Falls teachers' union 'strongly' rejects contract

“It went down very strongly,” said Local 331 president John Sandberg, who teaches at Falls High School, adding that one of the reasons was some language in the contract was vague. “It’s hard to vote on something like that when it’s going to affect your daily life and you don’t know what it’s going to be.”

Teacher contracts, which are negotiated every two years, expired in June 2011. Failure from both sides to reach an agreement on salary, benefits, and flexible scheduling at the high school has dragged the process along, and teachers are working off contracts developed in 2009. The negotiations are now under mediation through the state to help come to an agreement.

School board chair Stuart Nordquist, a member of the board’s negotiating committee, said the sides are making progress because a contract was finally agreed upon by the officers and taken to the membership for a vote. However, Sandberg said the only reason it was brought back to the membership was because of an Oct. 1 deadline for the district to enroll in the Q-Comp program, or quality compensation given to teachers from a state fund for increasing student performance.

The school board at its September meeting approved a resolution to offer Q-Comp to the teachers in exchange for flexible scheduling, which could include a change from a 6-period to a 7-period day at the high school. The vote by the union against the change means Q-Comp will not take place this year, and cannot be added again until next year when the state opens enrollment for it again.

The board offered Q-Comp under the condition that flexible scheduling would be added to the contract, and teachers are wary of having flexible scheduling, Sandberg said.

“That was really important because we think Q-Comp is a good program — it’s good for kids and that’s why we wanted it so badly,” Sandberg said, noting that the board discontinued Q-Comp last year and is now using it as a “bargaining chip.”

“They didn’t think it’s a good program, so why would they bring it back? In our eyes, that was wrong — they shouldn’t have done that. It should be a separate item, not tied to negotiations.”

He added that teachers are not opposed to a 7-period day or flexible scheduling, but they need the contract to provide more clarification about what that would require. Superintendent Nordy Nelson and Nordquist support a 7-period day at the high school because it would allow students to have an additional elective and increase their educational opportunities.

“What’s scary for our people is if they approve flexible scheduling, one possibility is teachers may be layed off and cause an increase in class sizes, and that’s worrisome for many people,” Sandberg said. “We want to know what a 7-period day would look like and define it in more black and white, and get some guarantees going.”

Nordquist said flexible scheduling would allow school administrators to structure the high school day as they see fit, and it could be a block system with longer class periods but more classes throughout the year, or a 5-period day, or a 7-period day — it wouldn’t be defined in the contract, but decided by administration.

Sandberg said part of the problem in negotiations is that the union doesn’t trust some of the school board members, and want to make sure they are protected.

“We don’t trust what their intentions are with this, they have not really earned the trust,” Sandberg said. “That came very strongly with our membership, too — they wouldn’t give us clear-cut answers.”

The union would like guarantees that teachers will not be layed off and that class sizes will not get any larger, Sandberg said. Nordquist told The Journal layoffs would not be tied to what the schedule at the high school is like.

“You could have (layoffs) with a 6-period day; we just had layoffs,” Nordquist said. “If you don’t have enough students, there are going to be layoffs — that’s just reality. The possibility always exists in any schedule.”

Another large factor in the rejection of the contracts was salary, Sandberg said. He said with what the board offered, most teachers would “be going backwards” in salary because of an increase in health insurance costs. Nordquist said health insurance does increase every year.

“They’re still among the top-paid (teachers) in the state, especially for a district of our size,” Nordquist said.

He added that he understands some of the teachers are leery of a 7-period day, but that the schedule would not increase the time they would teach.

“They have to teach 300 minutes a day, with one prep hour, regardless of how many periods are in the schedule,” he said.

Sandberg said the language was “open-ended” on how many minutes of teaching it would require.

“It’s like buying a house and not knowing what the mortgage payment will be,” he said of agreeing to a contract without more clear language.

He added that the addition of flexible scheduling would require more work “and we didn’t feel that what we were getting is justifying it.”

“We can’t say it was one thing or two things that we didn’t agree with, it was many things,” Sandberg said. “We don’t feel how we were treated as an employee has been respected or that they appreciate the work we do.”

Nordquist said, “How do you put a monetary value on what respect is?”

The fact that the contract went to the membership for a vote is a step in the right direction, Nordquist said.

“They never have before,” he said. “Since the membership has turned it down, we’ll probably sit down and see where we need to improve.”

Sandberg said the union will likely wait until the November elections are over, because there are three school board seats up for renewal.

“Right now, it doesn’t make sense to meet with the same board,” he said. “We hope we get a deal quickly when we get a new board.”

He added that the superintendent, Nelson, has been very helpful in the process since he joined the district in July.

“It’s a good thing because it opened the communication line, and I think with the new superintendent and new board, we’re going to get things done,” Sandberg said.

Nelson told The Journal that he believes negotiations may resume in about a month or so.

“They’ll sit back and take a look at what is all out there on the table and reconsider,” he said. “Hopefully we can get things started again.”