Notes from the 8-23-07 MFT contract negotiation session This negotiation session was focused primarily on proposed contract language. Almost all of the discussion referenced written material that was passed out to the negotiators, but which I could not see. Although it was scheduled to start at 2:00, the meeting doesn't get going until 2:15, and is initiated by everyone (including me) answering the question “If you weren't here today, what would you be doing?” Rob then says that the next issue is Working Conditions, and another document drafted by the teachers is passed out to the negotiators. There are again a number of minor language changes to this article, which are scanned over. One change says something about problems being referred to “contract administration” rather than the “joint committee”, to which everyone agrees and Emma comments that the “joint committee” has “fizzled out”. Another reporting responsibility is assigned to the Office of Equal Opportunity and Diversity, presumably an MPS office title not included in the previous contract. Rob then focused the conversation to a new section that has been drafted by the teachers on class size, and everybody spends a few moments reading these changes. The proposed language appears to state that MPS will work to reduce class sizes from their current level, and that this reduction will be greater and/or occur sooner at the lower grades. Rob notes that the gist of the proposed changes is to work toward the class sizes described in the most recent referendum. Emma responds that the district has said that they don't feel that that the contract is the right place to define class size. She notes that the proposed language is a commitment to work to a specific class size and she says that we are not able to do that right now. An administrator asks Rob if MFT has considered or calculated the costs of the decreased class size. Rob responds that they have, very roughly, and that the estimate the cost to be $18 million for 220 teachers. The administrator responds, asking Rob where he thinks the total $36 million (the $18 million just proposed plus the previously-defined deficit of $18 million) will come from. Rob say that they still need to clarify the deficit numbers that MPS CFO Peggy Ingison presented at the last session to determine if the estimated deficit is real or not, plus, he notes, we also realized last session that there will be more teachers this year than last, so maybe the increase in classroom teachers can be partly created from staffing shifts that mean no additional costs to MPS. Emma responds saying that the staffing changes that resulted in more teachers for less students are the result of policy changes, meaning that the district is not keeping superfluous out-of-classroom teachers on staff. Given this, she says, the only way to reduce class size within a given budget is to reduce teacher compensation, and the teachers are assumedly not be suggesting that. Emma asks if there is some other way to approach the class size issue that is not in about writing language into the contract. Rob turns back to the financial argument, saying that we should look at the actual numbers required to reduce class size. He states again that we, the whole MPS, need to work in the direction of reducing class size. Emma responds saying that we could make some kind of a statement, something about committing to have conversations as we move forward, but she reiterates her view that we can’t be as specific as the proposed language. Another administrator says that of course the district is concerned about class size, and he points out that in the North side initiative, grades K-3 do have lower class size. A teacher says that when his school has an open house soon, people will ask about class size. He says that he feels the need to show parents that MPS is serious about reducing class size, in part because parents have an expectation based on the referendum. The teacher also notes that people start to take their kids out of MPS when they see 35-36 kids in a class. He goes on to say that if he has too many kids in a class, it is difficult to meet all of the individual needs of the kids in the classroom. Plus, he says, conferences are that much harder too; with large class sizes he is unable to devote as much time as he would like to each individual conference. Another teacher says that the district really needs to show good faith expectation to reduce class size. Another administrator responds saying everybody wants lower class size, and he cautions the teacher who spoke previously about pronouncing his class size during a school open house, because student census is always higher at the start of the year than what it settles out to just a few weeks later. A teacher asks the administrators about what kind of statement on class size they could agree to. Emma responds that perhaps the administration can talk about this off-line and come back with some proposed language. Another teacher speaks up and asks what are we (the MPS community) gong to do about the referendum. Emma responds, saying that the referendum is going to be about something beyond class size, that it will be more about quality public education in Minneapolis. Emma indicates that another administrator is involved with the referendum project, and that administrator says that Rob is also working on it. The administrator says that "we are starting the conversation" about the referendum, and that it was clearly a mistake to promise class-size limits with the previous referenda. He says that the class-size promise fell through because the funding mechanism of the referenda really