Hello colleagues,
Your CUTA bargaining team and the District met for negotiations on Wednesday, February 26. We continued our negotiations about special education, innovative scheduling at the high school, and compensation, and we discussed confusing contract language about the student-to-counselor ratio. Special Education We continued to work on establishing the parameters of the blended model of RSP students and mild/mod SDC students at the secondary level. In this model, mild/mod SDC secondary teachers could volunteer to become RSP teachers. Additionally, the District will no longer identify students as RSP or mild/mod SDC when they enter secondary; all students will be identified as mild/mod students. CUTA believes teachers should have a full understanding of what the new model will look like so that teachers interested in volunteering can make an informed decision. We moved closer to a full understanding this week. RSP teachers, both existing and new volunteers, would teach four classes and have a prep period and a case management period. CUTA and the District are moving towards an agreement on a total student contact number in a day, rather than a maximum class size. This is in part to allow teachers to volunteer to teach five classes instead of four to lower their class sizes throughout the day. The District is also wary of setting a maximum class size too low for a brand new program, although they have expressed concern with any class sizes above the low twenties for this program, and they expect most class sizes to be much smaller. The main development this week is that the District is willing to proceed using a memorandum of understanding (MOU) instead of contract language. Since an MOU is not permanent contract language, current SDC teachers could volunteer to try the new position next year, and if the program did not meet their expectations or other aspects of the program were renegotiated in the final contract language, they could return to their SDC position. Because of the unknown movement of students in a new program like this, it is impossible to guarantee that a teacher choosing to return to SDC would remain at their same site. In addition, the District has not settled on a final date for SDC teachers to volunteer to make the change, but they plan to push it back as far as possible. E-Board would need to approve the MOU we develop, and teachers will still need to see the final details before deciding. Innovative Scheduling at the High Schools At our last negotiations session, the District brought the best offer they felt they could afford for the maximum student contact number. CUTA shared that number with members--204--and many people shared their frustration because they felt it would be impossible to convince two thirds of their colleagues to vote for innovative scheduling with that high of a student contact number. After further discussion, it appears that CUTA and the District weren’t communicating clearly with each other. The District felt pressured by CUTA to provide a final offer on innovative scheduling. That was not CUTA’s intent. The procedures we developed to govern this process don’t have specific dates or deadlines. More meetings are scheduled to continue the innovative scheduling discussion. We will not be rushing to hold the vote at the sites yet. We will share information as it becomes available. One new piece of information: The District has agreed that RSP teachers in a block schedule would teach five classes, two preps (like all other teachers), and a case management period. CUTA thanks the District for their willingness to listen to special education teachers' concerns. Compensation CUTA and the District continue to share an interest in the stability gained by a three-year wage agreement. However, according to the District, the raises over the last three years, the state-mandated increases to the District’s STRS contributions, and increasing program costs, including special education, have pushed the District into a deficit. With many unknowns about the state’s budget this year, including a potentially positive change in the way special education will be funded, the District is hesitant to reach a long-term wage agreement at this time. Because of the District’s transparent and honest communication in negotiations, CUTA is willing to keep working on a wage agreement--for next year and the out years--into the fall so that the District can experience greater certainty about the impact of the state budget. CUTA recognizes the District must remain financially secure by addressing deficits in their budget, and one option that we shared for a three-year compensation agreement involved splitting the new money from the state as part ongoing compensation and part one-time money. CUTA would like to continue using the per-ADA percentage increase to identify compensation increases. For example, in this option, if the per-ADA percentage increase were to be 3% for next year, CUTA would receive 1.5% as an ongoing compensation increase, and CUTA would also receive 1.5% in one-time compensation. This allows the District to use their healthy reserves to cover the one-time money, and they would be able to use their half of the ongoing increases to address their deficit over the life of the wage agreement. The District expressed cautious interest in this idea. We will continue our discussions. Student-to-Counselor Ratio Lastly, we examined confusing contract language that is meant to describe the caseload for secondary counselors and how and when the District is obligated to add additional counselor support. Both CUTA and the District agreed that the current contract language is confusing, but more importantly it doesn’t match current practice. We will try to write new language that correctly describes the current practice. If you’d like to see the current version of our contract, here is the link. Thank you for taking the time to stay informed. Charlie Snyder Bargaining Chair Chico Unified Teachers Association
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Hello colleagues,
