Teacher Mark Sass says it’s not too late to turn things around in Adams 12, where a rift between the teachers’ union and administration is reaching the boiling point.
School boards exist to bring accountability to those whom we entrust our children. As elected officials, school board members have a responsibility to see that the community has avenues to express their beliefs and values. In short, school boards exist to advocate for their communities. How school boards go about their mission certainly varies among communities. For me, the best school boards empower their superintendents and educators to do their jobs with as little direct action as possible. A great example of this is the Jefferson County Public Schools Board of Education.
Jefferson County Schools Superintendent Cindy Stevenson, left, and Kerrie Dallman, president of the Jefferson County Education Association, said the district-union collaboration helped win a $32.8 million federal grant. EdNews file photo
When the Jeffco school district faced a budget crunch in 2011 – as was the case with many Colorado school districts – the board, under the leadership of Chairman David Thomas, empowered Superintendent Cynthia Stevenson and union President Kerrie Dallman to take a unique and never-done-before approach to the difficult task of negotiating budget cuts. They decided to collaborate, along with other district stakeholders, around the common value of student achievement to make decisions on what to cut.
Two representatives from the union, the district, the school board and groups from the administrators and classified staff members, attended a two-day summit. Everything was on the table from athletic fees to transportation, from teacher salaries to administrator salaries. The negotiations were made more difficult by those from both the board and union, who saw this new approach as too drastic a shift from the past. For them, giving up control to a consensual form of negotiation was not in the best interests for their respective groups.
A total of $40 million was cut from the 2011 budget. The same process was used in 2012. Because of their work both Dallman and Stevenson have been named as “Leaders to Learn From” by Education Week. Today the challenge for the district is to maintain this same level of collaboration with different players at the table. This is especially true since Dallman was elected as the new Colorado Education Association president last spring.
The level of trust and respect that the summits generated led to a collaborative decision-making process that was a significant change from the past, which had seen the board and the union engage in outright hostility and charges of the usual canard of not doing what was right for kids.
Contrast the collaborative and shared values of the Jeffco summits to what is happening today in Adams 12 Five Star School District.
For 40 years the Adams 12 school board and the District 12 Teachers Association (DTEA) have had a relatively professional and honest labor-management relationship. Not so today.
In June of last year, the school board made a unilateral decision to cut teacher’s pay by 1.5 percent to make up for a state imposed increase in PERA payments. DTEA claimed that the board had violated the master agreement, which members pointed out specifically forbid such a unilateral decision. DTEA filed a class action grievance against the board. All of this took place during negotiations for the current master agreement, which expires in August of 2014. The negotiations have hit an impasse.
Both parties agreed to hire a fact-finder whose finding, while not binding, was accepted by the association but rejected by the board. The fact-finder found that the district does have enough revenue to “fund, at least, some of the economic adjustments, while keeping faithful (to its board policies).”
In the meantime, the labor-management relationship has deteriorated to name-calling and public displays of anger and frustration. Morale among teachers is low, which couldn’t come at a worse time as the district looks to implement new standards and standards-based grading – all of which takes extraordinary efforts on behalf of all district personnel. Charges of union busting and harassment have been aired in public and at school board meetings. Things are coming to a head in Adams 12.
Most frustrating for me is what could have been. Using the Jeffco model we could have engaged in tough decision-making with a focus on shared values of increasing student achievement and respect for each other. It will be hard, but we can turn things around. Let’s do what we expect from our students; stop and reflect on what went wrong and look to news ways to get it right and try again.
About the author
Mark Sass has been teaching high school social sciences for 16 years, for the past 12 years at Legacy High School in Broomfield. Mark is a member of the Aspen Teacher Leader Fellows and of the Denver New Millennium Initiative, an initiative of the Center for Teaching Quality. He lives in Denver with his wife and two children, who attend a Denver public elementary school.
Mark – Let me see if I understand you – a great example of representing the community is when school board members whom the union paid over $300,000 to elect go behind closed doors and come out with teachers not being in classrooms (furlough days) and the tax payer picking up the increases in contributions to pension plans that were mandated to come from the employee (from monies otherwise available for compensation increases – according to SB10-001 – which was to provide shared sacrifice). But when a school board in very public meetings requires their teachers to pick up the increases to pensions plans that the rest of their employees are already making so students can stay in school and class size can stay reasonable and 100 employees can keep jobs – that is a school board not representing the community?
Oh, yes, what could have been. Take a 3% cut, and no increase in pay for two years – have you asked the Jeffco teachers how they are liking that? It seems like Adams 12 has been very generous to their teachers, by giving them increases in pay EVERY year until this year. And then to ask them to shoulder a 1.5% cost to help THEIR retirement plan? I think the protesters should be embarassed.
Why do teachers think they deserve more than everybody else? The economy is bad. Everybody is hurting and very few have received increases. Teachers have via their steps and levels, though they will never admit to ti. In the mean time, PERA is an unfundeed mandate. Districts who don’t put students first, continue to make taxpayers pay for the mandated increases to teacher retirement plans, while the teachers contribution remain flat. I can’t afford to pay for teacher’s retirement. I can’t afford to pay for my retirement. I haven’t gotten a raise in I can’t remember how long. In fact, I took a huge pay cut after 9/11 and have not recovered. So THANK YOU Adams 12 BOE for standing up for the Taxpayers and putting students first.
These teachers need to learn they are only fed information that their UNION THUG LEADERSHIP wants them to know. They are just pawns in this game.
These teachers, need to suck it up and stop bullying the BOE. Don’t like your job, or the benefit thereof, find something else better. You “unhappy” teachers are not being forced to stay. I’m sure, in this economy, there are many who would love a job at such a great district like Adams 12 Five Star.
Jennifer, you missed the point of my post. Teachers do not live in bubbles, they are keenly aware of the economic conditions. And we have collaboratively worked with the district in the past to make cuts, plenty of cuts. The decision of the BOE was a unilateral one that violated the contract and took the position that they, acting alone, knew what was best. Did you support the president when he said, through his policy, that the government knows what is best for people when it comes to health care?
PERA is not an unfunded mandate. PERA is a benefit that compensates for the relatively low wages that teachers, and other government professionals, earn compared to the professionals with the same level of education in the private sector. Pay me the same comparative wage during times of economic boom that the privarte sector earns and then you can make your complaint.
Glad to see you did not revert to name calling.
Mark
I got your number. JeffCo used the DELPHI technique to guise their effort of “collaboration” with the community. Doesn’t matter. In JeffCo, Stevenson and Dahlman IGNORED what people wanted as a result of their Summit.
In contrast, Adams 12 put their Students First and LEGALLY imposed CO statue to force teachers to pay for their own benefits, rather than take money away from students. PERA is Colorado’s largest unfunded liability. The low-wages of teacher argument is a farse. In fact, teachers have it pretty darn good, better than most in this economy. They shouldn’t be complaining. If you want to talk equity, according to the Dept. of Labor, the average citizen took a 3% pay reduction – or at least those did who are still employed, as opposed to a 1.5% pay cut that the DTEA is complaining about. I’m betting the total compensation package for teachers in Adams actually icreased.
Stop your rhetoric.