only generated a defined amount of dollars, and we didn't accurately predict the other changes (in staff costs, funding from the legislature, and dropping enrollment) that would impact the actual cost of delivering a specific class size. However, the administrator says, there needs to be a "significant investment in the districts ability to deliver a quality education", and the next referendum campaign probably can't go back focused on a promise of class size. Rob brings the conversation back to the class-size proposal, saying that because the past referendums have been about class size, MPS needs to make a commitment to class size. Rob further points out that class size is frequently emphasized in the sales pitches for charter and private schools in Minneapolis, so it is a factor in the competitive education market in which MPS now exists. An administrator points out that charters have lower class sizes because they pay their teachers less. Yet another administrator says that the referendum message will be that MPS has quality teachers and quality instruction, and that we don't want to compete with the charters at their level. Rob acknowledges what all the administrators are saying, and but says again that the bottom line is that lower class sizes are better. An administrator says that the teachers' proposal acknowledges that class size changes have occurred due to forces from outside the district, but it presents a solution that is absorbed entirely within the district. He implies that the teachers should look for a class-size solution involving resources outside MPS. A teacher tells a story about recently talking to her doctor about schools. The doctor reported that his kids went to an MPS school (Barton) for many years, but eventually left for some other option because the class sizes were too large. An administrator says that at some level, MPS will never be able to compete with private schools that have class sizes of 10, but he again agrees with the negative effects of class size. Emma tries to drive to a resolution of this discussion and again offers to generate an administration proposal on class size and return to this discussion at a later session. The teachers agree, noting that this is and important issue, and Emma says that the draft proposal will focus on the collaborative role of MFT and the administration on reducing class size. The negotiators turn to the next issue under Working Conditions for which MFT has proposed contract language changes, about specialists being guaranteed their own desk. All of the negotiators seem to acknowledge the triviality of this issue, but MFT, and particularly Rob, are persistent with continuing the conversation about this topic. In the current contract, there is language that says that "Professional employees shall be provided with their own desk", but there is a poorly worded exception for elementary specialist teachers that says these teachers will have their own desk "wherever possible". The contract also says elementary specialists teachers' desks will be in "at least a semiprivate area". Seeing that the specialist desks issue is next, Emma says "Oh, no the desk issue. Are we going to spend another couple hours talking about desks?" Rob replies saying that unless we want to say that elementary specialists are second-class teachers, we need to talk about this issue. Rob says that we (MFT) just want everybody to have a desk, as the proposed language from MFT provides. An administrator asks what is the real problem is that the proposed language is trying to solve. A teacher tells a story about a half-day kindergarten teacher who found that she had to completely reset the whole room every day. An administrator says that these are issues best resolved at the sites and that we are trying to produce a global solution to something that is best solved locally. A teacher says that if having a dedicated desk is not specifically spelled out in the contract, then any principal could just arbitrarily remove any teacher's desk [an obvious misinterpretation of the contract language]. This means, he says, that there needs to be something in the contract to fall back on to ensure teachers are guaranteed the right to have desks. An administrator (a high school principal) says that she actually has no problem with ensuring each teacher has their own desk, her bigger concern is a guarantee of "semi-private space" that is in the language. Emma says that she agrees with the administrator who spoke earlier about the fact that the issue should e resolved locally, and not in the contract language. Rob says that the proposed language is simple; it just keeps elementary specialists in the same category as all other teachers. Rob further says that he just wants to be done with this topic. An administrator points out that as class size shrinks, the need for teachers in a building goes up, so that actually the class size decrease previously proposed by MFT and the guarantee for everybody to have a desk are opposing issues. Another administrator points out that the contract says every teacher gets a desk, and that they only have to share a desk "if necessary". Rob replies by wondering how parents would respond if the administration said that their child would get a desk at their school, but might have to share a desk "if necessary". There is a little more discussion, then Emma says that she thinks we shouldn't spend any more time on this, and there is general agreement. Emma asks if Staff Development is next. Rob agrees, then Emma passes out a document with proposed language. The document is apparently a modified version of existing contract language, and