Next school year, Baltimore City principals can require most teachers to commit one of their weekly planning periods to collaboration with their colleagues. This ruling came via an independent arbitrator after school chief Andres Alonso and the city teachers union could not come to an agreement on their own. They both declare victory.

The dispute started during contract negotiations when Alonso asserted that principals have the right to require teachers to collaborate once a week. The union said teachers needed to be paid for this additional requirement because currently elementary teachers are only guaranteed three 45-minute planning periods a week, comparing unfavorably to most other large school districts which typically provide five periods a week. The school district claimed that in practice most elementary school teachers receive five planning periods a week, but the union presented documentation to show that only 80 percent of schools offer even four planning periods.

With the union picketing school headquarters and calling for Alonso's dismissal, the school chief went to the mat. Not only was he intent on giving principals more of a say in how teachers spend their days, he was determined to expand a successful pilot (see Sept. 2007 TQB, "A light bulb goes on in Baltimore") that had produced significant student gains after teachers worked regularly together on a math initiative.

The teacher union declared victory because Alonso agreed to let principals devote their discretionary funds to ensure that all elementary school teachers are guaranteed four planning periods a week if one period is dedicated to collaborative planning --an obvious solution that should have occurred to almost anyone a lot earlier.