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Bitter situation in city schools?

Ouch.

In one corner, we have York City School District. They are losing middle and high school students like water through a sieve. Most of it is to charter schools - New Hope Academy has gained several hundred students in just its few years of existence - and some are to York County School of Technology. Untold more are families leaving the city for greener academic pastures elsewhere in the county.

And that led to an announcement, featured in a Dispatch story today, that the administration is strongly considering laying off (via furloughs) dozens of teachers and staff at the secondary level. Considering we’re just a month and a half away from the start of the school year, it’s a drastic step. It’d be a drastic step if they announced this in January. Why this is being considered now and not months ago hasn’t been revealed, but it’ll be a topic of discussion at future board meetings.
The district believes, according to its recent statement, that the loss of about 26 percent of its secondary enrollment in the past five years precludes them from keeping the same size staff.

In the other corner, we have York City Education Association. Its attorney, Clinton Gibbs, said teachers are frustrated with the whole situation. How can the district afford other things, such as expensive building renovations, but not afford teachers, he said.

What further exacerbates the situation is the two sides haven’t finalized a new contract, even though mediation terms were agreed upon in April. Gibbs said the district is “dragging its feet” by trying to go back and get some terms clarified in their favor, in particular trying to make sure the contract isn’t retroactive to last summer. The district’s attorney hasn’t returned phone calls.
So this means teachers have no contract and some of them will lose their jobs. And yet, the district is looking around the county and thinking, as board president Sam Beard put it, it doesn’t make sense for the high school in particular to have such small class sizes when no one else seems to have it that way.

There’s an argument that could be made that the underperforming district could use all the extra staff and small class sizes it could get. But Beard says research shows small class size doesn’t really work at the secondary level; I’ve heard much the same, although I don’t know if it applies to an urban environment.

No one is saying yet which teachers would be furloughed, for how long, and how, exactly, this all works with a union involved. The move would save the district money - if it’s 40 staff members, as Gibbs believes, that’s probably upwards of $1 million or more saved through salary and benefits a year.

But what’s the real cost? That, we will see.

Dover teachers’ union questions priorities

In today’s story about the Dover Area teachers’ union, there’s news the union has the second highest salary increase request in the past two years among those that have gone through a state mediation process.

Simply, out of the unions that have recently gone through fact finding as a way to settle their contract dispute, Dover teachers’ 5 percent annual raise request was second highest in the state, behind South Allegheny School District’s union’s average 7 percent request.

In fact finding, the union and the district both submit a proposal and a mediator decides on a non-binding, fair offer. In Dover’s case, the mediator thought 4 percent was fair. The teachers agreed, the district did not, and so they are back to negotiations.

The union negotiator, Brian Koppenhaver, said he understands taxpayers will look at 5 percent and say, “Are you kidding?” But he points out Dover teachers have the lowest average salary in the county, and even a 5 percent hike wouldn’t put them at the top.
And that’s when he wonders how the district says it can’t afford to pay 5 percent, and yet it can renovate several elementary schools and the high school stadium.

He isn’t the only one who has had that thought.

Many mediators around the state have said as much in their fact finding reports, according to my research (You can read the fact-finding reports yourself here). While in some cases districts really have no money, several said districts too often say they have no money when it comes to negotiations, only to turn around and build a new facility or give raises to administrators.

As one mediator, Diane Mulligan, noted in her fact finder’s report on Lehighton School District:
“I have also had experience with school districts successfully pleading poverty during negotiations and, when the ink on the new contract is barely dry, build elaborate athletic facilities or grant non-bargaining unit employees raises they alleged they could not afford for teachers,” she wrote as she recommended a 3 percent raise when the district proposed a 2.5 percent increase.

Dover Superintendent Robert Krantz made the point his district doesn’t have the industry Central does or the wealth York Suburban does to give it enough tax revenue to support all of its needs, from facilities to teacher raises. Something has to give, he says, and in this case, the facilities are in dire need of renovating.

With the Dover teachers the only ones in the county working on an expired contract, another dire situation is looming.

