School Committee Forces BEU to Strike

May 15, 2022

Following over eight and a half hours of bargaining through the night, the Brookline School Committee failed to address the issues necessary to reach a contract agreement with the Brookline Educators Union, forcing educators to strike beginning Monday.

Throughout bargaining Saturday night into early Sunday morning, the Brookline School Committee refused educators’ need for:

Guaranteed daily duty free prep time
Guaranteed time for colleagues to collaborate weekly
Substantive action on attracting and retaining educators of color

The School Committee also would not present any proposals on the record. In addition, the BEU has agreed to a financial package that acknowledges the town’s fiscal mismanagement while standing firm that educators will not allow their wages to further erode.

The BEU has greatly pared down its list of original proposals to bare essentials. The BEU has made financial proposals that give the town tremendous flexibility to plan and prepare. The BEU has asked the superintendent to go beyond existing practices and consider using existing laws and policies to attract and retain educators of color and to commit to creating a report on the district’s workforce in regards to racial diversity and inclusion.

The School Committee is hiding behind a questionable interpretation of the Open Meeting Law to avoid bargaining that could prevent a strike.

Brookline educators can no longer tolerate the School Committee’s dismissive attitude toward educators or its willingness to dismantle the quality of our schools.

We remain open to negotiating with the School Committee throughout Sunday and beyond, to resolve a fair contract that preserves the working and learning conditions that our students and educators deserve.

Please support BEU call for an anti-racist contract

March 20, 2022

Brookline has long been known for its progressive values, quality of life, and engaged citizenry. Today, an increasing number of Brookline residents are calling on the town’s governance bodies and departments to identify and eliminate the structural barriers to participation in Brookline civic life that keep our community from becoming more racially and economically diverse. Such barriers limit access to resources, leave bias unaddressed, and allow the growing wealth gap within our school communities to widen. The Brookline Educators Union is trying to eliminate some of these barriers through the collective bargaining process. We are attempting to stabilize and increase the racial and ethnic diversity of the school staff at every school and all job categories to better and more sustainably meet the needs of all of our students, paying particular attention to the needs of our students of color.

In order to reach this goal, the BEU is calling for a contract between the BEU and the School Committee with provisions that will:

Attract and retain teachers from under-represented groups by endeavoring to award Professional Teacher Status (PTS), as early as allowed by law: when first hired or after their first year. PTS confers due process rights and such protections make it easier to speak out and exercise leadership. In addition, require that the central office administrators meet with these new teachers regularly to ensure that they are welcomed and supported. Brookline regularly recruits highly effective educators from other districts, who give up PTS in order to join our district. This proposal does not force the Superintendent to award PTS early and would not add additional money to the budget.
Hire individuals from the Brookline and Boston neighborhoods of our under-represented students into much needed job categories of paraprofessionals — building, lunch and recess monitors and building aides with a dignified, living wage. This will help address the problem of over-scheduling and under-staffing, opening up needed time for teachers and specialists to prep and meet with students and one another, and limit the pulling of paras from their assigned students to cover these duties.
Pay all educators enough to give a more diverse staff the capacity to gain and maintain a foothold in the middle class if they make a career in the Public Schools of Brookline. The BEU is asking for a 9% cost of living increase over 3 years.

Hiring and retaining the diverse staff our schools depend on requires funding staffing and scheduling that demonstrates respect for the dignity of teaching. Unfortunately the school district has moved in the opposite direction; rejecting our proposals and threatening to impose a contract on educators that would increase the length of the K8 school day for no pay, weaken the right to uphold the contract through grievances, and limit exercise of autonomy by teachers. That stance is damaging morale and making the district less attractive to talented educators.

This community has always stood with its educators and we hope you will join us now in our call for a contract that will attract and retain a more racially and ethnically diverse staff to meet the needs of all our students.

COMMUNITY MEMBERS–PLEASE SUPPORT EDUCATORS BY SIGNING THIS PETITION:

https://actionnetwork.org/letters/brookline-select-board-school-committee-transfer-the-funds/

Presentation of BEU Unit A proposals to the School Committee 01/10/2021

January 10, 2022

Common Planning Time:

Last month, the School Committee issued the following public statement:

” – when teachers aren’t in front of students, someone else needs to be with them. That means additional hires.” The BEU does not disagree; it is a fact that since well before Covid the schools have been understaffed for the level of service that is being delivered to students. If the community expects this level of service to continue, then corresponding investments in staffing must be made, or the community should be made aware that the district can no longer bear the cost of the resources necessary to provide these services or programming.