Your CUTA bargaining team and the District met for negotiations on Thursday, February 13. We continued our negotiations revolving around special education, innovative scheduling at the high school, and compensation. Special Education The District held a voluntary informational meeting about the plan to merge mild/moderate SDC students and RSP students at the secondary level with secondary mild/mod SDC teachers being given the option to become RSP teachers. The District responded to many questions from our members, and the discussion at the meeting informed our negotiations at this session. The District agreed in principle to putting the “teach four” schedule into the contract, in which an RSP teacher in the blended model would teach four classes and have one prep period and one case management period. This is current practice at the high schools in the RSP program, but it is not consistently practiced at the middle school level. CUTA would like to see a maximum class size for RSP classes in the planned blended program, but the District is concerned about potential “bubbles” in the program. Without abandoning this initial request for a maximum class size, CUTA proposed a maximum daily student contact so that any one teacher would not be faced with multiple oversized classes. CUTA also proposed a lower caseload of 26, in part to recognize that all parties involved agreed that the case management for mild/mod SDC students is, in general, more challenging. Although the District did not find this proposal appealing, they agreed to consider the possibility of setting a caseload max of 26 with the option to place a certain annual percentage of teachers at 28 to allow for natural fluctuations in student populations. This will be a difficult idea for the District to agree to. We also discussed how to write language that would guarantee no teachers would be laid off as the secondary programs were blended, and we agreed in theory that teachers who wanted to leave the blended program would have first rights to move to an open special education position in the District outside of this program. CUTA and the District are negotiating in good faith, and CUTA encourages its mild/mod SDC secondary teachers to wait until the particulars have been negotiated before volunteering. Innovative Scheduling The District came with the best offer they felt they could afford for the final negotiable items relating to innovative scheduling at the high schools. It is summarized in the table below. CUTA will now organize and run the vote at the high schools. This will be a private, “double envelope” vote, and secondary teachers may vote yes, no or abstain. Abstentions will not count in the final vote tally. Two-thirds of non-abstaining teachers must vote yes at each site individually to send the innovative scheduling on to E-Board for approval to add it to the next tentative agreement. Item Status Start time This will be dictated by the new law saying high school must start at 8:30 or later. If the new law does not go into effect, start times at both schools will likely not change. Prep time for general education A teacher will receive two preps during the eight period block; the preps will be on different days unless mutually agreed to by the member and the administrator. Prep time for special education Special education teachers will also receive two preps during the eight period block. Maximum class size 38: We will continue to follow the language in the secondary class size MOU. Total student contacts 204: This is an average class size of 34; teachers may volunteer to teach additional students (up to 210) and be paid $500 per added student per semester (as described in the secondary class size MOU. 6/5ths language If a teacher agreed to teach a seventh class because of site need, he or she would receive pay commensurate to 7/6ths of his or her salary. If a teacher agreed to teach a seventh and an eighth class, he or she would receive pay commensurate to 8/6ths of his or her salary. Teaching minutes in a day I believe the following is the latest schedule:
Collaboration The scheduling of collaboration time would be embedded in the contract language for the block schedule with the existing waiver language describing the purpose of collaboration time and the fact that it is teacher-driven. Transfer language If the block schedule becomes a reality, high school teachers at PV and Chico High would have first rights to transfer out of comprehensive high schools to other open positions that they are credentialed for and an interview process would govern decisions in the case of multiple candidates. Sunset clause Innovative scheduling would have a five year sunset clause, which means that after four years, it would automatically reopen for negotiations. CUTA or the District could choose to end innovative scheduling at that time, or they could negotiate for it to continue. Flexible implementation year If innovative scheduling was adopted, the District could delay implementation for one year (from 2021-22 to 2022-23) if required by budgetary constraints. Finals schedule The final schedule will be handled individually at each site, and there are enough minutes built into the proposed schedule to handle a finals schedule. Although portions of this may not be what was hoped for, CUTA recognizes the very real budget constraints and pressures felt by the District, including pressure from CUTA for compensation increases. CUTA recognizes the hard work of its members in developing this proposal and educating members for the last several years. Compensation CUTA and the District are going through the IBB process to develop as many possible options for compensation increases as possible. The projected ongoing dollars coming from the state for next year are not large, and CUTA recognizes the District’s need to address all three of their priorities: deficit reduction, compensation and programs. We believe there is a way forward to continue to address all three. We are negotiating while also waiting for more information about the state budget. If you’d like to see the current version of our contract, here is the link. Thank you for taking the time to stay informed. Charlie Snyder Bargaining Chair Chico Unified Teachers Association |
AuthorSMary Schoenthaler serves as Vice President and Public Relations Chair for CUTA. Archives
April 2021
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