Present: Pam Costain, Tom Madden, Lydia Lee, T Williams, Sharon Henry-Blythe, Emma Hixson, Mauri Melander, Alan Giles, and Bill Green

Emma starts off the meeting saying that they have not negotiated since her last discussion with the board. She says that the next session is that coming Thursday, and that the negotiations “are still plowing through the identification of interests”.

Emma describes what interests the teachers have presented. She says that a number of the issues that the teachers have identified are issues that could be addressed in other forums.  As an example, Emma says that one of the teacher issues is that there are too many district initiatives.  Emma suggests that this could be taken up by the Professional Leadership Team, which consists of representatives from MFT, the Principals Forum, and the district administration.

Emma says another big issue for the teachers is time, particularly protecting their prep time.  Emma says that this issue is already well-defined in the contract and so is something that could also be resolved in another forum.

Emma describe that the teachers are interested in class size and caseload and that they want to mandate certain class sizes, which Emma says that “we” are not going to do.  Lydia asks if they are talking about caps, Emma says that the teachers want to define maximum caseload numbers, which are just stated as guidelines in the contract. Emma says that the administration is going to invite the teachers to continue to work together with the administration to find creative solutions like the Northside initiative, where “you can pool resources.”

Emma says that the teachers have identified facilities and work equipment issues, which she thinks are already covered in the contract. 

Emma says that the teachers identified issues around leadership.

Emma says that the teachers are interested in processes and policies around accountability and stability.  She says that we will be able to tell them about the work we are doing in that area, but “it’s not something that we are going to negotiate into their contract.”  Pam asks if she is referring to what is happening with principals and Emma confirms.  Lydia asks if we could take accountability efforts further than principals. Emma describes that a new evaluation process that is being applied to district administrators soon and then to principals this fall.

Emma says that the other big issues of the teachers are special education, caseload, lack of time, and lack of materials.  Emma says that the teachers have concerns about the process of working with AYP schools.  And Emma says “last and probably least is that they have problems with the K-5 report card”. 

Tom asks if the district can just say that “we all know these aren’t contract issues, so can we move on”.  Emma says that their team is going to respond with just that sort of statement and point out a proper forum for addressing each issue, such as a labor/management committee or the Professional Leadership Team. 

Emma says “so you can see that they haven’t given us much meat here about what they want”.  Tom asks if issues like this are typical for MFT or if they are the result of new leadership.  Emma says that what MFT appears to have done is put out a call to all teachers to identify individual issues, but they didn’t take time to sift through the responses at all and to think if some of the issues could be addressed in other ways.

Emma says that when MFT was talking about their identified issues, the administration team did suggest that many of the issues could be resolved outside of the contract negotiation, and Emma says that she had a private conversation with Rob where he generally agreed with this.   However, Emma says, when you take away all of the issues that could be resolved elsewhere, there is not much left.  Tom says “Well, good”.

Emma recites the districts issues; teacher transfer and layoff, professional development, alternative compensation, salary and benefits, technology and housekeeping.  Emma says that the teachers share all of these issues, so it looks like these are going the issues, as it doesn’t look like there will be too much left of what they brought forward that doesn’t fall under those categories.

Emma says that MFT will want to set up a subcommittee about something.  She says that the administration is a bit reluctant about using subcommittees, but hopefully such subcommittees will have very specifically defined assignments, rather than looking for things to write language about, which can make the process very inefficient.

Pam asks about the overall strategy for the negotiation, saying that she is still “trying to understand how the district is thinking about this negotiation”.  Pam asks what the administration would consider a “win”. Emma says that it has been made clear to her that the big issue is interview and select and that unless they “get a substantial concession” with regard to that, she won’t be able to see much of a win. But Emma also notes that there are also other significant or problematic issues including the economic issues, alternative compensation, and professional development.

Emma notes that the “other end” of interview and select is also very important.  She says that her team has talked about the very controversial idea that the teachers who do not get placed at the end of the placement cycle would be the ones who get laid off.  Emma says that if they can do that, while protecting teachers in specialized programs, this would be a significant win.  Emma talks about looking at layoff in a new way and that they need to see if they can work together with the teachers to come up with creative solutions so “we can have stability for our kids”. 

Emma concludes that it is clear that this negotiation is going to be about staffing issues, and it seems clear to her what we need to do to get a win, but says that how we get there remains to be seen.

Emma says that she has a lot of confidence in many of the teachers on the MFT negotiating team.  She says that some of the teachers see the problems “as clearly as we do”, but she thinks Rob is a significant obstacle.  Emma notes that teacher negotiator Lynn Nordgren is not particularly interested in staffing issues, that professional development and alternative compensation is more her interest.  Emma also notes that Lynn is starting to campaign for the MFT presidency, although the election is about a year away, and she will have to take a position that will help her campaign.  Emma says that she has some indication that Lynn is starting to adopt “the Rob line” on staffing issues.