Our team heard from building Principals in a bargaining session that scheduling common prep time was difficult and while we are holding firm that this time is needed for educators, we would propose that the time could be implemented into building schedules no later than 6/30/2023 to take effect for the 2023-2024 school year. While we know that Common Planning is crucial for grade level teams, teachers of specials, and related service providers / caseload educators to meet and plan curriculum, tiered intervention strategies, and brainstorm issues that arise for individuals or groups of students, we are willing to take the next school year to allow for necessary schedule and staffing adjustments.

Daily Prep Time:

As part of the public statement referenced above, the School Committee stated that its position on —“Fair workload” for language, art and music teachers” is that – “when teachers teach fewer students, that also means additional hires.” This is read by the team as acknowledgement that the current situation of teachers of specials and world language teachers is indeed UNFAIR. Additionally, we are not in disagreement that this would mean more hires; if this is not something that the schools are able to do, then the town should be informed that the level of service to which they are accustomed will need to change.

Our team remains committed to securing a daily preparation period of no less than 45 minutes for every educator. This change will make schedules more equitable throughout and across buildings. It is more evident than ever before that educators need time each day to plan, breathe, conduct other “self care” exercises, and take a break, even if it is a short one.

Commitment to Retention of Staff of Color:

At the Brookline School Committee meeting on 1/7/2022, this issue was thrust to the forefront of discussions around how our students see themselves represented in the buildings where they “live” every day. Our team has crafted language that we think both expresses a tangible and measurable commitment to recruit and retain staff of color. In this same public statement, we heard that “we do not need language in a specific employment contract to be strongly committed as a district to diversity, equity and inclusion.” We are baffled by this position. We see contract language as the very vehicle by which both parties can affirm their commitment to this valuable effort. We look forward to hearing language that you would accept that could lead to a common understanding of what diversity and equity could look like in the Public Schools of Brookline, but absent such commitment, we will stand by the language we proposed in November, which in no way limits the judgment of the superintendent and is zero cost.

JLMC:

When we first began the discussions to the successor contract in early 2020, this team of BEU Negotiators had 15 pages of thoughtfully formulated proposals that addressed issues of scheduling and workload. After meeting with hundreds of members (and people in the community), we distilled a set of issues such as preparation time, caseload and class size, teaching minutes, expansion of “4+1” into departmentalized grade levels, duties, extra help opportunities, office hours, stipend administrative positions, and others.

The concerns and solutions we presented were affirmed by the school committee as timely and legitimate. Yet we were told repeatedly that these issues were better addressed through administration than in a collective bargaining agreement. While we insist that the parameters of working conditions do indeed belong in a contract because this ensures fairness, consistency, and transparency, we also appreciate that the people who work most closely with students understand directly how well schools are functioning well or not. Recognizing the value in a collaborative process undertaken by a group of administrators and educators who work closely together in the buildings day to day, we devised a plan that can bring their shared experience to bear on the ever evolving challenges we are facing in our schools. We thus proposed a Joint Labor-Management Committee that would examine work activity and generate a “bargaining blueprint” for the next round of contract negotiations. We think all aspects of the contract pertaining to workload, including stipends, are relevant. The resulting report will be a recommendation, not contractual obligations for the BSC or responsibilities for Brookline educators. We are therefore standing with our last proposal on this JLMC.

Wage Proposal:

Lastly, we would like to bring you up to date on our research around wages that lead to our proposal of nine percent over the three year contract. Again, I reference the public statement from last month stating “if we were to agree to the request of 9% over 3 years, that would translate into a salary increase of $2M for next year. **That would mean cutting somewhere between 25 and 30 teachers – the equivalent of eliminating all of the K-8 classroom teachers at Driscoll, Heath, Lincoln or Runkle, or eliminating music at all K-8s. It would mean larger class sizes, reduced program offerings, or both. ** Clearly, that level of staffing cut would be detrimental to Brookline schools, which is why the negotiators have offered 6%, which is still a financial stretch but is in keeping with what other contracts near us have settled for, thus keeping Brookline teachers as the highest-paid among our peer districts” There is a lot here to unpack, and let’s start with the last statement. We are not aware of any “peer districts” having been discussed during these negotiations. Are the districts mentioned in the public statement what you would propose that we are using for comparable districts if we end up in mediation or fact finding?

