Present: Pam Costain, Peggy Flanagan, Tom Madden, Sharon Henry-Blythe, Emma Hixson, Bill Green

Emma describes an administration proposal for alternative compensation and saying that she will be proposing something different for the second year of the contract, where salary increases wouldn’t go into “permanent salary”.  Emma suggests that this proposal may or may not meet with favor.  Emma says the proposal addresses some of the concerns “that were addressed here” about the district developing a long-term salary obligation based on a short-term funding mechanism from the state.

Emma says that other than the alternative compensation proposal, there isn’t anything to report because they haven’t met with the teachers, although they are meeting soon and will be getting a proposal from the teachers.

Pam asks for questions or comments about what people have heard since a letter about the negotiations from the Superintendant was sent out.  Peggy says “everything I’ve seen and every thing I’ve gotten has been really positive” including form people in different labor organizations.  Peggy says that the push-back that she has gotten has been from a couple teachers in “the old guard” who would have had a hard time regardless of what would have happened.  Peggy says that a lot of the new teachers, and parents especially, have been really pleased.

Tom laughs that “new teachers” are twenty-year veterans, but Peggy says seriously that teachers at Lucy Laney, the fresh started school, are the sort of teachers she is talking about.  Peggy says “I think we are doing the right thing”.

Pam says that she also has heard nothing but positive things. 

Pam says “just so people know”, there are a number of public officials who wanted to see this statement circulate, including the City Council and the Mayor.  Pam says that we should talk about going to the press with this.  Emma says that “we did” and there wasn’t much response.  Pam says that the press didn’t do anything with the press release, which really didn’t say very much, but the superintendant’s letter is something quite different and “actually says exactly what’s going on”.

Bill Green says that he wouldn’t expect the press to publish the letter for a couple reasons.  Bill says that “they know they are missing stories now” and for whatever reasons he doesn’t anticipate too much more coverage from the Star Tribune.  He says that Terry Collins told him that the paper was looking to fill up space on the page, and that means they are looking for benign, feel-good stories with pictures. Bill says that the other part is, with the exception of strategic planning and such things, they may be inhibited about doing anything that seems to defer or advance the argument of one side rather than the other.  Bill says that he doesn’t think that they want to get involved with labor disputes.

However, Bill says that “they” may be sympathetic and that “we” can talk about this when “we” meet with the editorial board.  Bill says that he doesn’t think it would harm “us” to present it to the paper again, but “it’s a strange paper now”, to which Tom agrees.

Peggy suggests bypassing the Star Tribune altogether, and sending it out to local or ethnic press who are “starving for news”.  Pam suggests that the administration make a formal proposal to MPS Communications head Becky Christiansen about sending out the letter to these papers.  Bill says that “there are some papers who would definitely publish it”. Tom agrees with sending it out to the smaller papers. 

Sharon says that earlier in the meeting, Dan had mentioned that in the next negotiation session the administration could read the union’s reaction to the letter as a barometer of their perspective, then move forward based on that.  Sharon says that she thinks this is a reasonable caution and Pam agrees, saying the next session is so soon.  Sharon asks the administration that if they did see something in that meeting [some movement from the teachers], would they recommend that the letter not go out to the press.  Emma says she doesn’t think it is very likely to see significant movement from the teachers in the next negotiating session, “but you never know”. 

Dan says that the interesting thing is that MFT has never written a formal proposal, so “we” are curious to see what it looks like.  Emma says that she does remember one Halloween when the teachers carried a coffin through the administration building, “then we may get a picture in the paper”.  Emma says “I would be prepared for anything to happen at this point”.

Sharon says that she doesn’t want something as innocent as a letter to make the process antagonistic, so if the negotiators “see something”, then “maybe we do need to back up”.  Pam says that she thinks Sharon’s caution is right, that “we should definitely wait”.  Pam says that continuing to push the envelope will help us, and so we want to be really cautious.  Pam says that the letter had good effect, but they want to keep the process moving forward, so now they should rely of the judgment of the administration negotiators.