Teacher contract negotiations - what are the issues?
It's not just about pay and health insurance: it's also about the conditions for teaching and learning and how to hold teachers to account in a way that is fair to them and their students. The staff of Reynoldsburg schools - teachers, support staff and leaders - have worked hard over the years to do more with less. Teachers agreed to forgo the usual annual 'step increases' in their salary during the 3-year period that expired last month. Now, with teachers facing more big classes, loss of art, music and PE in some schools/grade levels, more online learning replacing time with a teacher, and more use of educators who are not fully qualified teachers, there are serious questions to ask about the way forward. Our School Board has to make hard budgetary choices to keep the district running cost-effectively. However, the proposed abrupt shift to a completely different system of pay progression, without clear evidence to support the move, took many people by surprise. The contract breakdown is a wake-up call to all of us to think about the strategy for our schools and make sure we don't lose many more good teachers.
It is hard to know exactly how far apart the two sides are. It is normal good practice in collective bargaining for the negotiating positions to remain confidential between the two sides. However, the School Board has publicized its account of where the negotiations stand on the Reynoldsburg Schools website. The teachers' union (the Reynoldsburg Education Association/REA) issued a short statement to clarify the process of calling a strike if they should decide to do so, and more recently made it known that they objected to the Board's modified proposal because it did not include class-size limits, provided inadequate planning time,and still included an element of merit pay. The REA has also filed an 'unfair labor practice' complaint with the State Employment Relations Board (SERB) about the School Board's web posting of its own proposal. The Board subsequently filed an unfair labor practice complaint against the REA and the Ohio Education Association for bargaining in bad faith, stating that the REA/OEA negotiating team shook hands on the basic terms of an agreement reached in the early hours of August 6 but later reneged. On Sept 11, the SERB approved the REA's complaint for an expedited hearing by a judge within 10 days.
Is it possible to introduce or at least consider some form of merit pay / performance incentives without all the mistrust and confrontation generated by the Board's initial proposal? Very likely it is. The initial approach taken in Reynoldsburg, however, was very different from the way most functioning teacher-merit-pay schemes have been introduced, in three respects.
(1) It was relatively radical: proposing to scrap step increases altogether in favor of incentive payments.
(2) Simultaneously, and unrelated to merit pay, group health insurance was to be replaced with a flat cash payment.
(3) Above all, there was apparently no attempt to involve teachers in examining constructive and workable ways to link assessment to pay, so teachers had no way to contribute to the design of a new compensation package or to ensure legitimate concerns were accounted for. Such a top-down strategy is unusual. While a relatively small minority of districts across the country have successful merit pay systems, it appears that most of those that do have tried to ensure teachers are by and large 'on board' with any proposal.
Coming at a time when teachers are dealing with major changes in teaching and learning conditions in the schools, our district's abrupt approach seemed virtually guaranteed to be fiercely opposed. The Board's apparent modifications of its proposal - most notably restoring step increases and group health insurance - are steps in the right direction. The REA seeks some assurance of manageable teaching conditions, most of all a cap on class size. Hopefully the negotiations will generate an agreement that reassures teachers and clears the air for an open and collaborative discussion of longer-range strategy.
It is hard to know exactly how far apart the two sides are. It is normal good practice in collective bargaining for the negotiating positions to remain confidential between the two sides. However, the School Board has publicized its account of where the negotiations stand on the Reynoldsburg Schools website. The teachers' union (the Reynoldsburg Education Association/REA) issued a short statement to clarify the process of calling a strike if they should decide to do so, and more recently made it known that they objected to the Board's modified proposal because it did not include class-size limits, provided inadequate planning time,and still included an element of merit pay. The REA has also filed an 'unfair labor practice' complaint with the State Employment Relations Board (SERB) about the School Board's web posting of its own proposal. The Board subsequently filed an unfair labor practice complaint against the REA and the Ohio Education Association for bargaining in bad faith, stating that the REA/OEA negotiating team shook hands on the basic terms of an agreement reached in the early hours of August 6 but later reneged. On Sept 11, the SERB approved the REA's complaint for an expedited hearing by a judge within 10 days.
Is it possible to introduce or at least consider some form of merit pay / performance incentives without all the mistrust and confrontation generated by the Board's initial proposal? Very likely it is. The initial approach taken in Reynoldsburg, however, was very different from the way most functioning teacher-merit-pay schemes have been introduced, in three respects.
(1) It was relatively radical: proposing to scrap step increases altogether in favor of incentive payments.
(2) Simultaneously, and unrelated to merit pay, group health insurance was to be replaced with a flat cash payment.
(3) Above all, there was apparently no attempt to involve teachers in examining constructive and workable ways to link assessment to pay, so teachers had no way to contribute to the design of a new compensation package or to ensure legitimate concerns were accounted for. Such a top-down strategy is unusual. While a relatively small minority of districts across the country have successful merit pay systems, it appears that most of those that do have tried to ensure teachers are by and large 'on board' with any proposal.
Coming at a time when teachers are dealing with major changes in teaching and learning conditions in the schools, our district's abrupt approach seemed virtually guaranteed to be fiercely opposed. The Board's apparent modifications of its proposal - most notably restoring step increases and group health insurance - are steps in the right direction. The REA seeks some assurance of manageable teaching conditions, most of all a cap on class size. Hopefully the negotiations will generate an agreement that reassures teachers and clears the air for an open and collaborative discussion of longer-range strategy.