Present: Pam Costain, Peggy Flanagan, T. Williams, Chris Stewart, Bill Green, Emma Hixson, Allen Giles, and Mauri Melander.  Board Members Sharon Henry-Blythe and Tom Madden are noted to be absent.

The discussion begins with Emma passing out information about the timeline of the negotiations and about the about the administration’s goals of the negotiations.  From the very start, Emma describes the process as massive and complex.  She passes out a glossary of terms related the negotiations and she often refers to the process as being complicated.  The agenda that Emma presents is clearly not informed by any direct communication with the Board, as she twice says “I got the impression that the Board was interested in interview and select.”

The only specific administration goal for the negotiations that Emma describes is modifications to teacher placement and layoff processes.  Emma mentions only in passing that that there are complexities in the financial part of the negotiations particularly with respect to the alternative-compensation program. Emma says that she is still assembling the administration’s negotiation team (to be about 12) and that once the full administration negotiation team is assembled, they would be a plan to gather input from principals and others in the administration. Emma says that she assumes that the Board will seek opportunities for public input with respect to the contract negotiation process. 

Emma addresses the Board with some amount of deference, but there is considerable effort by Emma and the administration to define the role of the Board relative to the administration regarding negotiations.  Emma says that the “protocol” has been that during the negotiations the Board not have “sidebar” discussions regarding the negotiations, because people use such conversations to end-run the negotiations.  Emma says that if the Board is willing to abide by this protocol, it will help her keep control of the negotiating table.  Emma also says that part of the negotiations strategy is determining how “we” want to communicate with the public, and that she will work with Jackie Turner of the MPS Communications Department on that.  Allen Giles briefly lectures the Board about the value of speaking with one voice through Emma.  Bill Green reminds everybody that it is the administration’s responsibility to keep the Board fully informed with the pros and cons of each issue and to listen to the Board’s evaluation of these.

Emma presents herself to the Board not just as an authority of the process, but also as someone with inside information.  Emma says that her timeline is based on “unofficial” information that the union will want to start the process in March.  Emma also reports “hearing” that the MFT executive committee is proposing that the union president (Rob Panning-Miller) not be the chief negotiator.  Emma also states that the union is “very divided right now” and that she doesn’t think the “the president has the confidence of the majority of the executive committee”.  [Emma notes that this is “an uneasy situation that will affect bargaining”.]

Emma describes a process of negotiations that is led by the union.  She talks about how the union initiates the process. She mentions the size of the district’s negotiation team will be matched to the size of the union’s team, and she mentions that the union has “unofficially” requested that both teams attend training on interest-based negotiations together.

Emma describes three possible approaches to modifying the teacher placement process:

(1) Interview & select for all vacancies.  Emma notes that the district currently has the flexibility of interview & select whenever they hire from the outside, and also whenever they start a new or restructured program.  Emma describes the “pros” of this approach as (a) It gets the best fit teacher, (b) it is a “professional” approach, and teachers like things that reflect professionalism, and (c) there is support for this type of interview & select in the community.  Emma describes the “cons” of this approach as (a) it is not something that the district could likely gain in arbitration, (b) it introduces a larger subjective element into the placement process, and (c) it could lead to senior teachers not being placed, which would create a challenge in layoff.

(2) Permanent interview & select options for some programs.  Emma describes the “pros” of this approach as (a) it addresses the areas of greatest need, (b) it leaves some voluntary bids open for teachers, which MFT likes, and (c) changing one piece of the contract at a time is more palatable to MFT, and will eventually leads to a contract with complete change.  Emma describes the “con” of this approach as it just “whittling” away at the problem and not really solving the problem.

(3) Existing system, but excessed teachers need to get approval in bidding.  Emma says she is “very interested in this option”, and that “the more I think about it, the more I like it”.  Emma says that they have had little or no problems with abuses of the approval process for voluntary transfers and that if they could attach the same approval process to all placements then “we’ve got it all”.  She later back-pedals on that claim a bit, saying that schools would still have to take the most-senior approved teacher, and layoff would still be an issue.

Emma argues in support of a one-step-at-a-time approach, saying that this is something that Louise Sundin “understood very well”, that it was easier to sell something to the teacher membership as an “exemption” or a “pilot” rather than as a blanket change.

Bill asks if interview and select placement could lead to “bumping”, Emma implies that is not necessarily true as she notes that state law now allows MPS to negotiate something other than seniority-order layoff.  Emma goes on to describe that the issue of teacher placement is inextricably linked with the issue of teacher layoff.  Emma describes three different options for modification of teacher layoff:

(1) Layoff by building seniority order.  This would mean that if a position was reduced at a school, the least-senior teacher at that school would be laid off.  Emma describes the “pro” of this as being that it is “clean and quick” and that it would stabilize staffing.  Emma describes the “con” of this approach as that it would end up with some high-seniority teachers getting laid off.

(2) Layoff of unplaced excessed teachers.  This approach would mean not laying off any teacher as positions were reduced, but instead “excessing” such teachers, then have the placement process play out and laying off the teachers who didn’t get placed. [Lydia asks if such an approach would mean that laid-off teachers wouldn’t find out until summer, which Emma confirms, but she also notes that under the current system the process doesn’t finish until late June anyway.]

