence that Black children who attend Missouri charters have better reading scores than those in public schools.
Critics have documented that charter schools represent a range of threats to public education. Charters typically do not require professional and non-professional staff to hold the same level of degrees and qualifications as those in public schools. As a result, they offer lower pay and fewer benefits to staff, which may lead to higher turnover and less student engagement.
Charters often offer fewer academic hours and extra-curricular activities than public schools. They can “cream” students, meaning that they only admit students with the best academic records or fewest behavioral problems. Even if they do not “cream”, they are very likely to “dump” problem students back to public schools.
Charter schools may not test the proficiency of students in the same way public schools do, making it harder to evaluate their claims of success. Above all, decision-making processes for charters are not conducted by publicly elected boards, meaning that parents and others may have little to no influence over governing bodies set up to increase corporate profits.
When Hurricane Katrina slammed New Orleans in 2005, privatizers smelled a gold mine. The May 7, 2025, webinar, titled “Defending Public Education,” was co-hosted by the Green Party of St. Louis and AFT Local 420. Dave Cash, President of the United Teachers of New Orleans, described how the “near total privatization of New Orleans public schools had devastating consequences for communities, teaching staff and students.”
Like St. Louis, New Orleans teachers have had a hard time getting decision-makers to listen to them, a task made more challenging to those organizing a union when the privatizers are motivated by profit rather than concern with education. Like New Orleans, those in St. Louis are worried that those interested in undermining public education will let no catastrophe be overlooked as an opportunity to destroy what should be our right as citizens. As climate-related crises escalate, so will opportunities to dismantle public services.
The problem of top administrators ignoring sound advice from those who carry out daily tasks raises the long-standing question of “workers’ control.” Should unions limit themselves to “bread and butter” issues like pay, benefits, sick leave, and vacation? Or, should unions seek more control over employees’ work lives and decision-making power? It is a core question of whether working people should accept their roles as mere cogs in the wheel of production or seek to humanize labor by defining their own jobs.
One of the best-known current advocates of workers’ control is Michael Albert, who originated the idea of “participatory economics” or “parecon.” Albert emphasizes ways tasks can be shared so that there are “more and more people having a more and more appropriate level of say over their own lives.”
Historically, the concept of workers’ control has been emphasized as a safety and health issue. People working in factories are concerned about injuries resulting from the unsafe use of tools or speed-up, which can cause accidents and injuries. However, now that a considerable number of union members are in professional jobs, workers’ control extends to issues such as stress, treatment by administrators, and how work impacts the public, including students who may be endangered by poorly thought-out policies that could lead to increased clashes at school.
The dispute over what should be done for St. Louis schools following the climate disaster has more profound ramifications than might meet the eye. More than just asking how students should be relocated after the 2025 tornado, it brings up the question of how decisions should be made. Teachers know students’ strengths and weaknesses because they are in touch with them daily. It may not be enough to say school bureaucrats must listen to teachers. Is it time to establish veto power for elected worker representatives who are themselves directly affected by decisions and represent others who are similarly affected?