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.

Comments

Anonymous said…
Where is SPS going to come up with 62 million and what about the 35 million they borrowed from the levy funding? That's 97 million they need to find.

Cookie Jar
Anonymous said…
re:

"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
Po3 said…
Wow. Making contingency plans.
Anonymous said…
WHY would the District NOT show up or even really RESPOND to the Teachers until just yesterday? Yes, at the 11th hour, the District has finally gotten back to the Teachers on a few items, but why did it take THAT LONG to say yes to 30 minutes of recess for elementary kids in the first place? Has Dr. Nyland ever met a 7 year old????


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
Unknown said…
This is getting frustrating. I just want to go to school.
Anonymous said…
Love the millions of dollars to millions of dollars comparison just to make teachers look greedy. Convert to percentage and the district looks stingy. I, too, read "How to Lie with Statistics".

-Noflunky
Anonymous said…

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
SPS says new offer from SEA as of 10 minutes ago. Stay tuned.
Anonymous said…
The district was completely prepared for bargaining. The rumors going around to the contrary are simply untrue, and started by people who were not actually on the either bargaining team. The blame on the district about missing meetings and not presenting proposals is false and unfounded. The air needs to be cleared on this and people need to stop speaking to things they don't know about. I am union and work downtown. I know people on both sides and have been hearing about bargaining all summer.

Please Stop
Anonymous said…
The district has proposed lengthening the teacher day, which it says would help meet state requirements. The proposal would add 30 minutes of instructional time starting in the 2017-18 school year, with the two sides meeting starting next year to determine how to the time would be allocated.

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
Maureen said…
Please Stop, are minutes (with attendance) kept for these meetings? SEA has posted 21 updates since May. SPS just started posting on August 10th. That, what people have been posting here all summer and what the teachers say, is what I have to go on.
Anonymous said…
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
Anonymous said…
Or work the 30 minutes per day for free for two years and then get paid for working those minutes on in year three and only for those "extra" minutes (by year three, they are "old hat")worked during that third year. The previous two years of working that time will not be compensated. We are not "interning" for two years at 30 minutes a day. Increased contact time is increased work no matter what those who are not classroom teachers might say.

Seriously, who would sign that contract?

-NotI
Anonymous said…
Did you not read the post? You will not work any extra minutes until 2017-2018 just when the contract expires. The net result is........NOTHING!

This is getting very tiresome.


Pissed Off
Maureen said…
Here's the thing, SPS teachers have been volunteering thirty extra minutes a day and MORE for years, now the district wants to formalize it in the contract and that is something different. Volunteering to show up early and stay late is very different than being required to do it after years of scrimping and cutbacks. Especially since the district hasn't offered any real evidence: what that time would be used for (7 period day?) that it would benefit the kids (5 year olds?) or that they would pay for all of the other costs incurred when you lengthen the school day (admin, custodial, parapro...), not to mention transportation (where is the Environmental Impact statement for this change?). Why didn't they propose this great thing on May 10th and study over the summer? Were they too busy pushing back against changing start times and hiding Ron English?

Pissed Off too--but for different reasons than P.O. above.
Anonymous said…
SPS proposal: "Seattle Public Schools (“SPS”) and the Seattle Education Association (“SEA”) agree that, in the 2017-18
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
Anonymous said…
What 'Maureen' above said. My thought exactly.

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'
Anonymous said…
Then make it a 2 year contract, problem solved.


Pissed Off
Anonymous said…
SEA offered a 2 year contract with no extra 30 minutes in the day. Proposal included spending a year figuring out whether and how to do the extra 30 min including teachers, parents, and district staff. The district refused.
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
Anonymous said…
"Then make it a 2 year contract, problem solved."

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

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