Emma leads the whole negotiating group through the various proposed changes, about summer professional development, the definition of extended days, something about school nurses, and a few other things. Emma says that she hasn't counted the duty days, and wonders out loud if the number is still 186. Negotiators discuss it and the teachers agree that the number of days hasn't changed. Emma asks Rob what he would like to talk about, and Rob says "let's take an easy part first." He suggests the section about school nurses, which everybody quickly agrees to, realizing that the issue is primarily about removing antiquated language from the contract. The negotiators then turn to another part of the administration's proposed language changes that covers additional hours that teachers may be asked to work. This language change seems to focus on parts of the contract that say "…a longer teacher's day may be occasionally be necessary", "Extension of the teacher's day beyond the seven and three-quarter hours shall not be regularly assigned" and " If frequent or lengthy extension beyond the workday is requires, a teacher shall be paid…" The administration states that there have been some problems surrounding the words "occasionally", "regularly", and "frequent" in this section of the contract, so the proposed language seeks to clarify this. The administration proposal sates that teachers may be asked for extended hours up to five days per month. After a couple questions from teachers clarifying the detail of the administration proposal, a teacher asks if the extended hours are just for student-related meetings or if they are also for staff meetings. Emma replies that the administration proposal was meant to cover everything. Rob says that the administration is proposing to set the definition of "infrequent" to one or two meetings per week, to which Emma says that such an amount of time outside standard hours is typical of professional employees. Rob says that the effect of this proposal is to take valuable time from teachers that they use for other aspects of their professional or personal lives, and that while we all understand that there are occasional reasons why teachers need to stay late, this proposal seems to mandate many, many hours beyond the regular work day. Emma responds that Rob's interpretation of the proposed language is "a lot of leaps." Another teacher (from the MFT executive committee) speaks up and asks about how the proposal of 5 days per month with additional time is going to fly with the MFT membership. She points out that this means possibly 45 days per year that have extra time required with no compensation. She says that whatever the actual history is of extra time put in by teachers, the MFT membership will feel like this change means there is more being required of them. The teacher asks if the administrations proposal is here because of a problem. Emma replies that, yes, there were some problem around conferences somewhere, where teachers were asked to put in some additional hours. Rob says that the administration's proposal is not about conferences. A teacher asks the administrators what the 5 days of overtime is really for, student-related or staff-related events. An administrator says that the language was intended to cover both, and the teacher replies that that the two are really separate issues that should be dealt with separately. Rob again asks the question about why this is an issue that needs to result in altered contract language, and Emma again replies that it was an issue that started around conference scheduling. A teacher again replies that whatever the reason is, it feels like the result is mandating five days per month that teachers have to work overtime. Several teaches chime in with more stories about how some teachers need to get to their kids at daycare and have other family arrangements that are sensitive to off-hour job requirements, and Rob again says that this proposal will be viewed by teachers as taking their time. Emma finally says "Well, you propose language then." A teacher says that she thinks the existing language is clear enough, and she again asks the administration what the intent was of their proposed language change. Emma reiterates that they were trying to define what "regular" and "infrequent" meant in the current contract language. Rob essentially says "whatever" to the current conversation, and switches the topic to another of the proposed language changes that relates to "Professional Organization meetings", which means MFT-related meetings. The contract says "The school district shall recognize Wednesday after school and evening as a time reserved for Professional Organization meetings. Every reasonable effort shall be taken to reserve this time. Such meetings may be scheduled during the defined teacher day on non-student contact time. Contract issues are appropriate matters for staff meetings". It is not clear exactly what wording change is being proposed by the administration, but Emma says that the intent of the proposed change is just to clarify the intent of the language. The discussion seems to focus on when Professional Organization meetings can occur outside of the designated Wednesday time, because, as negotiators say, teacher-organized meeting do sometimes at other times. The proposal from the administration seems to more tightly define when union meetings can occur, because they don't want such meetings to be scheduled at just any time and start to interfere with other school meetings. Part of the discussion is about whether the phrase "such meetings" was meant to mean only MFT meetings, or if it