The session starts up about 8:45. Emma thanks the teachers for meeting on this day, a day that should have been a free day for them. Emma says that the administration team has closely examined the MFT proposal presented at the last negotiation session, and that they "pored over it" with the Board and senior MPS administration. Emma notes that the administration response to the MFT proposal, and the administration's own proposal, were viewed specifically with an eye to the changes being discussed in the district now, such as the strategic planning recommendations and the high school changes. Emma says that the negotiation will be in mediation soon, and she hopes that the negotiators can make some good progress before that point. Emma passes out one sheet of paper that summarizes the administration's response to the MFT proposal on one side, and summarizes the administration's proposal on the other. Emma says that she will first review the district response to the MFT proposal. She says that if one scans the summary administration response, one will see a lot of "no"s. Emma says that the administration is not accepting the 5% annual salary increases proposed by MFT, instead it is proposing "other numbers". Emma says that the administration responds "no" on some deferred compensation cap, and also on something else about excess time. Emma says the administration responds "yes" on some retirement thing [just wait, these are all explained later]. Emma talks about some cost issue related to teacher liability insurance associated with transporting students. She reports that the administrators have had discussions with the MPS Risk Management department and that the general thinking is that the MPS Transportation department should really deal with this, as they are professional drivers [presumably meaning that the professional drivers should transport students, not teachers]. Emma says that the MFT proposal about counting students differently met with mixed responses, including some strong objections. Emma says that the district is not willing to accept the particular proposal of MFT [of having class size limits and counting high-needs students as more than one student], but they are willing to look at some alternative compensation mechanism that uses this sort of student counting, as long as the mechanism is connected to student achievement. Emma says that the administration can't agree to the particular changes in bidding dates proposed by MFT, but that they could do something about this if MFT has general agreement to the administration's proposal about transfer and reassignment. Emma asks if there are any questions, and only one teacher responds pointing out a typo on the printed sheet. Emma invites the negotiators to flip the page, and to review the summary of the administrations proposal. Emma notes that the administration's commitment to any particular item is contingent upon MFT acceptance of all the items; that the administration reserves the right to pull any single item from consideration. She says that such a stipulation is common in labor negotiation processes. Emma says that the district's salary proposal is to give a "$1500 lump-sum increase pro-rated by FTE". She says that the district is working in serious financial constraints, and that the district has a limited budget to make a settlement. Emma says that the administrations proposal represents "what we have", that it is not a low-ball offer as the administration might open a typical negotiation with, instead, the salary proposal put forth by the district is "what we can afford". Emma says that the negotiators can look at alternative proposals, but the sum cost of the administration's proposal represents "what we have". Emma says "we can't plan anything for next year", so the administration will seek a teacher compensation increase for the 08/09 school year through the ATTPS and alt-comp systems. Emma says that the administration is working on costing out both the MFT and the administration's proposals, but developing a full-cost estimate of the proposals is complicated. Emma says that the district expects to have complete cost estimates ready early next week. Emma moves on to medical coverage, saying that the administration proposes to replace fully-paid health insurance benefit with a benefit of the actual current cost (~$5700), and then keep this amount the same for the second year of the contract. She further says something about increasing the family-coverage amount, but she is interrupted by a teacher asking her to repeat the health insurance proposal, particularly that the administration is proposing to pay the full cost of 2008 health insurance, but not the full cost of 2009 health insurance. Emma confirms this, but notes that there is some limiting cost of health insurance increases, a "15% rate cap increase". Emma describes that the administration is proposing incentives for early notification of retirement, and this means increasing the early-notification incentives to $3000 and $2000, which is a doubling of the current incentives. However, this would only be in effect for 2008, and than it would be eliminated altogether. Emma also describes some related incentive connected to retirees increase health reimbursement, for teachers who retire in June 2008. [The Minnesota State Retirement System has a post-retirement health-care savings account to which the district makes an annual contribution for retirees. The contribution amount is dependant on the date of retirement (after 1991), and is defined in the contract, with a maximum of $3000 annual for teachers who retired in the past six years. The