The BTU and the BSD reached an agreement last night at around 2:30 AM after an 11-hour session. The school department agreed to our proposals on class size reduction, performance evaluation, the hiring of additional nurses, social workers and replacement paraprofessionals during the course of the session, which began at 3:30 PM.
The agreement is good for students, affordable to the city, and fair to our members.
The union proposed breaking the 27 month-long logjam two weeks ago by offering to accept the city’s wage offer (0%, 1%, 2%, 3%, 3%, and 3% for each year of the 6-year contract, with each salary bump to take place in November) in exchange for the city’s meeting our proposals on each of the above. That agreement came last night.
Both parties agreed to accept the state’s model contract language on performance evaluation as we had proposed earlier. The state’s language, while not perfect (to say the least), gives our members a number of protections that will help improve instruction by providing quick feedback on observations as well as provide more timely information on evaluation results. The state’s language is currently by more than 50 other districts in Massachusetts The school department had initially wanted to delay implementation of the state’s language until 9/2013. Last night the department agreed to implement the change effective immediately. We look forward to working with the department to get the system up and running in quick fashion. Boston, as a level 4 district, is obligated to have a new system in place this year.
The school district also agreed to hire and maintain 6 additional school nurses to provide adequate nursing coverage for our 125+ schools. Eight social workers will be hired, as well, which is a step in the direction of providing a social service network for our students, many of whom are in need of same. The district also agreed to hire a complement of 20 substitute paraprofessionals who will be cover for the absence of a 1-1 Para or a paraprofessional in a substantially separate classroom. Class size in grades 6 (by two students) and 9 (by one student) will be reduced in level 3 and level 4 schools.
The agreement also creates a new excess pool assignment process for teachers. There are two changes in the process from what we currently have: 1) All staff who are either proficient or exemplary can enter the process and change school assignments. 2) Bidding will no longer be done strictly by seniority. Instead a new process will be enacted that allows a sort of mutual acceptance of the parties. But at the end of the day, all teachers who participate in the process will be guaranteed an assignment–just as they are now. The new process gives both sides what they wanted–more flexibility and choice. It also gives us protections that we need.
Other items agreed to include the following mutual items of interest. The list is NOT all inclusive.
- Expanding the role and function of parents in the school site council matters
- An increase of tuition reimbursement to $1000, up from $500 for teachers As well as paraprofessionals, as well as the explanation of this program to provisional teachers and paraprofessionals with three years or more of service.
- Granting licensed paraprofessionals a guarantee of four teaching interviews where available
- Granting common PD time to specialty teachers
- Creating 150 or so lead teachers and a BTU-run PD Institute with joint funding
- Creating an Academic advancement credit that will encourage and provide members to partake in PD that can be used for lane advancement at no cost to the employee.
- Allowing BTU members to enroll their children in their own schools provided there is a vacancy and subject to the district’s assignment policy
- Adjusting some athletic stipends that have been severely under compensated
The parties also agreed to limit step increases (not salary increases) for an employee who has received a most recent evaluation–overall–of unsatisfactory. The denial of a step increase would remain until that employee moves out of the unsatisfactory category.
The parties did not agree to anything relating to tying performance evaluation to student test scores. Whatever the state mandates along this line will be part of the performance evaluation process in the BPS as it will be in every other community in the state–nothing more and nothing less.
The parties also did not agree to anything outside of the bounds of the state language that streamlines the dismissal process for teachers. As above, we have agreed to the new state contract language on performance evaluation with all its changes, good or bad. There will be changes, certainly, but those changes will be in line with every other contact in Massachusetts. As always we will work with members to protect their due process rights as we also work to get people the help and resources they need to improve.
There will be a press conference later this morning.
We thank the BTU negotiation team-Erik Berg, Gary Fisher, Josefina Lascano, Garret Virchick, and Ed Doherty–who were with us for over 400 hours of sessions over the last 27 months. We also thank the BTU elected staff, as well as BTU Atty. Matthew Dwyer. Lastly, we thank Dan Murphy of the AFT Mass who was our in-house expert on the state’s performance evaluation system.
The BTU will run extensive workshops on the new state evaluation system as soon as can be arranged.
Again, the above is not meant to be an all-inclusive list of what has been tentatively agreed to. We obviously will have more detailed information later.
The tentative agreement is subject to membership ratification, which we expect will be held at the October membership meeting. A complete document detailing this proposal will be sent out to all members in accordance with practice and legal requirements as soon as possible.
Finally, we thank our membership for being patient and understanding during these last 27 months. Your support has been solid and very much appreciated. When we began this process we said we wanted a contract that was good for students, affordable to the city, and fair to our members. We accomplished what we set out to do.
Finally, it is appropriate in this memo to offer our support to our Chicago brothers and sisters who are valiantly fighting to keep their public schools away from the corporate interests that are seeking to destroy them. The BTU most enthusiastically supports our colleagues and we will do whatever we can to help them out. We join with teachers from around the country in expressing our support and admiration for them as they fight for the issues we hold dearly.
Thank you.