May 31, 2007 - OBSERVATION I arrived a few minutes early and walked in with an administrator. Because I know that she has been involved in previous negotiations, I asked her how typical the format and pace of these negotiation sessions are. She replied that the structure of these sessions is unusual, and that she thought they were really quite tedious so far. She said that in the past, subcommittees have been a major part of the process, and the manner and timing with which these subcommittees reported back to the master committee was chaotic. She implied that the district understood that the process being used in the current negotiations would help to reduce some of that chaos. She said that previously, subcommittees would take whole sections of the contract and pick out lots of little changes in the language, on which the master committee would spend lots of time. She understood the "issues and interests" negotiation process currently being used was supposed to help prevent some of this problem. The administrator said that she hopes that the group will really get down to negotiations once all interests and issues are identified. She says "I tell people we are just painting the scenery right now", suggesting that the real performance is yet to come. At 4:30, the scheduled start time of the meeting, there are 11 people milling about in the room. More wander in, and eventually at 4:41, Emma asks if the negotiators are ready to get going. There are 21 people by this time. There is a discussion about exactly which issues were discussed at previous sessions, and there is general agreement that earlier meetings covered technology, professional development, and transfer and layoff. Emma says she has some information about the latest AYP data for the district, and she passes out copies of this. Rob passes out something that he says describes the union interests regarding several issues including district initiatives, prep, class size/caseload, and learning/working conditions. Levai, the state mediator, gets people's attention and says that he doesn't know if everybody understands what the problem really is with each issue. Rob asks Emma if she has printed information about the additional issues, and Emma replies the she doesn't, in part because the district team feels that the issues need more discussion. Emma also says that the group needs to determine if some of these issues can be resolved in another forum. Emma then suggests that the conversation start with "district initiatives", and Rob agrees. The union interests are listed from the sheet Rob passed out; the district interests are added as the discussion proceeds. Union Interests: District Interests Emma starts by saying that the district basically agrees with MFT about there being too many initiatives, so she wonders what the negotiators need to talk about. A teacher says that the teachers have brought this issue up before and nothing has changed, and that somewhere, somehow, we need to deal with this issue. Emma agrees, and both sides discuss OCR (Office of Civil Rights) reporting, which was changed last time, and agree that minor changes were made in this process, but that this maybe isn't the best example. Emma asks if the whole issue of too many initiatives is something that can be solved by the PLT (Professional Leadership Team) and says that everybody in the district administration agrees that there are too many initiatives. The teacher says that nobody wants to let go of any initiatives and it shouldn't be left to PLT only, because the PLT doesn’t have decision-making power or authority to change things. An administrator asks the MFT negotiators about what form of a solution they would see this group producing? The teacher replies that there are teachers who love this district, but all of the work associated with initiatives is driving them away, and that the negotiations need to give those folks hope. Rob says that how teachers deal with district initiatives is really about time/working conditions, and maybe this should be considered part of that issue. There is some discussion about where exactly this topic should fit, and the conversation dies down. Emma then asks if the next issue is prep time, and the teachers agree. Emma states that this is not really an issue for negotiations, because the district administration feels that teacher prep time should be “sacrosanct”. Teachers make some grumblings about that not really being the case and Rob wryly suggests using the word “sacrosanct” in the contract. An administrator addresses the teachers and says that the district really doesn’t understand what the issue to be addressed in negotiations is. The mediator suggests that the discussion should start with a definition of what prep time is. Emma says that in the MFT contract, teachers are guaranteed 55 minutes of prep time per day. There are various comments from the teachers in effect agreeing that this is defined in the contract, but it doesn’t really work out that way in practice. One teacher (a special ed teacher) speaks up and says that she uses all of her prep time on “due process”. An administrator notes that special ed teachers have designated due process time, and the teacher notes that she uses all of that time as well for due process. [“Due process” is presumably paperwork and record keeping associated with special education] During the discussion, the union interests are recorded as listed from the sheet Rob passed out. The district interests are never explicitly stated. Several teachers speak to the fact that there are just too many different things to do during a school day; having to enter data into the OCR website is given as an example. An administrator comments that the current contract requires teaches to be compensated if they are asked to do something during their prep time, and he asks if this