In this month’s edition of Catching
up on Contracts, we look at
two districts, Portland Public Schools in Oregon and the Fresno Unified School District in
California. Both districts faced a highly contentious negotiation process. After almost a year of negotiations, the two districts
ratified their contracts, Portland in February 2014 and Fresno in June 2014.
Portland Public Schools (OR), July 1, 2013 through June 30, 2016
Portland averted a teachers’
strike by just two days when the district reached a “conceptual agreement” at
the end of a 23-hour marathon bargaining session, which became the basis of the
latest contract. The city’s first budget
surplus in over a decade undoubtedly eased the way to a settlement. The surplus,
which freed up funds to meet many of the union’s demands, came about largely
due to increased revenues from property taxes, reduced expenses and added
dollars approved by the state legislature. Below, we cover some of the more
significant changes in the latest contract.
Salary
The latest contract gives a 2.3
percent annual salary increase in each of the three school years from 2013 to
2015. The district paid teachers retroactively for the 2013-2014 school
year.
School year
Two calendars are included in the
latest contract: a standard school year calendar and a new extended calendar
which adds two days to the instructional year. For 2014-2015, the district operated
under the extended calendar and will continue to do so provided that no future
decreases in funding lead to a reduction in staffing levels. In that event, the
district must revert to the standard calendar before it cuts any teaching
positions. The extended calendar adds two days to the instructional year for a
total of 178 days (including three snow days).
Professional development
The contract adds up to three
professional development days for teachers in priority or focus schools. Oregon
has a new school accountability system that identifies Title I schools as
priority, focus or model schools that either need additional support or are
recognized for being highly successful. Priority and focus schools represent
the bottom 5 and 15 percent, respectively, of Title I schools in the
state.
Teacher workload
A major bone of contention during the
negotiations was teacher workload. The addition of 150 new teachers in the
2014-2015 school year represents a victory for the union. The contract also
establishes a committee of teachers and administrators who will work jointly to
identify and solve workload concerns. Individual teachers have the right to
appeal to this committee when they require workload relief.
Benefits
The district has an early retirement
program that pays a stipend of $425 each month as well as health insurance to
teachers who elect early retirement. The payments continue for 60 months or
until the teacher reaches the age of sixty-two, whichever comes first. The plan
will remain in effect only for teachers who had 15 years of experience in the district
by September 2014. In a letter last year to Portland Public
School families, Superintendent Carole Smith said, “This will allow PPS to keep more experienced teachers longer and
re-direct money over time to investments in students.” This program will sunset
on June 30, 2016.
Layoffs and
Assignments
Under the latest
contract, the district has added “competence” as a criterion for determining
teacher assignments, including transfers, and for determining the order of
layoffs. The district defines competence as “the ability
to teach a subject or grade level based on recent teaching experience related
to the subject or grade level within the last five years, or educational
attainments, or both, but not based solely on being licensed to teach.”
Transfers
The union agreed to allow first and second-year non-tenured teachers who
are unassigned to apply for an open position during the internal transfer
process. Previously, this privilege went only to third-year non-tenured
teachers and tenured teachers.
Fresno Unified School District, July 1, 2013 through June
30, 2016
Though teachers in Fresno
did not actually vote to strike as did their neighbors to the north, the threat
was there. The major sticking points were shared decision-making, working
conditions and employer contributions to health benefits. Before identifying
the most significant changes in the latest contract, a brief explanation of California’s
Locally Controlled Funding Formula (LCFF) might bring some clarity to recent
developments, specifically in the district’s benefits and turnaround school
policies.
The LCFF provides more
cash to districts with high percentages of at-risk students and gives districts
flexibility in determining how they will use the funds to close the achievement
gap. Prior to the LCFF, student needs were generally not a factor in the
funding formula. EdSource described the intent of
LCFF as “shift[ing]
the focus from funding dozens of state-mandated programs to funding based on
local district control and student needs, with substantial extra dollars allotted
to low-income children, foster youth and English learners.”