T asks about the district’s and the teachers’ position on alternative compensation.  Emma says that the last time it was up for a vote, more teachers voted in favor of the alternative compensation plan than voted in support of Rob in his election to the union presidency.  Emma says that they now have one year of experience with the current alternative compensation program and that she thinks that teacher buy-in to the program has increased.

Emma says that the district’s position on alternative compensation is that they want to move forward with it, but there need to be certain “budget parameters and safeguards” and it needs to be linked to teacher performance in significant ways.  Emma says that both of these areas (budget and performance links to alt comp) are going to be “interesting to negotiate.”  However, Emma notes that there is a “healthy bank account” for alternative compensation. 

Emma says that they alternative compensation program “requires a great deal” out of the administration.  She says that the administration is not going to want to have an investment in an alt comp program unless they feel that they have good collaborative relationship that also includes flexibility around issues like interview and select.

Lydia asks Emma if that means “we” are for it and Emma replies that the administration is for it, with certain provisos.  Emma says that it’s a tough situation and she says “we don’t have a lot to work with, folks”.  Emma says that the only money the district has to bargain with is alt comp, and alt comp money has “drawbacks and challenges”.  Emma says that the way you traditionally get concessions on things like seniority is that you buy it with salary increases.

Emma says that she has been holding back on any commitment on alt comp not only because it is the one thing that the district can give the teachers in this negotiation, but because she has real reservations about alt comp process itself.

Pam asks if there is any way to directly link interview and select and alternative compensation.  Emma says that she doesn’t know about that, but she is sure that if they get a concession on interview and select that Lynn Nordgren will find a way to link it to professional development credits, which are linked to salary increases.

T wonders if there is a groundswell of teachers who want to participate in alt comp, how much capacity does the district have to accommodate that.  Emma says that there is enough money now that all teachers could participate in the next round of alt comp if they wanted to.  Emma says that for the next year and the year that follows, there is also enough money, but a problem would arise in July 2010 if all of the teachers were enrolled in the alt comp program at that point.  Emma says that if the state did not increase its support of the program, the district would have to subsidize the increased salary levels.

T says that this suggests that some caution is warranted in promoting alt comp if there is a possibility that district commitment to teacher salaries would extend beyond the point of state support for part of that salary commitment.  T acknowledges that alternative compensation is a potentially volatile political issue.

Emma notes that Denver is funding their alt comp program through a referendum.  Emma says that she has had conversations with Peggy Ingison about this and how alt comp would perhaps relate to the district’s budget reserve strategy.

Emma says that teacher’s salaries will increase anyway between now and July 2010 and that there will be some increases in baseline state funding but how state funding and salaries match in the future remains to be seen.  Emma says that doing alt comp a year at a time limits the risk.

Tom says that in an ideal world, contract language would be tied to state funding, saying that teacher compensation that is based on state money only exists as long as the state money does.  Tom suggests that teachers might say that they are not negotiating strings attached to alt comp because it is “free money”, but if the state’s rules change, the district is “left holding the bag”.  Emma says that the alt comp program could stop moving forward, but that when this happens teachers return to the standard schedule at the higher salary level.  Emma says that this is the way the program was designed at the start and that she thinks that the teachers are unlikely to agree to anything else, because it affects their retirement.

Emma says that the district making a commitment to sustain teacher salaries that were developed under alt comp would be taking a risk and treating teachers like professionals, so it would be appropriate to ask the teachers to do something different that would about be about acting like professionals. Mauri suggests that they could create a deal with the teachers that said if the state funding for alt comp disappeared that the district would be willing to seek other ways to fund the salary increases that came as a part of the alt comp program.  Mauri says that this sort of deal might be the only “gold nugget” that the district could offer in this negotiation.

Mauri says that a lot of we are doing is generally just the right thing to do, like the new principal accountability and the administrator accountability.  Mauri says that these accountability mechanisms are not part of what the district is trying to achieve through bargaining, but interview and select, accountability, and compensation are all achieved in bargaining.  Mauri says that if you want to interview and select based on performance and accountability then you should also be able to compensate based on performance and accountability.  Mauri says that as a teacher there is nothing worse than teaching your heart out and having the teacher next to you just shows up, while you both get paid the same.

Pam says that this is the link that she was asking about, connecting alt comp and interview and select.  Emma says that this is a problem with interest-based bargaining, that you can’t really do a quid pro quo approach, but she plans to say at the next negotiating session that everyone needs to be realistic about the fact that there are always trade-offs.  Emma agrees that the “big thing we have to offer” in the negotiation is the continuation of the alt comp program.

