GUILDERLAND — In an era of budget cuts and mushrooming requirements for schools, the new president of the Guilderland Teachers’ Association wants to restore morale.

“There’s an overwhelming amount of outside influence — state, federal, even district initiatives,” said Erin McNamara. “Teachers want to invest their time in what is meaningful to them.” And, she went on, “Teachers want to know they are supported.”

McNamara, who teaches English at Guilderland High School, has had experience in leadership roles with the union. She was a building representative for two years and building president for four years.

She also draws strength and insight from the books she loves. They have taught her life lessons.

McNamara was in ninth grade when she read Harper Lee’s To Kill A Mockingbird. It wasn’t a class assignment.

“I discovered that book on my own,” she said. “It was pivotal.” She remembers being completely absorbed in the Depression-era novel, set in a small Alabama town, a coming-of-age story of Scout, whose father, a lawyer, defends a black man, Tom Robinson, wrongly accused of rape.

“I remember not wanting to put it down,” said McNamara of the book. “The personal message was really powerful. I really cared about Tom Robinson and Scout.”

Something she learned from reading the book was this: “People sometimes don’t do the right thing. You have to adjust to make the best of it.”

McNamera, who became president of the union in July, said, “Being a teacher in this day and age is uncharted territory. A positive attitude will go a long way — whether from me, the district office, or the board of education.” Instead of just feeling the effects of “cut, cut, cut,” she said, “Teachers need to be acknowledged for the work they’re doing.”

Vita

As a kid, McNamara moved when her father changed jobs. He was a transit police officer in New York City when he got hurt on the job and moved his family far north, to the town of Malone on the Canadian border. “He grew up in the Bronx and always wanted to own land,” said McNamara.

McNamara said she really liked Malone and considered moving “a big adventure.” Her father got a federal enforcement job in Albany when she was 8 so the family moved again, and she attended school at Bethlehem and then Scotia, where she graduated from high school and where she lives today.

English was always her favorite subject, although she started college at Mount Saint Mary in Newburgh, majoring in accounting, because she wanted to be practical about earning a living. Her second year there, learning about tax law — she can still fill out her own tax forms — she was bored.

She remembered then something Robert DeLong, in the Scotia Discovery Program, had said, “You have to love what you do. You’ll spend more time at work than at home.”

As she sat in an accounting class, McNamara asked herself, “Can I do this the rest of my life?”

Her answer was “no.”

So she transferred to the University at Albany and majored in English, with an emphasis on Irish and British literature. “To my mother’s dismay,” McNamara said of her affinity for British literature, “because we are completely Irish.” Her mother labeled her an “anglophile” but McNamara contends of the two literary traditions, “One feeds off of the other.”

McNamara spent nine years at college as she raised her daughter, Quincy — a 2013 Guilderland High School graduate now a student at Hartwick College — and worked at Anaconda Sports. She helped with Anaconda’s catalogues, noting, “I always felt like I had strong editing skills.”

McNamara started her teaching career at Bishop Maginn and was there for one year. The next year, she was teaching English at Guilderland High School and has been there ever since.

“It’s a fantastic place to work,” she said. “I’m constantly inspired by my colleagues and how they reach kids.”

This year, she is teaching a wide variety of literature to ninth-graders, including John Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men, Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, Homer’s Odyssey, and, of course, Lee’s To Kill A Mockingbird. “Now I get to teach it. I love that...It gives me the opportunity I felt I didn’t have,” she said.

McNamara is also teaching an 11 Aligned course to juniors with social studies teacher Michael Kinnally. “It’s taking some getting used to after 11 years of ‘X,’” she said, referring to the popular “X” classes that were cut because of budget constraints. The courses were restructured to save $93,000; the superintendent had called the X classes “resource rich” since each used two teachers, in social studies and English.

McNamara has fond memories of her own junior-year English studies. She loved reading the classics — Beowulf, Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, Shakespeare’s Macbeth — with Lynda Castronovo, one of her favorite teachers. “She was just warm and gentle and incredibly understanding — but firm,” said McNamara.

Union goals

McNamara is heading Guilderland’s largest union, with nearly 500 members, including guidance counselors, school social workers, librarians, registered school nurses, occupational therapists, physical therapists, and speech therapists as well as teachers.

“It’s important for all parties to be accountable,” McNamara said. “A union is a good way to keep checks and balances. It keeps everyone honest.”

She went on, “I’m not someone who is Big Brother...I believe people are entitled to representation.”

McNamara referred to a situation in the summer of 2008 when two Guilderland High School social studies teachers unsuccessfully rallied hundreds of students to fight against their transfer to the middle school.

“We could have done a better job all the way around,” said McNamara of how the situation was handled. She said it should have been resolved “before it got to public outcry. It became a bit of a circus.”

A recent difficult issue for the GTA has come about because its treasurer stole over $100,000, which was later returned. Brenda McClaine, a middle-school math teacher, accepted a plea deal on Sept. 9 for grand larceny, which will put her in jail for six months.

A person with a felony conviction can be a teacher in New York State, according to Jeanne Beattie with the State Education Department; the only conviction for which a teacher automatically loses certification is one for child sexual abuse. McClaine is currently on paid leave, receiving her $66,268 annual salary, according to the superintendent. She is scheduled to be sentenced on Oct. 28.

Asked if the GTA would back McClaine if she chose to return to the classroom, McNamara said, “I’d have to consult with NYSUT,” referring to the New York State United Teachers. “I’m still learning,” she said.

Carl Korn, spokesman for NYSUT, told The Enterprise in March, after McClaine’s arrest, that NYSUT never represents its members in criminal investigations. “If the district were to decide to bring disciplinary charges, the union would normally represent a teacher,” said Korn but, in this case, there would be a conflict of interest so, he said, “We’d have to look at alternatives.”

Asked about her goals as the union president, McNamara said, “What we’re going to do is foster more of a relationship with the community.” She mentioned, as an example, a recent back-to-school barbecue that the GTA held at Tawasentha Park. “We’ll donate the proceeds to local first responders,” she said.

McNamara went on, “We want to enhance our overall image...We’re doing good work in the world.”

Another goal, McNamara said, is “to bring unity among our buildings.” She went on, “Teachers as a whole are feeling isolated with outside pressures of state mandates.”

She reeled off a list of acronyms for new state initiatives from RtI (Response to Intervention) to APPR (Annual Professional Performance Review).

“It has taken the focus out of the classroom, off of instruction. We’re trying to work with the district to restore that....We’re trying to work together to focus on the classroom, and teacher autonomy,” said McNamara.

With the start of this school year, for example, teachers agreed to forego layers of testing that would serve as a baseline from which to measure their progress, substituting already-required state tests instead. The goal, McNamara said earlier, is to meet state mandates for teacher evaluation without “testing students to death.”

“It’s OK to take a risk,” McNamara said this week, adding, “I don’t want to see anyone suffer.”

She commended Guilderland’s superintendent, Marie Wiles, saying, “Marie has done a nice job of advocating with political leaders to send a message to state government to hold off.”

McNamara went on about the requirements imposed by the state in order to secure federal Race to the Top funds, “Our hands are tied. The district has invested so much more money than we’ve gained, on the backs of employees. We’ve sustained major cuts.”

She conceded that administrators and school board members have tough jobs to do.

“It has to be difficult to balance how to respond to the community as well as the employees,” McNamara said, concluding,  “We have the public to answer to. The tax base pays our salaries.”