Latest Update From Seattle Schools on Teacher Contract Negotiations
From SPS Communications:
SPS has offered $62 million as a counter to the $172 million worth of asks of SEA
· Includes:
o - Significant staff increases for special education
o - Wage increases
o - 30 minutes of additional student instructional time in year 3
We gave that proposal just before midnight last night and are awaiting a response from SEA. SPS bargaining team continues to be ready and available to meet. We ask that families please have a contingency plan in place for childcare, in case school does not start tomorrow. We are asking the media to help us in reaching out to some of our communities where English is a second language, for preparations.
SPS has offered $62 million as a counter to the $172 million worth of asks of SEA
· Includes:
o - Significant staff increases for special education
o - Wage increases
o - 30 minutes of additional student instructional time in year 3
We gave that proposal just before midnight last night and are awaiting a response from SEA. SPS bargaining team continues to be ready and available to meet. We ask that families please have a contingency plan in place for childcare, in case school does not start tomorrow. We are asking the media to help us in reaching out to some of our communities where English is a second language, for preparations.
Comments
Cookie Jar
"o - Significant staff increases for special education " Wow, fantastic.
Tell me more.
Also known as "I'll believe it when I see it." Specifics, anyone?
Casey
Seattle deserves better. Dr. Nyland MUST answer for his unbelievable shoddy performance. NEVER BEFORE has this kind of total lunacy been part of the negotiations. Not showing up? Missing meetings? Coming to meeting utterly unprepared?? WTF??
I get that the District team could say "No" to SEA's asks, with an explanation of where the District was at and what would be feasible now, later, and what would not ever be workable from the District's perspective, but, THAT IS NOT WAS HAS BEEN HAPPENING since talks have been going since May.
SEA has shown up in good faith, prepared, with clear and cogent bargaining issues.
The District? OMG.
This strike, if it happens, is NOT the teachers' 'fault'. They have been patient and professional throughout the 'negotiations'. The District? Lights on, nobody home.
NYLAND should be fired for cause. At the end of the day, fundamentally, the thing the super has to do is manage labor relations with his teachers. Really, that is his big deliverable. Without teachers, there is no education, no school. Did he not get that memo? Why treat them so disrespectfully from the outset? The disrespect is not not agreeing to their demands, the disrespect is NOT engaging in the conversation.
If he was any kind of a leader at all, he would issue a sincere apology about the process in an open letter: identify what he did wrong, acknowledge that it was wrong, that he wasted peoples' time and now may face a strike because of it, and indicate what he is going to do differently from here on out (i.e., sit at the bargaining table himself at ever single session from here on out AND ensure that before he and his team show up, they are fully prepared). He can and should say that at the end of the day, it is possible the District and SEA may not come to terms, that disruption may occur, but that it should not occur simply because the negotiations have been so poorly handled on the part of the District.
I am not asking the District to blindly say yes to anything or everything the Teachers want, but, I expect and DEMAND that the District shows up prepared and engaged.
As the kids would say...
EPIC FAIL
-Noflunky
It would have been nice had the District been prepared for bargaining--and not have decided to wait until the last minute.
We want to work, which is why we asked for an agreement by August 24th.
--Baile Funk
Please Stop
The union, however, says the proposal is a way to make teachers work more for free.
You are kidding, they're striking over 30 min and the change won't take effect until 2017-18 just in time for a new contract.
Get to work teachers, fun and games are over.
Pissed off
What group of workers would voluntarily donate thirty minutes of time a day for NO extra pay? I'd love to watch Boeing pitch that to the machinists when they bargain their next contract - :)
Curious
Seriously, who would sign that contract?
-NotI
This is getting very tiresome.
Pissed Off
Pissed Off too--but for different reasons than P.O. above.
school year, 30 minutes of K-12 instructional time will be added to the student day, e.g., the 24 credit
requirement and collaboration time."
Shouldn't we make sure that a universal 3--minute extension is the best way to go before deciding on it? What about just increasing secondary days? Or extending the school year? Or...? Doesn't it make sense to actually analyze the situation first?
@ pissed off, if they're working on a 3-year contract, that extra 30 min in 2017 would be a year before a new contract--so unpaid. And I suspect that an extra 30 minutes of "instruction" translates into MORE than just 30 minutes of "work" for teachers, since they also need to plan those extra couple hours worth of instruction each week, as well as grade any work produced during that time. Is that accurate, teachers?
HF
Meantime my little one is in tears because the first day of school won't be the first day of school. She loves her teachers.
'Exasperated'
Pissed Off
This whole idea of an extra 30 min is the district's ideas. Many parents I have talked to hate the idea. It's a huge change. Why isn't the district open to involving parents in the conversation?
Teacher
That IS what the union proposed - make it a 2 year contract and study the extra 30 minute proposal for the next contract. This was rejected by SPS.
Cameo