(3) Exempt certain programs from district-wide seniority-order layoff.  This would shield programs such as Montessori and autism from seniority-order layoff.

After reviewing these options for modification to the teacher layoff procedure, Emma says that the union “would just not agree” to the first option.  Emma also says that she “just can’t conceive of this happening”, although she says she would “try to make it happen if that’s what we really want to ask for”.  Emma at first says that options (2) and (3) are more likely than option (1), but then she quickly rules out the option (2) as resulting in “a lot of unfairness”.  Emma says that she thinks “we will make further headway if we continue to carve out enclaves”, the third option.  Emma actually defends the existing system of district-wide seniority order layoff at one point, saying that a “possible benefit” of this system is that it perhaps leads to more senior teachers going to schools that are typically staffed by low-seniority teachers.

Lydia comments the most of all the Board members during Emma’s presentation, has the most to say afterwards, and is recognized by Emma as knowledgeable on teacher placement issues.  At first, Lydia seems to support changes to teacher placement and layoff.  As Emma initially describes interview & select, Lydia speaks up about how new or regenerated programs benefit from being able to use interview& select to create great teaching teams, but the layoff and placement procedures disrupt such teams after only one year.  Lydia wishes that such re-constituted programs could be protected from staffing upheaval for more than one year.

Lydia articulates a standard teacher complaint that the process of “excessing” teachers (where the elimination of positions is separated from teacher layoff) generates a system where principals don’t directly deal with poor performers.  Lydia suggests that principals will eliminate a French program rather than deal with a bad French teacher.  Lydia also suggests that a general strategy of the administration should be “to deal with the competencies of the teachers, not what figuring out what game we can play to get them to bounce around”.

But Lydia ultimately balks at a system that would replace layoff by district-wide seniority order.  Lydia says that she wants to keep really good teachers wherever they are and that she wants teachers to be in jobs based on the quality of their work, “however that’s determined”.  However, Lydia confuses teacher competency and seniority when she says “if we are laying people off by school and there are really good people there, that’s not preferable to laying off by seniority district-wide”.  She also mentions that there are schools where all the teachers are really young, and that these schools would benefit from having experienced teachers. [Peggy asks Lydia if the problem is the lay-off experienced teachers versus getting teachers in to a school where they might be a better fit. Lydia responds that “fit” is a challenging issue].

Lydia does say that she “totally supports” protecting teachers who have specialized training, like Montessori or immersion, and she also includes schools with intensive literacy programs in this group. Bill Green asks her if she would include AYP III and IV schools in such a protected class, and Lydia doesn’t really answer.

In his comments, T says that an improved placement system would really challenge the competency of the principal by expecting that they would really “deal with teacher performance”.  T says that he likes the school-by-school seniority plan, because he thinks it would allow schools to have maximum flexibility in getting teachers who are a good fit for a school.  T also says that a “good” district-wide seniority layoff system could also solve current problems if it had a mechanism for making sure that a teacher had at least minimal qualifications for the position that they are moving into.

Chris’ comments and questions suggest he is coming at the contract process from an entirely different perspective than anyone else in the room.  Chris asks to know more about “arbitration”, what “the penalty phase looks like”, and about “the possibility of penalty waivers”.  Chris responds to the administration’s presentation by saying that it seems like “a lot of this is compromised thinking”.  Chris suggests that the Board/administration conversation regarding the contract negotiations should focus on what the district actually needs, rather than focusing on what we think MFT will give us.  He chides the administration for focusing on “the mechanics of hiring and firing” rather than what the district actually needs.  Chris says that the district should lead into the negotiations with “the strongest possible options to get the right teacher in the right class”. 

Chris also says that he thinks it would be smart to generate a new type of public support in the negotiations.  He asks if there are “some compelling reasons to change the status quo [of teacher placement and layoff procedures] based on civil rights issues, or the diversity of the teacher pool.”  

Emma is at first speechless after Chris’ comments, but then tries to respond by asking the Board more generally if it would be okay for her to communicate directly with individual Board members about some of their questions.  Mauri jumps in and says that Chris’ questions are important and says that she would be willing to work with Emma to get answers to the Chris’ questions distributed to all Board members.

Peggy says that she likes the idea of stating the negotiations with the school-by-school seniority layoff option.  Peggy says that she thinks the district has not been strategic enough in tapping into public support to put more pressure on the teachers during previous contract negotiations.  Peggy says that there are teachers who support a reformed teacher placement process, but they haven’t felt the support either from the Board or the community.  Peggy also notes that protecting teachers of color is a priority for the Board.  

Pam says that she thinks that “this is the year to get the contract that we need”.  She says that she doesn’t like the way the current contract utilizes memoranda of agreement and that “if it’s the right thing to do it should be in the contract as a whole”.  Pam also says that it is really important that “we take some time to envision the contract that this district really needs, ideally, and then figure out how to get there.” 

Pam briefly and politely expresses her disagreement with the actions that the administration took a month earlier regarding realignment.  Pam says she was “troubled’ by how the realignment issue was handled and that it is her opinion that “giving on realignment in December would have positioned us better” for the negotiations.  Emma responds that realignment was the one tactical advantage she had in the last negotiations, so she was concerned about giving it away too early on and not getting anything in return.