Mauri says that an argument she hears is that you don’t go to a doctor or a lawyer that doesn’t have a good reputation or can’t do their job, so why should teachers be any different?  Mauri says that teachers will argue that if you do a better job you should be more well compensated.  Mauri says that it seems to her that performance and compensation could be linked, but she doesn’t understand how that fits with the current negotiation process.

T says that the real challenge is gaining concensus on the performance and appraisal of a teacher, or just understanding what does doing a good job look like.  T says that it would be a particular challenge to have the teachers and the administration agree on what a good job of teaching looks like.  T notes that this is a historical problem with labor negotiation in general, that qualitave evaluations of performance are generally not part of labor agreements and that this is related to a lack of trust between labor and management.

Lydia reminds T that the contract contains “standards of effective instruction” and that principals are supposed to use that when they are observing teachers. T acknowledges this fact, but he asks where the data is about what it looks like when these standards are effectively used.  He says that different principals will interpret standards differently and that this is where teachers become concerned. T says that the challenge is getting the buy-in to participate in a process that will allow teachers to be assessed on their individual performance because they have the relationship that will allow that to happen.  T says that we don’t have principals who have invested enough time in building that relationship.

Emma says that T has hit on the key issue of alt comp. Emma says that the reason she “started down that road to begin with” was to “try to clarify and highlight the performance piece”. Emma says that the standards of instruction are “wonderful”, but they break down in implementation.  Emma says that a lot of this is a principal development issue, but it is also an issue on the teachers’ part about how open they are to that assessment.  

Emma says that she saw alt comp as a route to increased professional development and increased assessment.  Emma says that now she is seeing alt comp as a bargaining chip for interview and select, so she is wondering how she can bargain like this and at the same time get more out of the assessment piece.  Emma says that she has been pushing hard for alt comp to balance the interview and select piece and has not been pushing the connection of alt comp and assessment.

Emma then says that she wants to tell the Board about an idea she had for layoff, (which she apparently hasn’t discussed with anyone else).  Emma proposes a strategy of suggesting to the teachers that layoffs could be avoided if some of their costly benefits were limited. Emma says deferred compensation costs $1.6 million per year, and she thinks that they could propose to the teachers that there could be a direct exchange of less teachers laid off in return for cost-saving benefit reductions.  Emma suggests that the union could essentially buy back laid-off teachers by negotiating reduced benefits.  Emma says that the district doesn’t want to lay of teaches and that they need to put some of the onus of the costly benefits of the teachers.  Lydia points out that the total $1.6 million equals 20 teachers.  Emma says that there are other costly benefits such as the wellness program and the retiree premium.

Emma says that if “we” had not had the interview and select issue, “we” would have gone into the negotiations “leaning hard on the money” or seeking some concessions on these “costly benefits”, in addition to leaning hard on performance assessment.  However, Emma says, she has not pushed those things because of the focus on the selection process.

Pam says that the district needs to have a number of things that it wants in order to get what it really wants.  Pam says that this is why she has been pushing the question about what the district’s strategy is.  Pam says that the district should be asking for five things if they really want to get two.  Pam says that this is the way it usually works.  Emma says that if there is one thing the teachers want it is probably alt comp.

Pam then “shifts gears” and revisits the question about the role of Board members in the negotiations.  Pam says that she wants to discuss the possibility of Board members observing the negotiations, and more generally, the Board’s public presence around the negotiations.

Emma says that they administration team gave the teacher negotiators copies of the core belief statements that the board created in February.  Emma says that the communications department “did them up” on parchment paper with little ribbons.  Emma says that she thinks that the presentation of these had an impact.  Emma says that they used this presentation to set a high tone and to demonstrate that the board views teachers as “values partners”. Emma says that it is her preference for the Board to stay at that level with the negotiations.

Emma says that they have agreed with the MFT negotiators that they will issue newsletters “fairly frequently” about what occurs in negotiations.  Emma says that when they finish with the issues and interests part that they are in now, they will publish the results of that.  Other than this communication, she says that any statements will go through her and Rob.

Emma says she doesn’t feel strongly about Board members attending the negotiations.  Emma says that Rob has asked to close the negotiations because the teachers feel intimidated by having a parent observer there.  Emma says that if this is true, then it might be even a bigger deal to have Board members present.  Mauri suggests that this might not be a bad thing, and Emma reflexively agrees.

Allen Giles says that it would be a “major challenge” for MFT to unilaterally convince the Bureau of Mediation services to close the negotiations.  Emma says that she is not so sure, that she doesn’t know how such a request would play out because “this kind of thing does not happen very often”.  Emma also says that she doesn’t see any reason to close the negotiations right now.  Bill Green says that Rob is “pretty clear” that he wants to close the negotiations, but he’s not clear where the MFT executive board is. Emma says that Rob is telling her that the other teacher negotiators are feeling intimidated by the presence of an observer.

