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A confluence of external economic and legislative issues have created immediate financial challenges for the district, local taxpayers and school employees. These challenges demand an honest and global conversation.
As such, T/E teachers, counselors and nurses initiated negotiations by immediately addressing financial concerns. Presented to the Board on January 9, our initial proposal was a starting point for discussion. It was reasonable in scope, voluntarily offered solutions on salary, and sought primarily to trade reasonable financial concessions for clearer rules on demotions and non-financial items.
The initial proposal volunteered an immediate one-year salary freeze. Together with a voluntary partial freeze enacted during the current contract year, a concession that few PA teachers offered, this approach asserted our ongoing desire to cooperate. The second year proposed a continued salary freeze for master teachers but salary advancement for younger, non-master teachers. We also made repeated verbal commitments to discuss changes to healthcare benefits.
As a starting point for negotiation, this offer is extremely reasonable – certainly one of the most reasonable opening offers seen in the region. In return, we asked for assurances that the teachers who have committed the most to this community would maintain their livelihood – a request we, too, saw as reasonable.
This offer was rejected in its entirety by the Board.
On February 9, the Board issued only one option in its place. This counter-proposal is very large in its scope, requiring 113 pages. It is focused on issues that stretch beyond relevant financial concerns, and re-opens decades of successful, mutually-agreeable T/E contract bargaining. To date, this is the only offer made by the Board.
When a timely resolution to financial concerns is most pressing, the district’s offer seeks substantial and unreasonable changes, including:
This offer seeks changes to almost every section of the existing contract. Most significantly, the district has proposed to strip family coverage for T/E employees completely with no opportunity to buy. The implication is that while T/E teachers have spent our lives caring for the children of this community, T/E has no interest in caring for ours.
Our teachers were surprised and dismayed by this offer. Nevertheless, on February 29, we offered a revised proposal accepting a two-year timeframe and various proposed changes to contract language – early, incremental concessions are a key to building trust in bargaining.
The district, however, declared negotiations at an impasse, touting our unwillingness to discuss healthcare. In reality, we indicated that we would need to resolve many of the other issues now on the table before addressing larger issues like healthcare, a standard practice in collaborative bargaining.
Shortly thereafter, the Board proposed the demotion of our best teachers as a viable cost-reduction strategy. The Board has resisted a discussion of their own issues for months. Recently, the Board released outdated and incomplete details of our standing proposal, and violated our mutually-agreed contract by releasing details of unresolved grievance proceedings – a process that exists to formally discuss contract language (see grievance FAQ here).
This approach to dialogue is neither collaborative nor productive. It has had a profound negative impact on the morale of our teachers, counselors, and nurses and threatens to destroy this community’s award-winning educational program. These roadblocks to positive conversation have stalled the resolution to this year’s deficit and damaged the working relationship between our teachers and T/E’s elected leaders.
Still, we believe honest conversation can offer a remedy.
We again call on the School Board to choose dialogue over demotion. To end politically-timed, and limited information releases. To return to a two-way discussion of our contract, and reject the dismantling of T/E’s award winning program and the reduction of its best teachers. To use its enviable and substantial financial resources as a bridge that allows true collaboration and creative problem solving the time now needed to develop – time that will certainly extend into the next budget year.
Please contact School Board President Karen Cruickshank and the TESD Board at schoolboard@tesd.net and offer your opinion.
Sincerely,
The TEEA Negotiations Team
Community members have recently called for greater transparency in the T/E teacher contract negotiation. We agree that a global conversation regarding the school district’s financial concerns is important and that transparency would aid this conversation.
Recent developments have strengthened our belief in a need for transparency with the public; these include the Board’s continued consideration of the demotion of our best teachers as a viable cost-reduction strategy, the Board’s recent public release of outdated and incomplete facts about negotiations and the violation of our mutually-agreed contract regarding grievance procedures.
Our expectation remains a professional, collaborative, open, and productive conversation with the School Board about its financial challenges and the important role that our teachers play in their resolution.
We hope that full transparency about the process to date will allow future conversations to achieve these expectations. Below, please find the unedited proposals each side has offered to date, a timeline of the negotiation process to date, and the T/E teacher perspective on the process.
Negotiation Proposals
TEEA Initial Proposal (Jan. 9th, 2012)
School Board Response Proposal #1 (Feb. 9th, 2012)
TEEA Response Proposal #1 (Feb. 29th, 2012)
Negotiation Timeline
Negotiation Timeline: The timeline includes the dates of all formal negotiation meetings held between parties. It also includes the dates of related Board meeting decisions and communications offered by both parties.
View the T/E teachers’ perspective on these details here.
On Monday, May 7, the TESD Finance Committee will meet to decide on whether to demote T/E’s most experienced teachers for economic reasons. The Board believes that such action will be an effective cost-saving measure.
However, any minimal and short-term economic benefits produced will be offset by greater and more serious long-term costs. If the Board decides to follow through on teacher demotions, we ask—what is the true price? How will these demotions affect our students, our schools, and the T/E community?
Teachers are the most significant in-school factor affecting student achievement. Furthermore, research has consistently identified several characteristics of an effective teacher. Effective teachers possess strong content background in subject, advanced studies in area of teaching, more years in the classroom, and higher overall cognitive abilities. These teachers produce measurable and substantial positive outcomes for students, including higher future salaries.
Our schools’ most experienced and highly educated teachers undoubtedly possess each of these characteristics. Among those likely considered for demotion include teachers with doctoral and masters degrees and 10+ years of classroom experience. These teachers are AP certified, have published articles in academic and professional journals and even written their own books.They are experts in their fields and bring that expertise everyday to our children.