If so, we take it to be your position that your list are truly peer districts. We would submit for the bargaining record our own list of peer districts: Acton-Boxborough, Arlington, Belmont, Concord-Carlisle, Dedham, Dover-Sherborn, Lexington, Lincoln-Sudbury, Natick, Needham, Newton, Somerville, Waltham, Watertown, Wellesley, Weston, Westwood, Winchester.

We included all of yours even though some would be a stretch in terms of “comparable” but the list above would be amenable to the BEU.

If you are not presenting these formally and prepared to justify your points of comparison, we would expect a public retraction of the suggestion that you have presented these as part of negotiations at any point and allowed the BEU to formally question your choices. Should there be a need to engage in this conversation, we have a list ready for consideration that includes all of the districts mentioned and some others that we think are more similar to Brookline.

Again referencing the SC public statement: it references “Brookline teachers as the highest paid among peer districts.” The concept of “peer districts’ ‘ notwithstanding, our research places Brookline 2nd or 3rd among the districts chosen by the SC for pay early in an educator’s career and 7th or 8th among those districts in pay later on. We used the most current salary data from Brookline AND from those districts rather than salary numbers from three years ago. I don’t know if it was stated publicly in that communication or not, but there is a number north of $100,000 that is floating out there as average educator pay in Brookline. We calculated the actual average pay based on the “scattergram” data that you provided and it comes out to just under $91,000, not including longevity or other benefits. We would appreciate a public correction IF there has been a statement regarding that number.

The public statement, however, makes no mention of the current levels of inflation. As of November 2021, inflation since the expiration of the last contract (Aug 31, 2020) stands at 6.9%. This means that the 6% “COLA” referenced as the “committee’s offer” represents a cut in pay of almost 1% with another 18 months of inflation not yet on the books. Some believe that inflation will indeed begin to recede, but unless it turns negative, which is not a notion that is being entertained, that number of nearly 7% will not come down, but MAY (if we are lucky) lessen the slope of its ascent. Inflation lessens the buying power of money and this round has been most influenced by energy, housing, and food which are the bulk of educator expenses no matter where they are on the salary scales. Brookline’ scales have traditionally been among the higher scales in the state, which is appropriate given the cost of living in the greater Boston region. That is why we have limited our ask to maybe cover the cost of living / inflationary pressure on income and not asked for a raise. Our proposal would put the average pay for educators in Brookline just over $100,000 if there are no retirements and no new hires next year. If there were, that number would obviously go down. With the level of work and expectations of the community, we would not expect that our pay should be effectively cut.

This brings us to the actual COLA ask; we feel that the 9% (three percent over each of the three years of the contract) is both affordable and appropriate; in truth, it’s actually a good deal for the district. Each year, quite apart from 35% enrollment growth, the district embarks on new initiatives and endeavors while refusing to allow time in the teacher day for these to take place. We have been remiss in not insisting that we be compensated for this expansion of services in the Brookline school system. Instead, we insisted that time be carved out of the day and workloads be adjusted in order to make these things happen. Again, we have repeatedly been told that “collective bargaining agreements are not the place for these manageable workload protections.” So Brookline has gotten all this great programming while we have not demanded that it be paid for. The town has been expanding the school system offerings while setting educator COLA’s at low levels of inflation, and thus has not had to go to the residents for overrides. Well now inflation is high, and we need COLA’s that reflect that. We have also heard that “there is no money for these COLA’s”, and while we disagree, we can respect that the budgets for School Year 2021 and 2022 have been set.

We also respect that the budget for next year is being worked on right now and we will insist here and moving forward that budgets reflect the priority that educators be paid minimally for the rate of inflation; and also for any and all additional programming that comes with each school year. Brookline needs to make a decision about what it can offer students in town and what that actually costs; educators do the work to make the programming function, we will not also bear the cost of the programs on our backs any longer.

To this end, we remain firm at 9% over three years, but recognizing current budget commitments we would offer the following redistribution to our previous proposals:

YEAR ONE (2020-2021) 2% COLA retro to 9/1/2020

YEAR TWO (2021-2022) 2% COLA retro to 8/31/2021

YEAR THREE (2022-2023) 5% increase on ALL MONEY ITEMS IN THE CONTRACT

Year three involves a budget that has not been made yet, and we know that budgets are more than line items, they are statements of priorities.

Our research has uncovered some “line items” that could be addressed to show that educators and education is a priority in Brookline.