City teachers’ contract has surprise turnaround

When a teachers’ union accuses a school district once of unfair labor practice, you know negotiations aren’t going well.

When you accuse them twice, you know negotiations are going even worse.

When you authorize a strike, negotiations really are going poorly.

When the district refuses to participate in the first round of mediation, let’s just say odds are “when pigs can fly” start to be associated with “contract resolution.”

… And then, surprisingly, both the York City School Board and the York City Education Association approved a fact finder’s mediation report this week, with little opposition.

Bam.

Contract dispute over.

There will be no strike, and the negotiations, which have gone on and on since the last contract expired in June, are now over. Needless to say, it seems both sides are glad to have this behind them, with the union’s lead negotiator using the phrase “jubilation” to describe the teachers’ sentiments.

The district’s negotiator, Mike Levin, didn’t seem nearly as enthused, telling the school board he wasn’t completely happy with the fact finder’s offer (the mediator considers both proposals and offers an equitable solution). At the time, the terms hadn’t been disclosed, so Levin’s words were up for interpretation.

Now it’s a little more clear. The teachers will get an average 3.6 percent annual raise over four years, with an extra .5 percent in year two that will boost the raise into the 4 percent range, a high water mark when it comes to most teachers’ contracts in Pennsylvania. In fact, from my research of state fact finder offers, it’s one of the more generous offers in recent years. This puts York City second in the county in teacher pay behind Dallastown, with teachers topping out around $80,000.

The city district hasn’t raised taxes in two years, thanks mostly to heavy state funding, and could do the same next year. And as one board member said, the district is in “good financial shape” and can afford this type of salary increase. “Afford” is a relative term, depending on who you talk to, but the board certainly believes it can afford this contract and several elementary school renovations, or it wouldn’t have been a unanimous decision.

There’s still much work to be done to get the city schools turned around. But increasing teacher pay will undoubtedly lure better quality teachers, and that can only help.

Daily Catch-Up: Is teaching a 12-month job?

Anytime teachers’ salaries are discussed on blogs or news articles, many detractors often point to a teacher’s nine-month work schedule as a reason teachers should make less than other professionals.
The argument usually focuses on a teacher earning a 12-month salary but only teaching for nine months. On the surface level, that’s accurate: School only lasts nine months. But, as this blog entry on Spring Grove Area School District points out, education doesn’t stop when the last bell rings.

I saw firsthand how my mother, a longtime elementary school teacher elsewhere in the state, worked during the summer. It’s not the same type of work, obviously, and I don’t think you’ll find a teacher or administrator who tries to claim that. But it’s work nonetheless– lesson plans to put together, classrooms to take down and then set up, conferences to attend, continuing education classes to take. Administrators, who for the most part are in the office all summer, often use the time to make changes in programs and train new staff.

“Believe it or not, the summer hours can be some of the busiest for those of us who work behind the scenes,” writes Lisa Smith, Spring Grove’s communications director, on the district blog.

Or, in other words, a student going on summer break and an educator going on summer break are not exactly the same thing. Whether that’s worth a certain salary over the course of a year, well, that’s up to school boards and the people who elect them.
Elsewhere in education:

In the Dispatch*: New Hope charter school, which could be affected by this proposed law, is going to offer free computers for students to use at home. Even better, they are getting the computers from the fed. government for next to nothing. Public schools could learn a thing or two if this program succeeds.

The Chicago Tribune has a Q & A with Arne Duncan, the U.S. Department of Education secretary. Among other things, Duncan says public schools “have a long way to go.”

The Pittsburgh Tribune-Review looks at how a Supreme Court ruling in Oregon that forced a school district to reimburse parents for special education costs can affect Pennsylvania. Know that special education is, as of now, one of the highest costs for any school district. This could make it go higher, but it could also give parents better access to the type of education they want for their special needs child.

Follow me on Twitter, won’t you? Twitter.com/ydblogwork
* Links to Dispatch/Record articles turn to archive format after a certain amount of time.