procedure is not being followed. A teacher talks about the fact that prep is needed for class preparation (like setting up science labs) but also for “student support”. She says that there is a fine line between the type of student support which prepares classroom learning, and the type of student support which is administrative duties. Another administrator takes a different approach to defining the issue, suggesting that the whole system is the problem and that there is generally just too much to do with too few resources. Emma states that people often talk about how agreeable teachers are to give up their prep time, and that maybe they shouldn't do that. Rob says that the problem is that teachers have to make “bad choices”, meaning that teachers have to make difficult either/or choices between competing things that all have value and need to be done. Rob also says that he understands that this is a larger problem that would not be solved exclusively in contract negotiations, but he feels there is value in approaching the problem in multiple ways, including in this discussion. Emma states that the negotiation process can look at the issue, and that she certainly agrees on the need. However, she addresses the teachers, you don’t want to have limitations on your prep time defined too tightly. She says that she can imagine that a teacher might want to run out to Starbucks during their prep time, to clear their head and get a little caffeine bump. The teachers generally seem a bit taken aback at this particular example, and there are several objections to the idea that any teacher has time or interest to go to a coffee shop during their prep time. Emma suggest that she knows of teachers who do things like this, and the conversation devolves into several people talking at once, and ends in laughter. After the uproar dies down, a teacher says that she doesn’t like Emma’s prior assertion that it is the teachers' fault for giving up their prep. Emma responds that she is constantly telling principals that they can’t require teachers to do things in their prep time, that the time is for teachers, and that some principals don’t like to hear that. Emma says that teachers should file complaints if they feel they are being required to use their prep time on something else. A teacher says that there are some principals who don’t respect prep time. Emma says that she has heard that state legislators are saying that there should be more instructional time in the school day. One teacher notes that the contract defines lost prep compensation for only very specific things, covering other classrooms, etc. There are a few more comments, then after a brief pause, a teacher addresses the mediator and asks “Did we hit the "why?" this time?" The mediator responds that they did, and there is laughter among the group. Emma then says “This is intense.”, and directs the discussion to the issue of class size and caseload. She says “well, that's an easy one to solve.” As before, the union interests are listed from the sheet Rob passed out, the district interests are added as the discussion proceeds. District interests Union interests: Emma says that this is a resource issue, and it is hard to see how that will be resolved in the context of these negotiations. She also makes some statement about there being other districts that have larger class sizes that does not negatively impact student achievement. Rob grabs on to this comment, and asks Emma if this means that the district feels that class size does not affect student achievement. Emma sidesteps Rob’s direct question as says “We just said that other districts have larger class size without lower achievement.” Rob says “Then I infer that the district feels that class size does not affect student achievement”. Emma says “Infer if you want.” A teacher asks where are these classrooms where high number student classes where doesn't matter, for which the administrators don't have an answer, and another teacher notes that Japan can have higher class size because they, as a society, are generally more obedient when a teacher requests attention. A couple teachers state that class size is a huge problem for this district, and that we need to be real careful comparing to other districts. Rob states that class size is clearly important to district because the district presented a referendum to lower class size three times and that class size is clearly important to the voters of Minneapolis, because they approved it three times. Rob also states that class size is a workload issue. Several teachers offer supporting stories: An administrator says that it is clear that having 40 kids in a class is worse than having 20, but the difference between 28 and 30 is not as clear. The administrator also says that it is all about resources, so if we want to fix a problem with class size, where does the money come from? A teacher follows saying that it's really about credibility with citizens regarding class size, that the excess-levy referendum promised maximum class sizes. Everybody agrees with this generally, including Emma, who says that the class-size limits were broken because costs went up, including costs for teachers. Emma points out that all of the referendum money is used for class size, but acknowledges that the district made a promise that it couldn't keep. At this point, the mediator suggests a fifteen-minute break, which is agreed to by everyone. At the break, I talk with a couple administrators. I remark to one administrator about this apparent tension between establishing work rules through collective bargaining and maintaining the ability to exercise professional discretion. The administrator agrees that this is a central issue in these negotiations, and she relates this to a perspective that MFT seems not to be approaching the whole negotiation discussion with