administration is proposing to increase that $3000 for teachers who announce their intention to retire in early 2008]. Emma says that after 2008, the retiree health reimbursement thing would go back to the amount proposed by MFT [I'm not clear exactly what that amount is]. A teacher asks a clarifying question, which Emma answers, but she then adds that the administration's proposed contract preamble describes the district as being at a turning point and that it is a desire of the administration to work with the teachers as partners. Emma then turns to Article II (Teacher Assignments and Schedules) and says that this section is really about professional expectations. Emma says that there is a change in prep time "to focus on need of students", and there is some deletion of a "duty day", but she then turns over the description of the administration's proposal to Laurie Steiger. A copy of a modified Article II is passed out, and Laurie walks the group through each proposed change. Laurie says that the administration's proposal "took out a lot of stuff that didn't need to be in the contract". She describes that there is an added provision about principals providing some time for something. She notes the there is something added about "reform schools", that such schools could have longer duty day. The administration proposes that the duty day for teachers would be no less than 7.75 hours rather than no more than 7.75 hours that is stated in the current contract. Emma speaks up and says that "reform school" is the term for newly reformed schools that is being used in the administration, but that she doesn't like that title, and would be open to suggestions for an alternate title of such schools. Laurie describes some administration proposal about a change in schedule that could be authorized by a site administrator [typically a principal] regarding parent/teacher conferences. She also describes that the administration proposal would allow the length of the school year at "reform schools" to be different from what is currently defined in the contract, and she describes some change that would eliminate holiday pay for the 4th of July if there was no scheduled school that week. A teacher asks a question about the administration's proposals to allow increased hours in a day and increased days in a year. The teacher asks if the longer work time would mean more money. Pat Pratt-Cook replies that it is the intention that teachers who work more would get paid more. Rob asks just where in the administrations proposal that is stated, and Pat replies flatly that it is not specifically stated anywhere in the contract language. This leads to a minor uproar and laughter from some teachers. Laurie moves on to a provision about personal leave. She describes something that would allow teachers to use "personal time" on a day the getting to work was difficult (due to snow or such), but school was still open. A teacher asks what would happen if the Governor closes the schools. It is clarified that the described change would only be effective when the schools are not closed, and that school closing days are usually made up later. Another teacher makes a comment about the unreasonableness of making students go to school when travel is too difficult for teachers. Laurie continues, highlighting a number of changes about summer school teachers. Laurie notes that the administration considers summer-school teachers to be "at-will" employees, and that summer-school teachers can be released at the administration's discretion. She notes that seniority has no relevance in summer school staffing. Laurie further describes a proposed change to contract language about nurses, a change to a labor/management ECFE committee, and some language that notes that ECFE teachers are not covered by the teacher tenure act. Laurie indicates that this the end of proposed changes to Article II. Emma announces that a copy of Article III (Teacher Rights and Responsibilities) with proposed changes is being passed out. A teacher asks the administration about when the school calendar committee will start meeting, as he was supposed to be on the committee and he hasn't heard anything about plans. An administrator says that Bernadeia will start the process of convening the calendar committee shortly after Thanksgiving. Laurie continues leading the group through the proposed changes of Article III. She says that the proposed revisions to Article III took a bunch of language about professional responsibilities from Article V (Professional Development). She says that the proposed changes removed outdated language about teacher job classification and licensure. She notes a change about notice of resignation, and she says that the proposed changes generally "eliminated information that doesn't need to be in the contract". As some of the details in the handout are examined, several typos are found, and as the administrators discuss this, they conclude that the copies will need to be updated. The administrators eventually request that the distributed copies be returned, as the typos are so significant, they might cause undue confusion. Emma says she has everybody's email addresses and she will send out a corrected copy shortly after the meeting. A teacher asks about the parts of Article V that were added to Article III, and what this means for Article V. Emma says that in the district's proposal much of Article V is gone, and that this is part of something that the negotiators had previously discussed, to remove the non-greivable articles from the contract, to instead to have the administration and the teachers work together to