The difference between the 6% and 9% COLA proposals is about $2.6M over the life of the contract with most of that falling in the last year (2022-2023) Over the past three years, Brookline has UNDERESTIMATED local receipts by an AVERAGE of almost $5.9M per year. Should this pattern hold, half of this underestimation would fund the dollar difference in the two contract proposals.

In our research, we looked at state reported finances of surrounding districts, including Brookline. The average spending of “free cash” as a percentage of the operating budget was just over 7%. Brookline’s was just over 4% putting it 11th out of 15 districts. We looked at the same for “stabilization fund” dollars, and Brookline uses those monies for just over 2.5% of their budget while the average among the 15 districts is almost 6.5%, leaving Brooklne in 10th place. Brookline operates with debt as 5.9% of its budget placing it 11th (or 4th lowest) of these communities where the average community has debt as almost 10% of its budget.

Brookline is among the wealthiest municipalities in the commonwealth and current budget priorities are designed to facilitate three things.

Limit meaningful discussion of monetary priorities and additional expenditures by proscribing an arbitrary allocation of revenue through the school-town partnership.
Maintain low a property tax rate
Maintain a Moody’s AAA bond rating before anything else.

The following data confirms the above and shows that there are untapped resources in town that would allow for full and robust funding of the schools and staff. With over 80% of school funding going to staffing, there is no debate that Brookline schools ARE the educators, paraprofessionals, and administrators that make up the culture and “feel” of the building. When we state that there is “wealth” in Brookline, it is because we know that:

Brookline ranks 23rd out of 351 in per capita income ($95,466) according to the DOR
Brookline ranks 27th out of 351 in property value per capita ($476,107)
Yet Brookline ranks 313 out of 351 in terms of property tax rate (9.8%)
Brookline has a prop 2.5 tax levy ceiling of over $700M. Their actual tax levy is just shy of $275M. What this means is that over the years since proposition two-and-a-half became law, Brookline property values have increased almost half a billion dollars more than taxes have been increased. Brookline has a gap of almost 65% between what they could be taxing and what they are taxing under Prop 2 1/2. That puts them 1st among the 15 communities referenced above in unused tax capacity, where the average “untaxed capacity” is 48%. If the town is indeed “broke”, then it is by choice.

Brookline Educators to Stop Voluntary Services

December 15, 2021

December 10, 2021

Dear Families, School Committee, and Central Administration:

Because of the School Committee’s unwillingness to settle a fair contract and declaring impasse, the members of the Brookline Educators’ Union will stop participating in voluntary services beginning Dec. 13. We find it necessary to begin this work-to-rule action because we have concluded that the school committee and administration of Brookline Public Schools simply do not understand our working conditions or the demands on Brookline educators.

We have brought proposals to the bargaining table that we know are desperately needed and that our students deserve, among them: staffing improvements that lessen crushing teaching assignments and caseloads (including the unacceptable exploitation of K-8 World Language teachers); improved job security for staff of color who tend to be more vulnerable to staff cuts; added prep time for educators without loss of learning time for students; and cost of living increases that keep pace with inflation and reflect the value of our work.

However, the message that educators continually hear from the school committee is, “Do more with less.” This is insulting to educators who have never worked harder and a disservice to our students who have never needed more support.

Even prior to the Covid pandemic, we communicated to the school committee at the bargaining table that the contracts need to be updated to reflect growing demands on educators and our schools.

While Brookline’s enrollment ballooned by 35%, cost-of-living adjustments flatlined and hiring and retention did not keep pace, particularly when it came to hiring and retaining our colleagues of color and those of non-U.S. national origin.

The district’s administrators have increased the daily demands on all of us, and educators’ jobs are becoming unsustainable. The district’s approach is hurting our ability to deliver to our students the quality of education that we want them to receive. While superintendents, senior administrators, and principals have been in a chaotic flux, the rank and file have kept the Public Schools of Brookline afloat.

Unwilling to put real solutions in writing, the school committee then added proposals that extend the K-8 school day with no added pay, weaken grievance rights, and diminish the exercise of professional judgment. Having done that, the school committee will now not speak with us at the table at all. The committee’s lawyer reports that the school committee members decided unilaterally that we are at an impasse. The disrespect continues as the district tries to turn its responsibility to negotiate with union members over to a state mediator despite themselves having only recently introduced the major proposals above.