These teachers have gone above and beyond to help our students achieve, by staying after school to work with students, by sponsoring extra-curricular activities, and by pursuing coursework that strengthens their teaching abilities. When students themselves spoke out at the April 23 Board Meeting, they expressed to the Board how such teachers had not only taught their subject, but also how their teachers had guided and mentored them over the years.
Moreover, an important part of T/E’s mission is to “inspire a passion for learning” and “the pursuit of excellence.” How can T/E continue to fulfill this mission without its most passionate and excellent teachers? How can we encourage our students to go to college and pursue advanced studies when the District demotes the teachers who have done just that? What kind of message does it send to our students about the value of their education when the District demotes its best teachers?
Clearly, demoting our best and brightest teachers is not in our students’ best interests.
In practical terms, teachers who are demoted would need to seek employment elsewhere. The loss of these teachers and their expertise cannot be understated. In addition to the obvious negative impact on students, teacher demotion would also have the following consequences:
- Inferior academic and educational program. Because of their knowledge and experience, these teachers regularly develop curricula for the District and serve as leaders and mentors among the faculty. Teacher mentors are integral to creating supportive and successful work environments. These teachers possess content knowledge and classroom experience that are not easily replaced. Research has shown that each additional year of teaching has a direct positive impact on student achievement. If teachers are demoted our schools, faculty, and students would lose their valuable expertise.
- Difficulties in teacher retention and recruitment. Over the last three years, the District has reduced teaching staff by nearly 10%. As a result, teachers are responsible for more classes and more students. At the same time, teachers’ planning and prep time has been diminished. Teachers have fewer opportunities to collaborate, even as evidence has shown that teacher collaboration is one of the features of highly effective schools.
In short, T/E teachers have continued to do excellent work despite these increased demands. However, the Board’s decision to demote its most experienced teachers would dramatically affect teacher morale and cause worry among remaining faculty members. The demotion of these teachers sends a powerful message to remaining faculty about their value. As the economy continues to recover, holding onto T/E’s best teachers—and attracting highly qualified new teachers—will become increasingly difficult.
- Potential risk to the academic reputation of T/E schools. The excellent quality of T/E schools is regularly cited as one of the reasons families move into the community. Studies have shown that communities with higher quality schools also have higher home values and that the benefits are even greater for those communities with prestigious schools, like T/E.
What happens when potential home buyers discover that T/E demoted the teachers who have helped to build the T/E academic program? What happens when they discover that teachers with doctoral degrees have been replaced with less-experienced, part-time staff? T/E is currently the only district in the Main Line area considering teacher demotion as a cost-effective strategy. Yet such action would also cost the district its reputation.
Given the potentially devastating effects, we urge the Board’s Finance Committee to table the subject of teacher demotion. In the short-term, the Board has the necessary resources to meet its budget deficit without endangering the excellent academic programs and reputation of our schools. In the long-term, we urge the board to come back to the negotiating table and work with us to find sustainable solutions that protect the integrity of our schools.
Please make your voice heard on this crucial matter at the Finance Committee meeting on Monday, May 7th. Please help others to stay informed by forwarding this message to your neighbors.
The meeting is scheduled for 7:00 p.m.
T/E School District Administration Offices
West Valley Business Center
940 West Valley Road
Suite 1700, Wayne, PA
Meeting Room 200
The T/E community recently spoke out against teacher demotions at the April 23rd School Board meeting. The central concern: should the Board use existing resources to protect our best and brightest teachers – the core of an exceptional T/E school system – or cut these dedicated educators from our program?
One truth remains clear: no parties involved have created the financial challenges affecting T/E. Rather, these challenges result from a confluence of economic and legislative factors beyond the control of our local officials, residents, and teachers.
The manner in which these challenges are resolved, however, still remain in the Board’s control.
While the School Board has recently proposed the demotion of our most successful teachers as a viable cost reduction strategy, T/E teachers believe strongly that this proposal will be extremely destructive to the T/E educational program and that more reasonable solutions exist.
The recent Board meeting and a TEEA review of District finances reveal several important factors related to demotion alternatives:
- The Board revised downward its projected deficit to 1.5M based upon allowable Act I tax increases not included in its original assumptions, revised instructional expenditures and newly accepted budget strategies.
- 17 retiring teachers, also excluded from the Board’s initial assumptions, will reduce the projected deficit further. TEEA estimates savings of nearly $1M from teacher retirements.
- The Board has designated much of its substantial 31M fund balance – one of the largest in the state – to rising PSERS obligations, a major external legislative challenge causing this year’s deficit. But it has not considered the use of these funds to offset next year’s increased obligation. The projected deficit is larger as a result.
- The Board’s own internal policy is the only measure preventing the use of the $31M general fund balance as a bridge that would protect the excellence of our program. The Board regularly changes its own policies, and has the authority to use these funds. The Board is not prevented by PA School Code.
If the decision to be made is between the core of our educational program or a small fraction of the fund balance, then the decision should be clear.
The Board should table the demotion measure and, instead, fully participate in comprehensive, two-way, productive contract negotiations – one of several important paths to sustainability. Why destroy our award-winning program when the resources to protect it exist?
T/E teachers again call on residents to please make your voice heard on this crucial matter at the Finance Committee meeting on Monday, May 7th. Please help others to stay informed by forwarding this message to your neighbors.
The meeting is scheduled for 7:00 p.m.
T/E School District Administration Offices
West Valley Business Center
940 West Valley Road
Suite 1700, Wayne, PA
Meeting Room 200