change these into district policy. The teachers don't seem to recall this discussion the same way, and a couple teachers express surprise that the whole Professional Development Process (PDP) is being proposed to be removed from the contract document. Emma apologizes for misunderstandings in communication, but then moves on. Emma says that the administration has no proposed revisions of Article IV (Shared Leadership for Continuous Improvement) or Article V (Professional Development) [which together constitute 84 pages of the current contract], because, as she just discussed, the administration proposes to remove these Articles from the contract altogether. She notes that this means all subsequent articles in the administration's proposal should be renumbered, but that the administration did not do this, to help in clarifying the discussion. Emma says that the negotiators had previously reached a tentative agreement on Article VI (Student Behavior/Discipline) [although this is another non-greivable article], so the administration proposes no further changes to that. Emma then says that the district is proposing to consolidate Article VII (Basic Salaries and Rates of Pay) and Article VIII (Other Assignment, Work, and salary Schedules), and an administrator passes out copies of the proposed revised and consolidated Article. Emma describes a proposed change to the first line of Article VII, which in the current contract says that teachers are paid in accordance with one of two salary plans, either the "standard salary schedules" or the "professional pay plan", which is referred to as ATPPS (defined in a MOA discussed later). Emma says that the administration's proposal is to have the first year of the contract use a combination of the two plans, and then have the second year be exclusively the ATPPS pay plan. She further describes several language changes that reflect this basic change; dates for the ATPPS schedule and elimination of PDP credits (because PDP things are not part of ATPPS pay structure). Emma notes changes to salary bonuses for early notification of retirement, that the amounts in the current contract are proposed to be doubled (and the dates are moved up in the calendar), to $3000 for notification in February and $2000 for notification in March. Emma says that the proposal deleted a part about "demonstration teaching", and the whole introduction to the current Article VIII. She says that the proposal deletes language about hourly-rate teachers, because there are no such teachers. Emma says that there was lots of "irrelevant verbiage" in this section, and it was a goal of the administration's proposal to remove most of this. There are some typos in this section of proposed language also, and some discussion between teachers and administrators about typo corrections. Emma asks if there are any questions about the proposed changes, and there being none, she says that the discussion will move right along to Article IX (Reserve Teachers). Emma first says that there are no proposed changes to this Article, but then the administrators discuss this a bit and decide that there are minor changes that are "not significant". Pat describes the changes as striking language about a reserve teacher task force (which apparently has completed its work and been dissolved), and some changes to reserve teacher compensation, "building plan coverage", and a change in the "cadre rate", which is the basic pay rate for reserve teachers. Emma then moves on to Article X (Group Benefits), and a copy of this is passed out. Emma says that the administration proposal increases the district contribution to the cost of health-care coverage for dependants from the 06/07 amount of $2500 to $2750 for 07/08 and $3000 for 08/09. The district proposal also includes this same change for spouses and domestic partners. Emma also describes something about a bonus this year's early-notice retirees would receive, but it's not clear if this is the same as what was discussed in Article VII. [The bonus for early notification of retirement that is defined in Article VII is replicated in Article X. I'm pretty sure, but not absolutely positive, that this is what was said. The discussion was a bit technical and I had none of the referenced printed material available.] Emma notes that the District Annual Match Payment program is obsolete, and she describes a change to the district's maximum aggregate contribution to "Retiree Health Reimbursement". The number for this on the printed handout has one too many zeros, as did one number describing the district's contribution to health-care coverage costs. The negotiators share laughs about these typos. A teacher has a question about how the administration's proposal affects some part of the process for retiree reimbursements. An administrator says that the administration is not proposing any changes to the process, just costs. Emma skips over Article XI (Personal Injury / Property Benefits) and moves onto Article XII (Leaves of Absence). Emma says that the district proposal limits all leaves of absence to one year in length, with the exception of long-term disability and some other leave rational that is not entirely voluntary. Emma says that the district is also proposing to limit the number of leaves-of-absence to one per year for teachers in some areas such as speech that are more specialized and therefore harder to find temporary replacements for. Emma also says that the district proposes to eliminate 3/4 sabbaticals, and to eliminate language about Distinguished Teachers [which provides some additional financial incentives to teachers who are so designated