[Editor’s Note: The President of the Teachers Union sent the following letter to his members last Wednesday, and it is reproduced with his permission.]
Friends —
Happy Thanksgiving!
Just a quick update from the School Board meeting [Tuesday] night. In its last official vote, the outgoing lame duck Board threw a wrench into the School Calendar process.
Here goes:
As you know, the School Calendar is a mandatory subject of bargaining.
School districts cannot impose a work year on employees.
They must bargain work schedules with employee unions. Since both CCFT and ACE [Assn. of Classified Employees] have the legal right to bargain a work year for the people they represent, it makes sense that we use a collaborative process to create a School Calendar that works for all employees.
After all, both teachers and support staff need to be at work when the kids are there!
For many years, the vehicle for this process has been the Calendar Committee. That committee has reps from CCFT, ACE and CCUSD management. All the stakeholder groups are part of the process. Management surveys parents and brings that input into the process.
The committee generates a number of calendar options, which then go out for a vote. Technically it is not a vote. Since the final say-so takes place in bargaining, it is a survey that the unions use to guide their bargaining teams —but — we always bargain what the majority tell us they want. We have gotten in the habit of doing two years of calendars at one sitting.
So the surveys guided the union teams and the management team for the creation of this year's calendar and next year's calendar.
CCUSD management signed off on this year's calendar and next year's calendar with both ACE and CCFT. All that remained was for the Board to approve what had been agreed on at the bargaining table.
Before the Board voted, they heard from a number of teachers who expressed a preference for a different calendar, one that would start the school year in mid-August.
After they spoke, I shared with the Board some information about how this collaborative process works. I also shared with them the fact that 64 percent of the teacher survey responses favored the “Labor Day to late June” calendar we have now. Leslie Lockhart [Human Resources Director for the School District] shared data that indicated that a majority of parents also favored the current model.
The Board, though, decided that neither the collaborative process nor the negotiated settlements were as important as their own individual views on when school should start!
They are entitled to their own individual opinions, of course, as we all are. But their role here was to finalize what had been bargained and allow students, parents, teachers and support staff to start making plans for the summer and the fall.
From a technical standpoint, the Board's failure to approve a negotiated settlement is a violation of collective bargaining law.
When the management team bargains with employee unions, it is assumed that they have authority from the Board to arrive at agreements. After the holiday weekend, we will consult with our legal advisors to initiate the filing of an “unfair labor practice” charge with PERB, the Public Employment Relations Board.
Perhaps the simplest solution is for this issue to come back early next month when the new Board takes office. I am confident that the Superintendent will explain to the new Board that they need to recognize and approve agreements that come out of the bargaining process.
If not, the whole enchilada will be held up as the parties wait for PERB to hear the case. Whether or not that can happen in a timely fashion, is an open question. PERB always has a backlog of cases waiting to be heard.
We'll keep you posted.
Have a restful weekend.
Dave
Mr. Mielke may be contacted at davidmielke@ccusd.org