includes other meetings that may not be teacher-organized meetings. As the discussion proceeds, an administrator says that the real goal of the proposed contract language was in part to define just what kind of meetings were "such meetings". The issues seems to be that in one paragraph of the contract the phrases "Professional organization meetings", "such meetings", and "staff meetings" are all used. Although MFT meetings and staff meetings are understood to be distinct things, it is not explicitly clear if "Professional organization meetings" means only MFT meeting, nor is it clear if "such meetings" means only MFT meetings, and not staff meetings. After reading through the current and proposed contract language, a teacher acknowledges that the language is confusing. Rob tries to clarify saying that the basic issue is that Wednesday afternoons are reserved for union meetings. A teacher asks if they could define the difference between "professional meetings" and "union professional meetings". Emma says that she is not sure if MFT and the administration are on the same page with the meetings issue. She seems to be concerned that the phrase "such meetings can be scheduled during the defined teacher day…" opens a door for teachers to schedule teacher-only meetings at any time. She says that we can't expect that a union meeting can be called at any time. An administrator (a principal) says that she has no problem with the schedule of union meetings at her school. She goes on says that she was for the more specific language being proposed by the administration, but she now sees the value of being more general in language. Another administrator gets a bit more philosophical, saying that the process of writing a functional contract is to first write the best contract language you can, then use it for a while and see if it has any deficiencies. After it has been used for a while, it can be reexamined and minor modifications can be made to make it even better. He says that is what we are doing here and that is why it is worth trying to come up with better language. Rob says that he thinks we are solving a problem that doesn't exist. Emma ends this part of the conversation saying that the administration will go back and look at language options, and she turns the conversation to proposed language changes relating to "summer institutes". Emma says that the identified problem with summer institutes is about how much MFT members get paid. Summer institutes seem to be multi-day training sessions that occur during the summer, to which teachers are encouraged, but not required to attend. The administration's proposal appears to shift from saying that teachers are encouraged to attend these, to saying that teachers are required to attend. It also tries to clarify the compensation for attending the summer institutes. The contract defines an hourly staff development rate that teachers are paid for such activity ($25/hr), but much of the conversation seems to revolve around the difference between this and teachers being paid a daily rate determined by a pro-rating of their salary. Rob agrees that the pay for summer institutes is an issue and suggests the possible solution of having pro-rated pay for the summer institutes. Emma notes that part of the reason the pay rate is different for summer institutes is that teachers don't have teaching responsibilities during these institute times. A teacher says that his main problem with the proposed language is the use of the word "mandated". The teacher says that he has booked airline reservations a year in advance for a summer vacation and that suddenly mandating his presence sometime during the summer could possibly interfere with such plans. Emma notes that teachers are generally given the option to attend an institute one of two times, in June or August. Another administrator says something about how planning is important, and that things like a new math curriculum adoption have to be rolled out to a large group all at once, and out of the school year. She also notes that such training is particularly important during the summer for realigned teachers. A teacher asks if it would be possible to just define which two weeks the summer institutes take place well in advance. People generally agree, but a teacher brings back his concern about the word "mandatory" being in the proposed language. An administrator again brings up the value if the summer institutes, reiterating that the group dynamic is important in some of this learning, and that it just works better if everyone is there, so it should be mandatory. A teacher offers a list of various working and learning opportunities that teachers participate in during the summer. She ends this list saying that maybe if teachers were paid for the institutes, that would help. Rob says that the language proposed by the administration, essentially makes the summer institutes mandatory, which is the same as increasing teacher duty days. Rob further says that instead of saying summer institutes are "mandatory", the district should just pay pro-rated salary and "you'd have incredible attendance". An administrator says that the intent is to do something to increase a teachers professional skills, and that we all agree on the value of professional development. A teacher ends this part of the conversation saying that the negotiators need to broaden the discussion to think of other approaches. The negotiators then decide to take a ten-minute break, which starts at 4:10 and lasts until 4:30. At the end of the break, Emma notes that there are two observers at the negotiation today, me, who Emma describes as a frequent