Sharon asks who in the district administration would have to agree to close the negotiations.  Emma says that either she would have to co-petition to close the negotiations or she would have to not object if Rob did.  Emma says that “technically you should go to mediation when you are at impasse and we haven’t even started negotiating, so we are certainly not at impasse, on the other hand, I don’t want to rush him to start negotiating so that we get to impasse fast.”

Pam says that if it is Emma’s judgment that Board members should definitely not attend negotiations, then she will take that direction, but if Emma is just saying she’s not sure, then Pam says she would like to go, just to get a feel for the players and the room and such things.

Lydia says that the Board discussion on strategic planning occurring that day is not on camera because they think they can have a more open and honest discussion that way.  Lydia suggests a parallel between this and a private negotiation conversation.

Chris says that it is time for the public to see what is happening in negotiations because there is so much mythologizing and chatter about what actually happens in negotiations.

Chris reminds Emma that she earlier said that she would normally go for money and performance if she weren’t focused on interview and select during this negotiation, but he thinks those two things are “right up there with interview and select”.  Chris reminds Emma about the expanding costs of health benefits and he wonders how compelled the teachers feel to help make the district solvent.

Chris mentions T’s previous comments about evaluations and Mauri’s previous example about a good teacher and a poor teacher working next to each other.  Chris says that creating a good example of evaluations and differential pay based on performance would show the rest of the world how performance is not being rewarded elsewhere. 

Chris says that our teachers are “very well-paid”.  Emma agrees that this is true at the higher end, but at the lower end, there are many other places that pay better.  Chris says that the majority of our teachers make more than $60,000 per year base compensation.  Emma says that they have trouble attracting entering teachers in science and math because the entry salaries are lower than other districts. 

Emma says that everything that the teachers have ever negotiated has been designed to benefit the more senior teachers.  Chris says that we are “at the end of the line” with that system, that the organization is becoming defunct because of this.  Chris says that he wants to put this on the table that we need to take this opportunity in negotiations to take a strong stand.

Chris also expresses frustration about a soft-pedal negotiations strategy.  Chris says that he heard Dr. Green’s suggestion in the previous discussion that we might have to wait them out, but Chris says that he also gets frustrated every time Pam asks what the strategy is and they walk away not knowing what it is.  Chris says that if all the administration is going for is interview and select, that’s not enough.  Chris says “ we have some very expensive teachers who are not performing up to task” and that “some of our worst schools have some very expensive tenured teachers in them”.

Mauri suggests that she and Emma and a few others could sit down and delineate what the “strategical concepts” are for the negotiations, which would give the Board something to sink their teeth into.  Emma says that she may not have been clear enough.  Emma says that there is perhaps confusion between strategy and goals. Chris says that he heard Emma say she would drop money and performance to win on interview and select.  Emma says that she has shifted from seeing the do-or-die issue as performance assessment and now sees it as the interview and select.  Emma says that there is a certain incompatibility of these issues.

Referencing T’s earlier comments, Mauri says  that if you asked a group of teachers to create a definition of successful teaching, the result wouldn’t be that far off what the people in the current discussion would come up with. Mauri suggests that this could be a place where teachers could bring something to the table.  Emma says that the standards are in the contract and that the question is really a process issue.  Emma says it is a question about how you assess if a teacher is meeting the standards, how this assessment would be commemorated, and such things.  

Mauri wonders if the standards of effective teaching are aligned with today’s world of NCLB and high-stakes testing.  Lydia says that the standards are about teacher behaviors and lesson planning and practices and so on.  Lydia then says that performance assessment is not black and white and that there are so many things that affect student achievement, that to say “the teacher did it” is to shortchange all of the other things that are going on in the student’s life. Chris says “it can’t be the one unjudged profession in the United States”.

Pam asks people to make their concluding remarks.

T says he does not want to attend the negotiation session because he thinks that his presence there is a dynamic that would change the negotiations and affect outcomes.

Mauri asks if we need to have a consensus on the issue of Board members attending the negotiations.  Chris laughs and says that they don’t need consensus, but Pam says that she thinks that this should not be up to individual Board members.  Emma says that right now it probably isn’t worth the time of the Board members to come, as they are just painting the scenery.  Emma suggests that they might want to wait until something of substance is being discussed.  Emma says that if you do come, you should introduce yourselves.

Emma responds to Chris’ comments about soft-pedaling and says that interest-based bargaining is supposed to be about being soft on the people but hard on the issues.

Mauri says that there are two questions left to be answered: (1) How does the Board interact with the public around this issue, and (2) should board members attend the negotiations. Mauri suggests that they talk about this at another meeting.  She proposes they meet the following Tuesday and Pam agrees.  The meeting is adjourned.