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BARGAINING UPDATE & CALL TO ACTION—FEB 4
We had a bargaining session on February 1. The school committee, citing many excuses, was completely unprepared, failing to give us long-promised counter-proposals on our many issues related to time to teach, workload, paperwork, and other proposals concerning our expanding jobs. We are sorry to report that they had nothing – telling us they would have something at our session on March 1.
The negotiators have concluded that the only way to get what we need is to engage in an escalating set of actions that demonstrate our commitment to fight for the schools our children deserve.
BEU MEMBERS & PARENTS:
ATTEND SCHOOL COMMITTEE MEETING
THURSDAY, FEB. 4
- Members are encouraged to arrive outside of Town Hall – 5:15-5:30.
- Parents: Encourage them to arrive by 5:30.
- Gather outside with signs.
- We’ll make our way to the 5thfloor by 5:50.
- School Committee meeting begins at 6 on 5thfloor of Town Hall.
- Public comment is at 6:35.
- Sign up to speak upon arrival, with comments preferably to be kept to 3 minutes.
Bargaining Update
The BEU and School Committee Negotiating Teams negotiated Thursday, January 28. The School Committee proposed a package proposal to settle all outstanding issues in paraprofessional negotiations, including wages. The BEU Bargaining Team finds the offer completely unacceptable – for four reasons chiefly. We’ll briefly explain why.
- The overall wage proposal would still keep paras at far below a livable wage.
Specifically, the School Committee proposed a three-year wage package, increasing salaries by 1% halfway through year one, 2% halfway through year 2, and 2% at the start of year three. For our lowest paid full-time direct care educators, their salary would increase by $91 the first year of the agreement, to about $18,300, then rise to roughly $18, 600 in the second year, before topping out at $19, 170 in three years.
The 2016 Federal Poverty Level for the United States (not taking into consideration the high cost of living in the Greater Boston Area) is $20,090 for a family of 3.
- The package comes with a new, higher salary scale for classroom paraprofessionals, but only those working in certain programs.
Specifically, the School Committee is calling for a new, higher, salary scale, for those classroom paraprofessionals who work in seven programs: Adaptive Learning Center (ALC), Reaching for Independence Through Structured Education (RISE), Language and Academic Home Base (LAHB), Supportive Learning Center, Therapeutic Learning Center (TLC), Community Based Classroom (CBC), and ExCEL. This new 12-step salary scale would allow some classroom paras to gradually increase their pay to a little less than $30,000 a year at the top of this new scale. In so doing, this proposal devalues the work done by classroom paraprofessionals working in all other programs – dividing hard working paras into the poorly paid and the really poorly paid.
- The package allows layoffs and reduction in hours of paraprofessionals during the year.
This package essentially eliminates the hard-fought job security that paraprofessionals won in the last few contracts by giving the employer the right to eliminate para jobs mid-year or to reduce their hours at will. Paraprofessionals, unlike Unit A or B employees, would have no assurance throughout the year that they would even have a job – even if their work was exemplary. Why should the lowest paid also have the least job security?
- Rejects all other BEU proposals for improvements for paraprofessionals.
The BEU is seeking many significant improvements in the benefits and work rules of paraprofessionals, including: paid lunch (currently all paras are docked 30 minutes for their lunch period), eliminating forced overtime, notice of who supervises and directs the work of paras, recall rights of paras who are laid off, and improvements to holiday pay, bereavement, vacation, and longevity pay. This package would require that we drop all of those proposals.
Bulletin from the BEU — STILL without a contract!
Brookline educators have been working without a contract since September 1. Why is this? you might ask. Good question. According to the School Committee, it’s because of forces they can’t control. School Committee members recently told Brookline’s state legislators that “every year we discuss the growing pressure on our budget, our administrators, and our educators from federal and state mandates to implement new curriculum, programs or services.” They “now have become issues for us in collective bargaining as teachers seek relief from the additional pressures on their time.” The BEU is glad that the School Committee has grasped our point about time pressure. However, we strongly disagree that the lack of a contract is beyond the School Committee’s control. We think the School Committee entirely should take responsibility for the lack of a contract. Consider this:
Teachers and other BEU educators made comprehensive presentations and submitted corresponding proposals to the School Committee concerning 1) the effects of worsening student-educator ratios (which calculation of average class size obscures); 2) the loss of still more personal attention for students due to increasing amounts of paperwork and data collection; 3) the need to do more to ensure the safety of children and staff; and 4) increasingly top-down management that is harming efforts to tap teacher expertise, to achieve equity, and to “foster interaction among diverse viewpoints” (PSB Strategic Plan).
The chair of the School Committee’s bargaining team acknowledged to legislators that the current approach that imposes increasing numbers of top-down mandates is not working. “We have in fact in Brookline stalled on closing the achievement gap in the last few years,“ she said. Still, while district leaders stressed that an initiative that is good in principle can falter when it is imposed from above and combined with too many others, the School Committee seems to have turned a blind eye to how they are doing the same thing to teachers in the schools and at the bargaining table.
We designed bargaining proposals specifically to address what we thought were mutual concerns about possible erosion of the high quality education that BEU educators were delivering, and for which Brookline is known. Yet, in spite of the fact that we made these proposals over a year and a half ago, to date we have received no significant counter proposals—none! Management instead has dug in their heels and refused to address our concerns with any contract language at all. “Trust us,” they said, implying that say what we wish, we will ultimately be expected do what they say.
BEU proposals include changes in scheduling and staffing that make possible serious commitments to inclusion and equity and a respect for diversity. Our proposals are practical approaches that defend against such commitments being reduced to formulaic exercises. They ensure that teachers’ professional judgment will be honored, and that educators will have time to support each and every student in expressing themselves in creative and culturally sensitive ways, which fosters a love of learning.
We have negotiations scheduled for January 28, February 1, and February 22. New conditions make it easier to reach an agreement. Brookline voters, by a large margin, supported an increase in school funding, and Congress has loosened its grip on state and local education policy. However, in this promising climate that invites creative solutions, we are still waiting for the School Committee to engage constructively at the bargaining table with the BEU.
We ask that members of the community join us in calling on the School Committee to come to an agreement concerning the many important problems we have addressed. With the support of our membership and those in the community who are supportive of our goals, we hope to see the School Committee move toward an agreement in these upcoming bargaining sessions.
Prioritize individual attention for every child:
- Limit to 4 the number of class sections per teacher in grades 6-12 to open up time for meeting the targeted needs of specific children.
- Support co-teaching with necessary prep time.
- Limit non-instructional tasks such as data collection & paperwork.
- Eliminate non-instructional duties for teachers.
- Guarantee every educator sufficient and equitable time to prepare to teach every day.
Enhance the safety of our students and staff:
- Assess specialists’ caseloads according to the intensity of needs.
- Require building aides who can step in where needed.
- Assign more than one educator to rooms with 65 or more children.
- Increase classroom safety with appropriate staffing and equipment.
Respect the professionalism of our educators:
- Reserve time in staff meetings to discuss educators’ individual or collective concerns.
- Strengthen the voice of teachers in the evaluation system.
- Agree to prep periods and paid lunch for paraprofessionals.
- Guarantee fair compensation for all, including a living wage & fair scheduling for paraprofessionals.
United for the Schools Our Children Deserve
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