visitor, and another woman, who is invited to introduce herself to the group. The other woman introduces herself as Kinshasha Kambui, from the African American Mobilization Project. Emma then says that she and Rob made an executive decision to stop the discussion on the Staff Development language, and instead move into an update of overall progress on the contract negotiation. The negotiation issues are listed along with their status, and the group steps through each one, reviewing the status of each issue. The status "on language" means that contract language is being written and/or negotiated: (1) Teacher transfer and layoff (on language) It is noted that item (11), K-5 report cards, should have a tentative agreement ready for signature at the next day's negotiation session. Emma's summary comments from the list review are that the negotiators have a lot of loose ends. Emma and Rob then announce that their plan is for each of them to present a proposal about teacher transfer and reassignment, but to reserve discussion of the proposals until tomorrow's session. Rob starts the process by handing out the MFT proposal, which is one and one-half pages long. Emma looks at it after she gets a copy and asks in surprise if that is all MFT is proposing. Rob describes the admittedly incomplete MFT document. One proposal says that if there is an opening at a school site, other teachers at the site should get an opportunity to be placed in that opening. In another MFT-proposed change, the timing of the job bidding process is shifted, to be finished by the last duty day in June, and the placement is completed by the end of June. Rob says MFT is making this proposal because, in their opinion, the spring bidding/placement process takes too long. Rob further describes language that says the interview process should be done by teachers, principals, and staff members [notably not parents], and that interview teams should be provided some interview training. Rob also says that school information and position information should be available at the interview, and that job postings should be specific, saying for instance 5th grade and not K-6. Rob says that at the following day's negotiation session they will have a proposal regarding realignment, and that for this they are looking at using contract language that other districts use, where there is an option to "shelve" an unused license to avoid realignment, rather than dropping a license through the state. After Rob finishes, Emma passes out the administration's proposal and says "ours is fatter", and that "this is our ideal redesign". It appears to be a dozen pages long, a marked-up and modified version of the existing contract language. Emma walks the team through the key provisions of the proposal. Emma starts by describing a new process where teachers register for job openings on-line, as long as that the teacher has the requisite teaching license plus potentially other requirements. Emma notes that the administration proposal cuts out all reference to bidding, because this eliminates a bidding system. Emma says that the proposal defines that all vacancies will be filled through interview and selection by a site team, with approval by the principal. Excessed and unassigned teachers, if they have the necessary qualifications, would go to spots not filled in the interview-and-select process. As Emma flips through the document, she notes that there are "lots of strikeouts". Emma reiterates that in the proposed new voluntary transfer process, teachers sign up for interviews, sites decide who to interview, sites select a candidate for the job, and finally sites forward the information to HR. She also notes again that there could be additional requirements beyond licensure for some jobs. Emma further describes the proposal for staff adjustment, which would occur after the new interview-and-select voluntary transfer process was done. At this point, a site would select candidates from teachers who are excessed, and if a match was not found that way, the teachers would be placed in job openings. If there were further vacancies, and there were no teachers who were eligible for recall, then these positions would be filled by external candidates. Emma notes a technical change, proposing a change for some part of the contract where "language" programs are described, this would be changed to NLL (native language learners), immersion programs and other language-related programs. Emma also describes that the proposal defines a new recall procedure, where all eligible teachers are recalled. Emma then describes that the proposal contains exceptions to seniority layoff for when the Superintendent decides that the layoffs would disrupt the educational environment at a site. Part of this proposal is the creation of a separate procedure for layoff that accommodates the seniority layoff exception. There is a pause, then Emma says, "I think we will have something to talk about tomorrow", and Rob just nods slowly. Rob is essentially speechless, and when Emma suggests that the meeting move to talk about communication, Rob just sort of sputters. Somebody else suggests that the communication issue be taken up at the session the next day. Emma says to the teachers that she is sure it is a real shock to see the transfer and recall proposal in writing, but that she wants them to know that the Board is quite resolute about this. The teachers don't really seem to be saying anything, so some administrator proposes that they do their traditional end-of-meeting ritual of offering a single-word summary. Several of the teachers use words like disappointed, amazed, and jolt. |