by a joint labor/management committee], saying that such things would be rolled into the ATTPS process. Rob asks about the reason for the elimination of the 3/4 sabbatical, and Pat replies saying something about how these sabbaticals led to pay screw-ups in the past. Rob asks if there is any reason such problems couldn't be solved by technology. Emma and the administrators say something about retirement pay calculations, and reference some particular case where a teacher took a sabbatical during his last four years of teaching and this somehow complicated his retirement pay calculation. A teacher familiar with the specific case talks about how it was resolved, that it had something to do with the recent change in teacher retirement law, and that some sort of legislation had to be passed just for the teacher under discussion. Rob's question is not really answered, but the discussion moves on. Emma says that Laurie will discuss Article XIII (Working Conditions), as a modified copy of the Article is passed out. Laurie describes that many of the changes involve taking language out of the contract that the administrators didn't think was necessary. She describes that they took something out about cleaning agents, some reference to the federal ADA legislation, and something about notifications for workplace construction. She talks about complaints regarding working conditions and about how to resolve workplace safety concerns, and she says something about how these are really issues that need to be resolved through good-faith discussions. There are quite a few minor things that are struck out in the administration's proposed modification of this Article. Laurie continues saying something about prep time [which must be about specialists, as the general prep time definition is not included in this Article] and she describes some change to "professional work space" that is about sort of about desks. Laurie also says that the administration's proposal removes the call-out about elementary specialist teachers' professional workspace [which would seem to resolve the "desks" issue previously discussed in the negotiations.] Laurie describes a change to the general definition of workplace harassment that is in the contract, because the current definition does not fit with a more standard legal definition of harassment. She also describes a change in the process for filing a workplace conflict complaint, allowing the complainant to address their concern to more possible people. Laurie also describes a proposed change to the Conflict Resolution Process, saying that the process, as defined in the contract, really isn't workable. Emma announces that she is passing out the administration's proposed changes to Article XIV (Grievance Procedure). Laurie describes that here again the administration "removed lots of unnecessary language". She described that in this Article, as with others, the administration was trying to clean up and streamline the contract language, in an effort to take out "extra" language and "get down to basics". Laurie says that the introductory paragraph is struck out in the proposal. She further says that the administration proposal strikes out specifics about who is necessary to be present at a Level II review of a grievance (the "Employer Representative" level). Laurie says that the only "substantive change" to Article XIV is about how grievance move to the arbitration level. Laurie says that the district is spending "thousands of dollars" on this level of grievance resolution, and the administration doesn't think that this is a good use of the district's money, administrator's time, or the union's time. She also describes a change to contract language that says something about the finality of an arbitrator's decision, because state law is clear that arbitration decisions such as these can be appealed. Emma notes that on the sheet that summarized the district's proposal the titles of a couple Articles were transposed, but that the next one for consideration is Article XV (Job Share Procedures). Emma notes that this is another non-greivable article, and so the district proposal eliminates it. Emma says that the next article (apparently transposed in the list she is following) is Article XVII (Technology), and she sys that this is an article for which the negotiators had a tentative agreement. Emma asks if the negotiators would like a break (as it is now about an hour and one half into the discussion), but Rob and the teachers decline, saying that they would instead like to "push on through". Emma then passes out a proposed version of Article XVI (Transfer, Reassignment and Recall). She says that in part of this Article, the administration proposes to add something about needing to hire and retain a diverse teaching staff. Emma also says that what has been previously described in this article as a "position", the administration is proposing to change to be described as an "assignment". Emma says that there are significant changes to this part of the contract setting up an interview-and-select process. She describes the main change to teacher placement as instituting a process for interviewing and selecting teacher candidates for a job. She says that teacher vacancies will be filed by a site team interviewing and selecting a teacher candidate, with the final approval of the principal (or site administrator) and MPS Human Relations. Emma describes that this change leads to lots language to be deleted from the contract document. Rob speaks up and says "Just to clarify, if a teacher with 25 years of experience does not get a position, they are let go?". Emma responds