The journey from chaos to community

Arlyssa Heard knows about building community. And she knows about protecting public education.

As a parent with children in Detroit public schools during the 2010s, she experienced firsthand the failure of under-resourced schools targeted for closure, but she didn’t give up: She joined others who banded together to fight back — and win.

She’s still in that fight: Today, Heard is a leader in 482Forward (named for the first three numbers in Detroit’s ZIP codes) and an active member of the Michigan Education Justice Coalition. Partnering with the Detroit Federation of Teachers, the organizations will work with a $75,000 AFT Powerful Partnerships Institute grant to direct pandemic relief funding to the students and families who need it most, and to expand awareness and influence on education policy with school board candidate trainings and informational forums.

“Our goal is to do our part in ensuring that there are quality public schools in every neighborhood in the city of Detroit,” says DFT President Terrence Martin. “We recognize that we can’t achieve this alone. Having quality partnerships with organizations such as the Michigan Education Justice Coalition and 482Forward is essential in meeting our goals.”

A troubled history

When Heard sent her children off for their first day of school, Detroit schools were in chaos.

Buildings were falling apart. The system was on the verge of bankruptcy. Dozens of schools were closed, most in majority Black neighborhoods, and the emergency manager who was assigned to take over a “failing system” was privatizing educational services. For-profit, largely unregulated charter schools were spreading so fast that Michigan was known as the “wild west” of charter schools, and they were depleting the resources public schools needed to survive. For about two decades beginning in 1999, public education in Detroit struggled.

For-profit, largely unregulated charter schools were spreading so fast Michigan was known as the “wild west” of charter schools, and they were depleting resources public schools needed to survive.

Heard herself struggled to find a place where her young Black boys could thrive. She carefully chose an African-focused school, Paul Robeson Malcolm X Academy, so they would have the strong role models the school culture promised.

But after a while, that culture got watered down. Lead teachers were plucked away. Supplies dwindled. Books disappeared. By the time her younger son enrolled, class sizes were ballooning. The school couldn’t meet his special needs — he had been diagnosed with ADHD — so she transferred him to another school.

Heard experienced a string of bad luck and was out of a job, dependent on welfare. She had to drive two freeways in a failing car for her son to attend his new school, but despite her efforts, that school failed him as well. She tried a private school, which provided a scholarship, but after two weeks, they dismissed her son because they said they didn’t have the capacity to meet his needs. Heard was afraid she’d run out of options and wondered if home-schooling was her only choice. Then on one final school visit, she found a principal who immediately demonstrated the kindness and patience her family needed and provided a school where her son would feel safe and could excel.

Together we win

Heard’s experience inspired her to get involved in making changes to a school system that had failed her family and so many others like them. And she was also inspired by the people around her, who had put their shoulders to the wheel and worked for change. As the system crumbled around them, instead of throwing up their hands as each defeat painted a grimmer and grimmer picture, parents and educators joined together and rose up. The more challenges there were, the harder they fought back. All that chaos, says Heard, “led to everybody organizing together.”

Parents, teachers, school staff, unions, faith organizations and other community members networked and strategized. They formed teams and discovered their various connections to people in power, then talked to legislators, targeting those most involved in education policy. They partnered with the union. They amplified the voices of students — the people at the heart of the system — and listened to them tell their stories. What is it like to have your school close overnight? To lose your familiar bus route, your favorite teacher, your afterschool activities? Your community hub? They brought those stories to school administrators, state officials and anyone else involved in running the education system.

All that chaos led to everybody organizing together.

Teachers and parents formed an especially important partnership: “Those are the two groups oppressive organizations don’t want talking,” says Heard. “But teachers and parents are the solution.” Educators know the system, since they live in it every day, and families know their own students more intimately than anyone and understand their needs.

Partnerships work

Heard got involved with 482 Forward and the Detroit Education Justice Coalition; the latter grew into the Michigan Education Justice Coalition. Eventually, this coalition won back an elected school board, established more accountability for charter schools and succeeded in keeping many cherished neighborhood schools open.

“We’re more connected than we are divided,” says Heard. “I believe that oppressive systems are activated and gain superpowers when we’re divided. That’s why I think this [AFT] partnership is critical, because when we align and fight together, we win together.”

Or, as AFT President Randi Weingarten says so often, “We are stronger together than we could ever be alone.”

We’re more connected than we are divided.

The Detroit grant is just one of 27 Powerful Partnerships Institute grants distributed across the country to fortify relationships between the union and community organizations. In addition to distributing more than $1.5 million in grants of $25,000 to $75,000, PPI is also providing organizing tools and mentoring, trainings and other guidance.

“We really want to grow our own advocates, whether that’s for school board or whether that’s creating positions for folks as liaisons,” says Martin. “We want to highlight those who are already doing the work in the community and really look to them. We don’t want people to look at the DFT, 482Forward and the Michigan Education Justice Coalition as separate entities. We want them to look at us as true partners in making Detroit great. That’s our goal.”

This story was written by AFT communications specialist Virginia Myers. Want to see more stories like this? Subscribe to AFT e-newsletters.