Our existing, expired contract remains in effect, and we have decided that we must work firmly within its boundaries until such time that the administration is willing to treat us as professionals and with respect. Educators have willingly given their time above and beyond the obligations set out in our contracts, and we happily do so to create the learning environment that we want for our students. But we have arrived at the point where it is clear that the School Committee is shamefully taking advantage of us.

We are united in our resolve to settle a contract that strengthens our schools and our profession. We can no longer stand by as the school committee approach slowly erodes the quality and reputation of Brookline’s schools.

Below is the list of work that educators perform above and beyond our contractual obligations and that extends our day far too long under current staffing arrangements. We continue to urge the school committee to return to the bargaining table in a way that respects BEU educators as true partners in the effort to strengthen our schools.

WORK ACTIVITY THAT WILL NOT HAPPEN:

Brookline educators will be refraining from responding to emails outside of contractual work hours.
All Brookline educators are contractually guaranteed a duty-free lunch period. Seldom, if ever, do we have a period of time that is truly duty free. We will be observing the language of our (expired) contract and maintaining duty free lunch time.
Educators are also guaranteed a duty-free prep period. We will refrain from attending meetings during this time. This time is essential (and presently insufficient) to prepare lessons, grade, and conduct other essential work duties.
Brookline educators will be leaving schools within 60 minutes of the end of the contractual workday, except in cases where educators are performing paid or stipended duties.
Brookline educators will not be grading student work outside of contractual work hours. Since there is not enough time in the contractual workday, let alone the 24-hour work day, to grade, Brookline educators will be using creative alternatives to assess student learning.
Progress reports at the Middle and High School levels will be streamlined.
- High school teachers use pre-written comments for struggling students, and “making sufficient progress” for students who are not in danger.
- Middle school teachers write SAT/UNSAT

We ask for your consideration and support as we continue to dedicate ourselves to ensuring that our students receive an extraordinary education in the Public Schools of Brookline.

Sincerely,

The Educators of the BEU

In support of transparency

September 25, 2021

Educators extend our gratitude to the parents, guardians, and caregivers, and other members of the Brookline community, who have been reaching out to us with words of support and sincere questions about what issues are on the bargaining table and what is prompting collective action in the schools.

For some time, we have asked the School Committee to open up negotiations to the public so that members of the community can hear our concerns, see how we work as a union, and judge for themselves whether our proposals are good for our students and schools. We hope you will encourage the School Committee to finally open up the sessions.

Educators do not take the decision to engage in collective action lightly. Unfortunately, every other effort we have made to see serious problems addressed by the district has not worked, leaving us with no other choice. Conditions we are addressing have for too long been degrading educators’ ability to do their best work and to sustain a career commitment to the Public Schools of Brookline. This prolonged, grinding situation is already hurting children much more than our efforts to get to an agreement with the school committee quickly. The conditions we are addressing are definitely not as visible and dramatic as a work action is, but they are ultimately more disruptive of quality educational services and our ability to translate our love of our students into substantive supports that we want to deliver.

Here are our current bargaining priorities of our three year contract:

A Just Wage: Increase educators’ salaries an average of 3% per year during the 3-year contract term (retroactive to 2020-2021)
Fair Workload for K-8 World Language Teachers and teachers of “specials”: Reduce the untenable workload of the district’s K-8 World Language and other teachers who are required to teach more classes across multiple grade levels without opportunities to participate in their school communities
Common Planning Time: Create additional common planning time for educators to facilitate collaboration across grade levels, academic departments, and schools
Adequate Staffing: Hire additional personnel from Brookline neighborhoods facing the highest unemployment rates to increase the diversity of our staff, cover building-based duties, and open up common planning time for educators
Retaining a Diverse Workforce: Grant BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, and People of Color) educators Professional Teacher States (PTS) as early as allowed by law and regular meeting with the superintendent

We encouraged members of the community to challenge claims that the town “simply has no money.” This is just not just not true, and if it is “the case”, then it is by choice. In 2019, Brookline placed 29th lowest (or 322nd highest) in tax rates while being in the top 10% in income (even higher in income by some accounts). If Proposition 2 ½ is in the way, it is past time to make means of funding of public services as great a priority as austerity talk. Furthermore, community stake-holders, including the educators of Brookline, are supposed to be part of decisions about how to use $40 million in stimulus funds. We hope you will stand with us.

Please contact the School Committee at school_committee@psbma.org and insist that this bargaining process becomes transparent and happens in public–right away.