the sense that the district is fighting for survival. I ask the administrator how often teachers are compensated for doing something during their prep time, and she says that this prep-time loss compensation happens "all of the time". She notes that there is a general disincentive to do this however, as the cost comes right out of the school's budget, unlike substitute teacher pay, which is covered by the district. I ask this administrator about why class size is an issue when it seems like we know how big the pot of money is to pay for teachers; recalling a Board meeting a few months ago where Peggy Ingison seemed to roughly define how much money was available for additional district expenses on teachers. The administrator acknowledged Ingison’s forecast, but says that the real issue is that the district budget is so complicated, that if the district says that something like there is only so much available for teacher compensation, nobody (in MFT) really trusts that number is true. We note the newspaper story of that same day describing that MPS financials are still disorganized. The administrator says that she has been involved in the MFT contract negotiation before, and that the process this time is different. She repeats what the other administrator told me at the beginning of the meeting, about how subcommittees really drove the topics of negotiation. She also comments that when Louise was the chief MFT negotiator for previous sessions, Louise exercised strong control about how much of the subcommittee’s work got to the master negotiation committee, or not. The state mediator brings the negotiation conversation back together. It is agreed that the next issue is learning/working conditions, and the interests are listed. District interests: Union interests: A teacher, who the MFT team seems to defer to on this issue, starts the discussion saying that schools need to be an environment where kids are not harassed or bullied. There is general agreement about this, but an administrator asks if we are in need of a policy about this. Another administrator says that we have an anti-bullying policy, which is actually "a model anti-bullying policy" and the issue is really about the consistency of how this policy is implemented. The teacher who started this discussion announces that he and another district teacher have attended some national training and are now “nationally-certified” to talk to school staff about anti-bullying. The administrator who previously talked about the district’s anti-bullying policy being a model policy, is clearly unaware of these teachers who have been through training, so as the teacher offers himself as a resource, the administrator generally acknowledged his offer. Hearing this, Emma jokes: Well there goes your prep time”, and there is laughter. Emma continues by talking about improving the procedure for notifying teachers about new students with violent histories. Rob says that the negotiators know that they all agree on the importance of the issue of bullying and harassment, but the question is what to do about it. Rob says that teachers sometimes become hands-off during a student-to-student harassment event for fear they will somehow be implicated in the harassment event. Rob says that the expectations and policies about what teachers should do during harassment events are unclear. Rob agrees with Emma that we need to define what obligation there is to tell teachers of incoming violent students. Rob also mentions that there are other parts of the issue of learning/working conditions like lighting and security. There is a break in the conversation and Emma suggests that this is as far as the discussion can go with issues. Emma suggests to the mediator that at this point the committee could set up subcommittees that could start to working on defining standards and options, the next steps in the negotiating process. Emma’s suggestion is essentially to identify the subcommittees, and assign them work to come up with standards, which they would bring back to the full committee (the master committee). A teacher suggests that that whole process of coming up with standards could be done within the context of the negotiation meetings; that the negotiation team could break up into small groups (subcommittees) during the scheduled negotiation time. However, the issue of learning/working conditions bubbles up again as a teacher says that this is her sixth negotiation session, and in every negotiation session they have talked about behavior, and they talk about defining processes for dealing with behavior elsewhere, but nothing ever gets done. The teacher says that the group needs to define what MPS is doing about behavior, in the context of these contract negotiations. Emma makes some comment questioning the value of putting detailed policy stuff in the MFT contract, as stuff like this gets lost in the contract because it is so big. An administrator notes that there is also a problem with schools getting information. Another administrator notes that there are some data privacy issues related to notification of violent students, and she reiterates that the issues regarding the bullying/harassment policy are not about needing a new policy, they are about consistency of implementation of the current policy. A teacher says that she is frustrated with this discussion, saying that negotiations have discussed this before, negotiation teams put language in the previous contract, but the problems remain. Another teacher states that the policy [of notification regarding incoming students with violent histories] is not working in her otherwise well-functioning school. An administrator states that it does work in some schools. Another teacher argues that the whole system is full of inconsistencies regarding the transfer of students. She states that principals trade problem