THANKS TO THE AFT FOR ITS HELP IN THE KANSAS CITY DESEGREGATION CASE

The Kansas City Federation of Teachers wishes to thank the AFT for its help in the Kansas City, Missouri public schools' desegregation case.

Our thanks first and foremost, to the entire membership of the AFT as well as president Shanker and the executive council, Bob Porter, who signed the many, many legal defense fund checks; Jewell Gould, AFT's director of research, who compiled overwhelming evidence and was our star salary witness in Kansas City. We thank Larry Poltrock, general counsel of AFT; and Mark Chaykin, our hard-working and supportive regional director. Most important, we thank Norm Hudson, our president, and our executive board in Kansas City.

After a lengthy hearing in federal court in Kansas City, the attorneys for the state of Missouri suggested a negotiated settlement among the union, district, state and the schoolchildren who brought the original suit. The settlement was ordered by Judge Clark to go into effect this fall, with certain portions to go into effect immediately. In year one, this fall teachers will get a 22 percent increase; and paraprofessionals will get a 22 percent increase; nurses will get a 17 percent increase; security officers will get a 14 percent increase. Custodians at school sites, will have an increase of 32 percent and food services, 17 percent.

In the second year of the settlement, when they work out the details, teachers will get 73 percent of the money the judge ordered. The extra pay schedule, the co-curricular schedule was doubled. In-service pay will be increased from $9.76 an hour to $16 an hour. In the second year the employees will be paid at their own hourly rate of pay for all extra duty. Substitutes will go up to $75 per day. One million dollars was set aside for liability to cover field trips. All new teachers coming into the Kansas City, Missouri, school district will get five days of paid new-teacher orientation. Our school year will be five days longer at the regular rate of pay to provide ad­ditional staff development for our 50 magnet schools.

The AFT and the Kansas City, Missouri Federation of Teachers will be designing a new, innovative union-run magnet school in Kansas City. This year, in addition to 1,200 teachers we've already hired, we will hire 300 new teachers. We intend to sign them all up with the AFT.

We want to thank all of our union brothers and sisters for their continued support in our 11-year struggle for desegregation in the Kansas City, Missouri public schools.