With that, on to the
latest contract…
Benefits
Effective July 1,
2014, the district’s annual contribution to the health fund rose from $13,649
to $14,674, an increase of $1,025 per employee. The contract stipulates that
this contribution will not decrease in any future year, even if the base grant
provided by LCFF declines, and guarantees an annual increase to the district’s
contribution based on any state increases to the LCFF base grant.
Turnaround schools
The latest contract
includes a new article called “Designated Schools,” otherwise known as
turnaround schools. The 2011 Memorandum
of Understanding on Persistently Low Achieving Schools and the regulations
of the LCFF form the basis for the article. LCFF provides the funding necessary
for the district to increase the number of schools eligible for turnaround
status. In 2011, the district identified only three schools as persistently low
achieving; in 2014-2015, 10 schools had this designation. Under the latest
contract, by 2016-2017, there will be 30 Designated Schools, an addition of 10
schools each year. The contract continues the increased instructional time established
under the 2011 MOU, with 30 minutes added to the instructional day and an
additional 10 days in the school year. If funding by the LCFF ends for any reason,
this new article will terminate.
Class size
Effective 2014-2015, the
class size limit in grades K-3 is 24 students, up from 20 under the previous contract.
Salary
The latest contract
brings several changes in salary:
- There was a 2.7 percent increase in salary
paid retroactively for the 2013-2014 school year. - Effective July 1, 2014, teacher salary
increased by 3.5 percent. Both sides agreed to meet after the 2014-2015 school
year to work out the 2015-2016 salary schedule. - A new professional learning classification,
or lane, was added to the salary schedule (Class
V). Class V provides an additional 3 percent salary increase compared to Class IV for teachers who complete nine units of professional learning by July
1, 2015. To remain at this level, teachers must complete nine units of
professional learning every three years. - All extra pay schedules for teachers
who take on extracurricular responsibilities doubled, with the exception of
elementary sport pay schedules which tripled, retroactive to July 1, 2013.
Evaluation
There are also
significant changes in teacher evaluation, including changes in the remediation
process:
- Teachers
must set “goals and objectives for the progress of students towards established
standards of expected student achievement.” - Teachers
are now guaranteed the right to request an additional classroom observation by
a mutually-selected new evaluator. This evaluator provides feedback and support
to the teacher; it is not clear if the evaluator rates the teacher and/or if
the rating figures into the teacher’s final evaluation. - The
current contract eliminates Peer Assistance and Review (PAR), a long-standing
program required by California which offered support and peer assistance to
struggling tenured teachers in remediation. As part of the new flexibility
afforded to districts by the LCFF, Fresno has chosen to take a different
approach to the remediation process. A mentor is still available, upon request,
to struggling teachers following the mid-year formative evaluation but peer
assistance is no longer a component of the formal remediation process in the
year following an unsatisfactory evaluation. Instead the process looks much as
it does in most districts outside of California. The teacher and administrator,
not a peer advisor/mentor, develop a “Teacher Development Plan” which includes “goals
for improving professional practices and student learning, together with
objective criteria to measure progress towards stated goals.” - The
district is now using four instead of three performance ratings in evaluations:
Demonstrates Expertise, Meets Standards, Growth Expected and Not Meeting
Standards. The previous contract required: Meets Standards – Proficient, Meets
Standards – Minimally and Does Not Meet Standards.
Shared decision
making/collaborative planning time
Throughout negotiations,
Fresno teachers demanded greater shared decision making and achieved a new
article in the contract called Shared
Decision Procedures. It establishes “accountable communities” at all
schools, not just in turnaround schools as was the case under the previous
contract.
Accountable communities
give teachers collaboration time “to improve and support student learning.” The
administration at each school, in collaboration with the teachers, sets the
topics for each session. A lead teacher facilitates the sessions. It is not
clear how much time schools must allocate to this planning time; the contract
states only that a “reasonable” amount of time during the eight-hour work day
is allotted to collaborative planning time.