saying that the actual piece of proposed language that she just reviewed does not address that issue, that the language currently being described only talks about the selection process, and not the dismissal process. Emma continues with the proposed language, describing an added provision allowing the Superintendent to transfer any teacher at any time. Emma points to the section about voluntary transfer and says that there are lots of changes to that section. She describes a new process of posting teacher job vacancies online. She further notes that in the MFT proposal, it was suggested that teaching positions would be posted with the specific grade assignment, and that the administration would be open to that if the teachers would agree to the basic framework being proposed about teacher placement. A teacher reminds the administrator that the proposal about grade assignment designation was only about elementary teachers, and the administrators acknowledge this. Rob asks how it would be handled if thirty teachers signed up for a posted vacancy, if the site team would interview all thirty candidates. Emma says that is not the intention of the administration's proposal, and that again, the details of exactly how the new system worked could be discussed if the teachers agree to the basic structure of the administration's proposal. Emma continues, talking about how excessed teachers would be placed. Emma says that if an excessed teacher is unassigned at the end of the district's interview-and-select process, then they would be placed by MPS Human Relations. Emma further describes some change to "staff adjustment" language, something about reassignment of teachers, and some other language clean-up. She also notes some deleted language about realigned and reassigned teachers. Emma describes a proposed change about qualifications for teachers in NLL (native language learner), immersion, and heritage-language programs. She describes a change to teacher positions that are "citywide assignments", saying that these would be assigned by MPS Human Resources. Emma also describes some proposed change about teachers who have their assignments reduced, and she notes modifications to the recall procedure, which is "trying to tighten up some timelines". Emma moves on to the section about layoff, and she pauses before proceeding, saying that is "one of the toughest parts of this whole situation". She says that throughout the whole administration proposal, there is an effort to tighten up timelines and encourage early retirement notification, all in an effort to reduce the number of layoffs. Emma describes the administration's layoff proposal, saying that the least senior teachers would be laid off first, but there is the possibility of retaining low-seniority teachers who may otherwise be laid off, if there is some specific educational need of the program, assignment or site. If this out-of-seniority-order layoff were to happen, the district would identify the teachers who are laid off in place of the protected teachers with lower seniority, and these out-of seniority-order layoff teachers would have some sort of position guaranteed in the district for two years. At this point, one of the teachers points out some math errors in one of the tables proposed by the administrators, and while everybody is correcting these, Rob asks the administrators to clarify the "tail end" of the process they just proposed. Rob asks about the more-senior teacher who is dismissed in place of the protected less-senior teacher, clarifying that it is correct that this more-senior person would be "put somewhere" for two years. Emma confirms this, and Rob asks if this would happen with 30 or 50 teachers. Emma says that this many teachers could theoretically be affected by this process, but that this carrying of extra teachers would be a "real cost" to the district, and this cost would help prevent the protection of less-senior teachers from being an "arbitrary or capricious" process. Rob follows up on this answer, asking how many teachers the administration thinks could be expected to fall into this extra category. Emma replies that there are too many variables, such as retirements, to make an accurate prediction. Rob suggests that the administration may want to try to define a cost of this part of the proposal. Emma replies to Rob and the teachers that there is a lot of work on this Article that could be done together by the teachers and the administration, given the basic structure proposed by the administration. She says to the teachers "we are looking to work with you on that". Emma than turns to Article XVIII (Seniority), and passes out a modified copy. [This is the last Article of the contract, and is only a half-page long.] Emma highlights only an additional sentence about removing seniority as a factor in the interview-and-select process. Emma then turns to Steve Liss and says "Steve take it away." Steve passes out something he says is a proposal to extend the self-governed schools (SGS) MOA. Steve acknowledges that there have been "fits and starts" with the SGS process, and that some of that has been the fault of the administration. Steve notes however, that the SGS structure fits with the McKinsey recommendations, and that the district is interested in moving forward on this. Steve notes that one important change the administration is proposing is to take some of the things that are defined as options in the state law, and to make those an integral part of the MPS SGS process. Steve highlights three things like this; the establishment of a performance contract, establishing site selection of