Takeaways from TTA and District Negotiations, Session 6

Progress seen as slow but being made, and both the TTA and district remain committed to reaching consensus

To see the rules for the open contract negotiations, click here; to see our Session 2 recap, click here; Session 3 is here; Session 4 here; and Session 5 here. A copy of the current teachers contract is here, and the ESP (education support personnel) contract is here.

Find the School Committee informational page here, and the TTA site here. And of course you can watch all the sessions on the Tewksbury TV YouTube channel.

An agreement has almost been reached on the section about step-up pay for ESPs, which they receive when they substitute for teachers. There just needs to be a little tweaking of the language to make everyone comfortable.

The TTA is holding on part of ESP longevity pay. They would still like it to be a percentage of current pay versus a set number. Most financial issues have not been settled at this point.

There is also an ask for what a seven hour day for ESPs would look like. They are hesitant to agree until they can see how much time they’re able to spend on prep time versus taking on any duties. The district will pull together some charts as examples. The ESPs are seriously entertaining this proposal. Also tied into this offer is changing the number of days worked from 181 to 184 to add in professional development days for ESPs.

The ESPs are asking for personal days to be approved by the building principal and not the superintendent since it makes sense that the principal would be better aware of staffing needs.

The ESPs are holding on salary until they have more clarity on the seven hour day. There was a conversation about the fact that ESPs are considered hourly employees, but their paychecks are based on a salary amount.

The TTA countered a previous tuition reimbursement proposal from the district, of $1,500 per ESP with a cap of $10,000. The TTA is now asking for three courses at $750 per ESP but keeping the cap $10,000.

There was a long conversation about stipends. There was some debate about what should qualify for a stipend in regards to trainings like Stop the Bleed, CPR, First Aid and the like, and if the staff are getting an official certification. The district feels most of the classes are taken by all staff and are part of the job, while the TTA feels people are taking more advanced classes with certifications. Nothing was settled on this topic.

There are currently staff who ride the bus in the morning and the afternoon with some special education students. They are currently paid $15 per ride. The TTA wants to change this Bus Stipend to $30 per day, since staff will leave their cars at the bus depot in the morning and pick them up in the afternoon, assuming they are riding the bus in both the morning and afternoon.

The ESPs are still not agreeing to the principal being able to assign someone to cover a class if no one volunteers. They insist on the right to refuse to step up because they feel their duties as ESPs must come first. This will continue to hold up the ask for 1/2 day sick days.

Elementary teacher prep time is still a sticking point. Previous suggestions by the district to add time to the day to accommodate preparations have not been accepted. The TTA would still like to add more half days to the calendar to accommodate prep, noting there are other districts that have half days every week. The district countered with concern about the loss of learning time. Elementary students are required to have 900 hours of learning time, and upper grades 990. There was a lengthy conversation about how many hours of learning time here would be with the additional half days. The TTA says even with the extra half days they would still be above the 900 baseline by 29 hours.

Superintendent Brenda Regan pointed out that the Wynn and TMHS are just above that 990 required hours, and adding additional half days would create a risk of not meeting the requirement. There was a back and forth when Regan noted that passing time, when children go from class to class, doesn’t count as learning time. There was push-back from the TTA because they had previously not been allowed to add passing time to the contract because they needed to hit the learning time requirement. The TTA has asked for data on how much passing time is taken out of learning time at each school so they can factor that information into their calculations.

The district was also concerned that Tewksbury would reach only the minimum learning time required, but there was pushback from the TTA that they wouldn’t be just hitting the minimum. It was also noted that the district is fine with the minimum amount of time for lunch and recess, even though research shows that rigorous outdoor activity helps with learning.

Concerns about burdening families with additional half days were seen as not the concern of the TTA. They say they are there to negotiate a contract for their members and in the best interest of students.

There was no resolution on this issue, but both sides appear to be committed to finding a compromise.

Both the TTA and the district came to an agreement on updated Grievance Leave language. There were extended family members added to the list and a confirmation that it was five days per loss, not per year.

The TTA pulled Proposal No. 7, which would have granted one prep block per day and two additional prep blocks per week for testing and IEP meetings for speech and language pathologists.

Details for TMHS academic coaches is still being hashed out.

The TTA is holding on any Open House proposals, waiting to see where the language for the elementary prep time lands and hoping that creative solutions may arise.

In regard to teacher transfers, the TTA wants to keep in language saying that qualified staff and seniority would determine the transfer and internal candidates should be considered before external. The district had rejected this previously.

The TTA had a counteroffer for personal days. They are proposing that one personal day per year be allowed to be rolled over to the next year, up to a total of five.

There was a counter to cut the asked for Association Days in half, to 170. These are days that allow members to participate in union activities, like conferences.

For teacher’s salaries, the TTA in the spirit of bargaining in good faith dropped their ask for the first year of the contract to a 7% raise instead of 8%. They are a hard no on any time added to the work day. They hope settling that will help moving forward on what can be negotiated on. School Committee member Rich Russo added that the district’s offer is 3.5% in Year 1 then 3% and 3%.

The TTA tentatively agreed to the district proposal for guidance counselors and adjustment counselors; the new language will say they have the option to work three summer days. There had been previous discussion that these members didn’t want to be obligated to work these days in the summer.

Work related to Appendix B stipend positions that may occur during school day were discussed again. The TTA is looking for clarification on when they need permission to perform these tasks during the day. Is the expectation that every time they need to do something they need to ask? Can they get blanket approval for the year? The district thinks that is between the staff member and the principal to work out.

The Appendix B position Restorative Justice Coordinator was up for discussion again. The TTA isn’t opposed to a name change but they would like to collaborate with the district on a different name. They feel the current position does not match the potential name change.

At the end of the meeting, Russo asked the TTA how they feel the negotiations are going this year. Overall there seemed to be positive responses that there was progress being made, even if it seems slow. Russo expressed concern that the 90 minutes of negotiating time wasn’t sufficient to get everything resolved before the end of the contract on June 30. There was a discussion about extending the negotiation time or having an agenda for each meeting to help cut back on caucus time in the meeting.

The next negotiations are sceduled for April 2 and 23.