The Desert Sun from Palm Springs, California • A6

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For some teachers, recent challenges in the district have galvanized their support for the union. In March, the district administration and board laid 96 teachers, citing a $10 million Since then, most have been hired back. However, 36 ele- mentary school teachers, counsel- ors and one agriculture teacher will not return when school starts on Thursday. After the teachers were forced to navigate the limbo of seeking new jobs in the middle of the school year while also ensuring they get on the re- hire list at CVUSD. Some teachers put their homes on the market while others sought teaching opportunities else- where within the Coachella Valley.

already doing your job search while closing out the school year and putting your home up for said Heather Plonski, an elementary school teacher who was laid in March. feel homeless unless you know exactly where going to be In the aftermath of the she said, CVTA provided both advocacy and camaraderie. I enjoyed the most about the union is Carissa Carrera Plon- ski said. took us through the proce- dures without over-promising. I could text her, and I could get a text back with- in an hour.

That way, it made me feel like I had a friend somewhere in the Earlier this summer, Plonski was in- formed she would return to the district. She was sitting in a restaurant out documents for unemployment when she got the call. was supposed to be happy, but at the time I had been through so much, so I just said thank she recalled. Plon- ski out what school or what grade she would teach until Aug. 8.

This delay, she said, had taken away time from her professional develop- ment. might have been reading a book about child she said. want to be getting ready for your little people, and if you do that it feels really Jennifer Casals also was laid from her position at Coachella Valley High School last school year. return this year to Bobby Duke Middle School to teach language arts. While she draws inspiration from the students in the dis- trict, anxious about the change in schools and grade level.

never taught seventh grade, so a little concerned and excited at the same said Casals. know what to expect. a little apprehen- She found out in early August that she would return to the district. The union, she said, helped her through the formal process after the helped me sit through the meetings and understand what was Casals said. I was not tenured, there was not much they done.

The union was because they made sure all the paper- work was While many imagine salaries, strikes and politics when they think of teacher unions, Plonski and others said they also the classroom. When teach- ers feel secure about their jobs, students feel secure in their learning. Chet Cole, a teacher at Mountain Vis- ta Elementary, said after he was laid for one year at another district, a stu- dent refused to do his assignment and did not react to warnings about being held back. According to Cole, the stu- dent responded, not gonna be here fact that students knew teach- ers were leaving, impacted the class- Cole said. is about re- lationships.

You have to have a consis- tent relationship for kids to understand that, this person does have my best interest at For some CVUSD teachers, union membership goes beyond even the classroom through its societal impact. Teachers say organizations like CVTA protect the working class from being ex- ploited. a union going to advo- cate for health and appropriate class size the community be- cause students get a quality said Maya MacGill De an art teacher at Coachella Valley High School. if there were no unions, there would be no middle class. This would be a third world Joe Hong is the education reporter for The Desert Sun.

Reach him at Joseph or follow him on Twitter Teachers Continued from Page 1A ner and obituaries began running Tues- day in publications ranging from The Hollywood Reporter to the BBC in Eng- land. She was 87 and reportedly from lymphoma. King made only rare appearances at charity events in the Coachella Valley. Her best-known desert concert was giv- en at the old nightclub in Palm Springs in the early 1980s. Singer- saxophonist Pat Rizzo booked her when he was part owner of that club and he said he stayed in touch with her until the beginning of this year, when he last saw her on a walker.

He said the actress best known for her role as Carmela Corleone in and Godfather: Part was a godmother to me. She got close to my family in New King began singing professionally in Greenwich Village at age 16 just after World War II. She became well known in New York jazz circles in the 1950s and made her album debut on Mercury Rec- ords for the late Palm Springs resident Irwin Green on King Sings the in 1955. She then recorded three albums on the Reprise label for her Ran- cho Mirage-based friend, Frank Sinatra. King made her commercial break- through in 1964 with her recording of Taste of with lyrics by another local friend, Ric Marlow, who died in Palm Springs last year.

She was nomi- nated for a Grammy for Best New Artist of 1964, but lost to The Beatles. Rizzo said she was challenging to work with because she was such a stick- ler for details. When she played Man- in the era of jazz clubs, she refused to allow cigarette smoking. But her show quickly sold out and the crowd was so quiet and atten- tive, the phrase, could hear a pin could apply. would say she was like a white Sa- rah Rizzo said in a classical jazz vein (than her local con- temporary, Keely Smith).

She was one of kind and she had a tremendous range, as did Rizzo, who grew up in New York, said he had always heard that King began singing as a toddler on her lap while he played guitar. Rizzo went on to play with Sly and the Family Stone and remained close with King from New York to Palm Springs. introduced Morgana to Sly and she came and hung out with us when we played Central Rizzo said. Davis came and they hung King played Carmela Corleone in a 1977 TV mini-series called Godfa- ther but only took a few other act- ing jobs after that, including an appear- ance in the TV movie, Inten- in 1985 and the 1998 Brooklyn State of She portrayed a dramatic character before but she said in a 1970s interview she read Mario novel and so wanted to play the role of Carmela, she went to a hypnotist to for be- coming a member of the cast. She met producer Al Ruddy and director Francis Ford Coppola and got the part without having to read for it.

But her primary career was singing jazz. She performed frequently in Las Vegas and made multiple television ap- pearances on variety programs such as Dean Martin Joey Bishop and After Hoglund said in his Facebook post that Sinatra referred to her as perfect singer like no King was married twice. Her marriage to trumpeter Tony Fruscella ended in divorce while her second hus- band, trombonist Willie Dennis, died in an automobile accident in 1965. Her daughter with her husband, Gray- san Fruscella, died in 2008. Death Continued from Page 1A Morgana King, seen here on her 1977 album died in March but her death is just now getting media attention.

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