Meet the Founders: Julie Woesthoff
Fourth in a series of profiles of PAA founding members.
For PAA co-founder Julie Woesthoff, the high point of the recently concluded Chicago Teachers Union (CTU) strike was the solidarity she saw between teachers, parents, students and community members.
“We showed a very powerful united front,” she said. “It was not just teachers, it was the whole community. We all felt that we were speaking out in favor of a better vision of education.”
Julie has worked for decades to bring Chicago teachers, parents and communities together. She currently heads up Parents United for Responsible Education (PURE), a Chicago parents’ organization formed twenty-five years ago, at the time of the last CTU strike. Then as now, many Chicago schools were dilapidated, and lacked basic service such as lunchrooms or libraries. Parents felt that the politicians making school policy had limited interest in the welfare of Chicago schoolchildren.
“We knew the real enemy wasn’t teacher avarice or unions but public officials who refused to provide the
