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Schools

Teachers Contract Being 'Held Hostage' According to District 180 Teachers Union

Teachers in the district have been working without a contract for the past 100 days.

Nearly 100 days have passed since the teachers in have had a contract—something they want quickly resolved. Union members said they are uncomfortable with the negotiation process so far, one they feel has “no integrity.”

About three dozen members of Teachers Organization of Palisades, the District 180 teacher’s union, filled the meeting room Monday night, telling school board members they want a fair contract. During the at times contentious discussion, each side indicated they were waiting to hear from the other on moving forward.

“We feel at this point like our contract is being held hostage. We’re beginning to lose confidence in this group’s ability to settle this contract,” said Kristen Drain, vice president of TOP and kindergarten teacher at School, to the board.

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The 59 teachers at Anne M. Jeans and have been working without a contract since the end of August. Currently teachers are being paid at the rate of their last contract. Once a new contract is agreed upon, it will likely be retroactive to the point when the old contract expired.

Negotiations for a new contract began in July. Since that time the talks have involved formal mediation and informal discussions between board members and teachers.

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“The board has already changed their process to address your needs, and now to say the way the board decided to address your needs is inappropriate or not to your standard seems to be a bit much,” Superintendent Tom Schneider said.

He said the board “went above and beyond” in suspended regular discussion in mediation to talk with teachers informally. The teachers had asked for the discussion with board members after the mediation sessions were held with an attorney working on behalf of the board.

No board members were at the formal mediation settings, the teachers said, and they wanted to build a relationship.

“It’s much harder to work with an attorney who’s not invested in the school district themselves,” said Lynn Moynihan, president of TOP and social worker at Anne M. Jeans Elementary.

The board has been in constant contact with the attorney, Schneider said after the meeting.

“Really the board was at the table,” he said. “It was just in the person of the attorney.”

While board President Paula Dupont indicated she would respond to the union’s comments during executive session, the teachers asked that it be done publicly.

During open session Dupont said the board replied to the union’s list of proposed dates to meet—some of which included dates this week—by saying the district has had an offer on the table since Dec. 16, but the teachers have not counter offered. She said the board feels like it has put forth a good faith effort that has been ignored.

“We sent an email correspondence to you saying please, by last Friday, give us your counter, so we know your efforts and desires to reach conclusion are in earnest ... Not only did we not get a counter, we didn’t get a response as to whether you were ever planning to counter,” Dupont said. “As far as we’re concerned, there seems to be a missing link on the process of negotiation on your end. Just because you make a demand, does not mean we need to exceed to those demands. So if you don’t like what we present, throw something back at us that’s maybe just a little bit different that shows that you want to move it forward. But to have something sitting there since the 16th, and to say to us that we’re insincere, and we’re unwilling, and you don’t have confidence in us being able to reach an agreement is absolutely ridiculous.”

Drain said TOP is looking to have a traditional negotiating process, where the proposals that are exchanged are binding proposals, so no party would be able to go backward, and would instead move forward. The Dec. 16 proposal does not reflect that, she said.

“We just want it to be something that’s in good faith,” Drain said. “And to this point, we haven’t felt that way.”

Drain told the board the union thought it would counter offer during the formal process. “In the past a lot of our offers have been significant changes, where as the board of education offers have not changed very much at all,” Drain said.

Dupont disagreed. “You started from an absurdly hight point, and stuck there for about six months. Then you started to make changes coming downward,” Dupont said. “We started where we felt we needed to, and we’ve came up. So both parties have moved.”

The teachers said the sticking points are the financial and retirement portions of the contract, including the amount and length of time the district pays towards retirement benefits for some of their teachers.

Schneider said the concerns are the financial and length of the work day. Now, the ball is in the union’s court, Schneider said. 

“I think that’s largely up to the teachers,” he said. “The board has made the last offer to the teachers and we’re still waiting a response.”

Moynihan said the team will meet again and submit another proposal.

“It’s hard. I think everybody believes that they’re trying in their best interest,” Moynihan said. “It’s just not resulting in a fair resolution at this time.”

Both teachers and district officials said this is the longest the district has gone without an agreement with teachers.

“We’ve never gone without a contract this long. We’ve always had a wonderful relationship with the teachers. And to be not flat out told, but certainly to be strongly implied, that we are insincere and not genuine and don’t want to move toward a common agreement and have a decent relationship is terribly offensive, and not at all what this board is about or what I am personally about,” Dupont said. “I want you to have a fair contract. I want us to have a business agreement that works to meet all of our students’ needs and keep our district fiscally solvent.”

Members of the school board and teacher's union will continue to discuss the issue at the next school board meeting, which is scheduled for Feb. 13.

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