“Solidarity” Needs Accountability, Too.
The Arkansas Education Association (AEA) is a “professional association” whose members include teachers, administrators, retired educators, and supporters of public education. It lobbies for public education, represents its members in contract/employment negotiations, provides professional development, and offers liability insurance to its members — honorable causes, all!
I didn’t know about the AEA when I taught at a charter school, but I feel certain that I would have found them eventually if I had stayed a teacher longer than three months. I still regret my membership in their competitor organization — Arkansas State Teacher Association (ASTA.) Ever since I found out about the AEA, I’ve been as active and supportive as possible in helping them achieve their goals.
As a free society, we need unions and worker solidarity to magnify individual voices on the public stage. We are strongest when we work together toward a common goal. I joined the American Federation of Musicians (the musicians’ union) when I was 18, and remained a member until I stopped performing professionally in 2017. I have been a union member my entire adult life. Therefore, I’m writing as a friend when I say: The AEA needs to get its house in order.
My first whiff of internal unrest within AEA happened when I found out that they represented Little Rock administrator Karen James in her termination proceedings. I asked AEA president Cathy Koehler why Dr. James had gotten an extra month of paid leave — beyond the standard 30 days allowed for an appeal and hearing — and Cathy responded, “This is a tough situation for me because besides being my friend, Karen was an AEA Member. I have to be careful not to break her confidences. What I can say is that the delay was on LRSD’s part based on a recommendation from attorneys.” A delicate situation, so I didn’t pursue it further.
However, Cathy did mention that the LREA wasn’t afraid to take administrators to task, when truly necessary, and described a successful two-year campaign to get former principal Katina Ray fired. I haven’t reviewed Ms. Ray’s personnel file yet, so I don’t know how that played out, but I am certainly curious.
Then, I wrote a blog post about the two former AEA employees who had tried to address the protectionism/corruption among LRSD administrators in a meeting with then-superintendent Baker Kurrus. Kurrus and both AEA staffers have since left their jobs, and the teacher whose grievance sparked that meeting was fired as well.
I asked Cathy about that situation. She told me that the whistleblowing teacher, Ryan Gore, was “mentally unhinged” and had “problems with all persons of authority.” Still, I kept gathering documents. They all supported Mr. Gore’s story, so I eventually wrote a blog post about LRSD administrators deliberately covering up child abuse in the special education (SPED) classroom at Henderson Middle School.
Interesting note: One of the SPED teachers in that Henderson classroom, covering up the abuse, was Paula Korte. Paula Korte is the sister of Prosecuting Attorney Larry Jegley, who has recently been the focus of protests regarding the officer-involved death of Bradley Blackshire.
No wonder the police decided not to investigate the multiple child maltreatment reports coming from Henderson teachers in 2014–16. The police would have had to admit their boss’s sister was an instrumental part of the criminal maltreatment of (black) children (with special needs) in LRSD.
I started asking why the AEA and its member organization, the Little Rock Education Association (LREA,) provided legal representation for some of their members (Karen James) — but not all of them (Ryan Gore.) That’s when I realized that the AEA never actually calls itself a “union” on its paperwork, and so might not actually be required to represent all their paying members. I tweeted that the AEA was “another hero dead,” and quickly started receiving pushback from AEA members.
Lorrie Woodward, president of the AEA’s Fort Smith local, wrote, “I can’t support your continued public bashing of the AEA,” “There is a time to be quiet,” and “I will actively oppose you,” in an effort to get me to stop undermining the lobbying efforts of the AEA by pointing out that it wasn’t legally a union.
Carol Widder, who is a retired AEA member, emailed, “I am asking you to please not publicly say that AEA is not a “real” union because it just delegitimizes the whole organization. What needs to happen is for the membership to call the AEA officers and staff to task for their specific responsibilities. Give them hell. Also give the school administration hell and make public every threat.”
Well. If a bunch of the people you are trying to help say, “Back off,” you listen and back off. So I deleted the threads and moved on with blogging about other things.
But then I received — at my home address — an anonymous letter. It was mailed from Little Rock, typewritten, with no name or return address. It asked me to look into some allegations regarding the LREA (where Cathy Koehler served as president before she took over the AEA) and the AEA itself:
1. When Cathy Koehler was LREA president, her son stole from the association. She kept that information from members. He went to jail for using the LREA credit card and stealing office equipment. No one knows if he paid restitution for the outstanding credit card bills. Cathy did not allow the association to keep a public record of the meetings. Most members are not aware of this because during Cathy’s presidency no one received a treasurer’s report.
2. LREA is behind in their dues payments to AEA. This has been going on since Cathy Koehler was president of LREA. Even as AEA president Cathy has not made LREA bring their payments up to date.
I decided the best thing to do was to send a copy of the anonymous letter directly to Cathy, and ask her for a comment. On April 11, we started playing phone tag — but we haven’t connected yet. I’ll update this blog post with her comments when they are available.
On April 7, LREA president Teresa Knapp Gordon (who is Cathy’s good friend) sent out a warning to all LREA members: “Be careful who you talk to. A listening ear is also a running mouth.”
I messaged Teresa, “You’re gonna scare people off from giving me FOIA tips!”
She responded, “That wasn’t directed towards you. There are other forces at work.” But what kind of union president tells members to stay quiet when there’s a crisis?
Turns out, the LREA has its own paperwork problems: It never registered as a nonprofit organization with the Arkansas Secretary of State. Instead, the LREA still technically operates under its old name, Little Rock Classroom Teachers Association, as far as the Secretary of State is concerned.
However, as far as the IRS is concerned, neither the LREA nor the LRCTA exists at all.
There are no IRS forms 990 showing whether the LREA reported theft of assets. That means the LREA could lose its nonprofit status — and be forced to pay tons of back taxes — before it even registers its name.
There is also no public explanation for why the LREA has been withholding dues from the AEA, nor why the AEA hasn’t sanctioned them. Most AEA members don’t know any of this — even though there is an election going on. This defies the entire definition of unionization, which requires grassroots governance rather than a top-down hierarchy.
Cathy Koehler has a challenger for the office of AEA president.
Voting for AEA/LREA president was supposed to end on April 15. However, when it looked like Cathy Koehler might not win, the AEA quietly extended the voting deadline to April 26.
That’s tomorrow. Have you voted yet?
Have you considered the possibility that the AEA might lose its charter if the NEA finds out about all this?
Raise hell, friends.
Raise expectations, awareness, and grassroots support, too. It’s past time.