teachers, and establishing teacher selection of school leader, with the additional qualification that this leader must be selected from a pool approved by the administration. A teacher asks if the school leader could be a teacher and Steve replies that this would be possible, as long as the teacher was in the administration-approved pool. Emma then says that "last but not least" is the proposed ATPPS MOA. The administrators pass out a proposed revision of this MOA, and Emma says that there is a lot of work on this MOA that could still be done, but that she wanted to get the framework out there as a basis for future discussion. Emma says that for the first year of the contract (07/08) the ATPPS mechanism would continue as it currently stands. However, during this "transition year" there would be a need to finish developing the teacher assessment instrument that has long been a part of the ATPPS process. Emma says that the modified ATPPS proposal would have changes in salary "lanes" based on education (as it is currently), but also on TAP (Teacher Advancement Program) and Propay (Professional Pay Plan), both State-funded alternative teacher compensation programs. Salary "step" changes would be based on assessment. Emma also says that under the administration's proposal, "professional growth credits" (PGCs, professional-development-type credits, which in the current contract an be accumulated to an amount that will facilitate a salary schedule lane change) would be one-time payments [presumably instead of lane changes]. A teacher says that it would be useful to see the actual salary schedule being proposed by the use of the ATPPS mechanisms, and Emma replies that she is still "costing" the proposal, but that she thinks it would provide an increase for most of the schedule. Emma further notes that the proposal would improve the "front end" of the salary schedule [presumably lower-seniority teachers] so that it is more competitive. Emma says that in the middle and end [highest seniority] of the salary schedule, MPS is more than competitive, in that area MPS is actually the leader. Emma describes another change about PGCs, saying that PGCs that are currently "banked" would be paid off at 50%. A teacher asks to confirm this, that PGCs she thought held future value would be cashed out immediately at 50%. Emma confirms this, saying that there is a lot of concern from the Board and the administration about future salary liability, and that it is a primary concern now to not set up a dependence on state money that may not be there in the future. Another teacher says that from her assessment of the administration's proposal, salary lane changes could only be made through college credits, TAP, or Propay. She says that state law requires that everybody needs to be able to have some mechanism that can help them access salary lane changes. The teacher says that the administration's proposal is getting rid of ATPPS and going back to just TAP and Propay. Emma denies this assertion, saying that the ATTPS mechanism is still there, but it's just now a one-time payment rather than a salary schedule adjustment. Emma also notes that the revised ATPPS mechanism is also a place where there could be some supplemental compensation mechanism based on the alternative student counts that the teachers outlined in their proposal. Emma says that this concludes her description of the administration's proposal, and she proposes a break for the negotiators. Everyone agrees, the teachers leave the room and retreat to another room ad close the door. I go wait in the hall, as Emma indicates that the administrators wish to caucus in private. It is only five or ten minutes before the teachers return from their discussion to the main negotiating room. As the negotiators are returning, Emma says that the administrators have come up with the total teacher cost increase that they are working with, which is $9,690,000 [annually, I believe], which represents to total of what the district has available to cover increased teacher costs. After everyone is reseated at the table, Rob says "I just want to ask if the district team thinks that this proposal is respectful of Minneapolis teachers". Emma replies that the administration would not have presented a proposal that they did not think was respectful, and a few other administrators concur. Rob says "I'll take that as a yes". Rob says that the teachers can't meet on the following Monday as had been planned, and that they will next meet the following Friday, November 30. There is some discussion about the timing for the next Friday, as that is a school day, and some of the teachers have classroom responsibilities that day. There is some discussion about meeting later in the day on Friday or even on Saturday. Emma says that the administration team is flexible on times, although Steve Liss notes that the Saturday under discussion is also the date of a Board retreat, where some of the senior administration will be. Ignoring most of the scheduling conversation, Rob says to Emma that she started off this discussion saying that she thought we could work through some things before we focused on Article XVI (Transfer, Reassignment and Recall). Rob says that he can't understand how the administrators could think that, given what they just presented. He says that mediation needs to begin immediately, and the winter break is "cancelled for everybody". The question about the schedule for the next session resurfaces, with teachers trying to figure out who can be there and who can't. It is decided that the exact schedule will have to be decided later, and the meeting ends at 10:55. |