kids “under the table”, and so she wonders how can we follow procedures if we don't know where they come from. An administrator argues that such under-the-table student transfers don’t happen, and the teacher counters forcefully that they certainly do and she knows of several specific incidents. A teacher asks about how everybody reports behavior throughout the district. She feels that there is inconsistency in people being willing to report problem behaviors because there is a fear factor, and there is limited training. Another teacher states that teachers work hard on implementing the policy, but teacher are not supported by the administration. This teacher says that she has seen where one kid strikes another, and instead of getting a suspension as policy calls for, the assailant is given a detention or some other lesser punishment, because the school does not want to have to report a suspension, which will negatively impact school report numbers. An administrator tries to change the direction of the conversation and says that the group started talking about issues and interests, and now is talking about administrative procedures. The administrator suggests that the discussion is now just short of finger pointing, with teachers saying that administrators are not enforcing policy. A teacher counters saying that administrator comments about the size of the MFT contract are similar in tone. The administrator continues, asking if they can work on separating out what needs to go to the PLC, and what really needs to be worked out in this negotiation process. He requests that the group focus on pulling out concepts and language for the contract, or, he fears, the team will never get to agreement. Another administrator says that they acknowledge the pressure on the teacher negotiators (from union members) to bring issues to the table, but he also says that very little progress will be made until we can separate out adherence to policy and negotiations. The mediator speaks up and says that the purpose of this discussion was to identify what the issues are, and that next time we can look at a few issues in detail and then move on to discussing standards and options. Rob tries to explain something about the current conversation, saying that stories come up because teacher concerns have been dismissed previously. Rob says that these are real issues that have been brought to this negotiation before and have been set aside as being solvable in other arenas. Maybe, he continues, the thing is not that teachers need to be convinced that their concerns will be addressed elsewhere, maybe the committee needs to really consider if these should be addressed in contract language. The administrator who spoke previously states that his request to narrow the list of things in the negotiation process was not a value judgment. He states that he is just asking if there is a better place to address issues. Emma speaks up says that she is trying to make the point that if we spent half the energy solving problems rather than creating contract language, we would all be much better off. Emma restates her point that we need to create other viable forums to solve problems. Emma also says that the district works to be responsive to teacher concerns and that the district has worked to solve problems, but teachers have the responsibility to bring up those problems. Emma asserts that she has never previously heard about some of the concerns relating to the behavior policy not being enforced. A teacher says something about layers of policy, and Emma says that we have created the policy, so why haven't we moved onto implementing this. This leads to a minor uproar from the whole group, before an administrator speaks about the Joint Labor Management Committee (LMC) having done a good job in this area [behavior policy]. Emma says that this suggests that the group doesn't need to negotiate this issue. Rob replies that we could boil the whole thing down to a single sentence, the last sentence in the contract article about behavior. [This bolded sentence reads, "This article shall not be subject to the grievance procedure", meaning that this is a non-enforceable part of the contract.] Rob's comment provokes a surprised, sharp response from Emma, who says something about the right to grievance and then asks a teacher to verify her assertion that the LMC has been working hard, and functioning well. The teacher doesn't really do this, and instead defers to the administrator who has been the primary defender of the existing anti-bullying policy, who in turn slips back into her defense that the policy is good, but the implementation is not. The issue seems to have lost focus, and a teacher suggests maybe subcommittees can work with the behavior section. [this seems to be a suggestion to return to the previous negotiation structure, but the idea gets no follow-up] The mediator suggests that the group is ready to do an agenda for next meeting. There is general discussion that the next negotiation session will be split between subcommittee discussions and whole committee discussions. It is noted that the planned session on June 4 was removed due to conflict with teacher interviews, so there is no meeting next week, but two meetings the following week. The mediator says that he would like to define 3-4 issues that the group would want to have subcommittees for. An administrator notes that it is already fifteen minutes past the end of the scheduled meeting time, and suggests that Emma and Rob can figure out what those issues would be between themselves. There is universal agreement, and then the meeting ends, as all have, with each participant offering a one-word summary reaction to the meeting. On the way out of the meeting, I pass the administrator who I walked in with, and she comments to me, "Well, that was more lively". |