With hopes of averting a possible strike as well as close a $113 million budget shortfall, the San Francisco Unified School District and the union for its teachers have turned contract negotiations over to a state mediator.
While there are differing proposals on what cost-saving measures should be implemented there’s at least one area of agreement: both labor and the school district say a shorter school year would help tighten the budget.
Additionally, representatives for both the district and the union say the priority is to retain as many employees as possible. A mediator is currently in discussions with both sides and will release a suggested budget.
“There has been some movement,” said Dennis Kelly, president of the United Educators of San Francisco, the teachers’ union, declining to specify what progress had been made.
In February, the school district sent out 900 pink slips notifying teachers of possible layoff. The district must finalize the layoff notices by May 15 and approve next year’s final budget by July 1.
“The district asked to go into mediation because while they were close on some one-year temporary agreements,” said Gentle Blythe, spokesperson for the district, adding that the union was "holding the district hostage."
Specifically, district officials said the teacher’s union, demanded that the district agree to certain workplace provisions before settling on economic proposals like salaries.
For example, the district said it won’t accept the union’s proposal to restrict principals to evaluating teachers only during scheduled times with advance notice.
“Without the District conceding to all of their language demands, UESF has not actually put any ‘money on the table,’” said Superintendent Carlos Garcia in an e-mail informing SFUSD employees of mediation dates.
Some of the district’s economic proposals include freezing paid sabbaticals and "step and column" increases, or pay increases based on experience, which the union has not agreed to.
Kelly countered that the union offered $27 million in cuts to “buy back the actual jobs that are endangered.” These cuts include eliminating recently approved teacher stipends as well as adding four furlough days a year for the next two years which would shorten the school year to 176 days.The stipends, funded through Proposition A, a 2008 parcel tax approved by voters to increase school funding, go to teachers in hard-to-fill subject areas and hard-to-staff schools, are offered as retention bonuses and support teacher development.
The district is also proposing a shorter school year instead of an initial proposal to cut costs by increasing class sizes, said Board of Education Commissioner Jill Wynns, who is on the commission’s budget committee.
By leaving classroom sizes roughly the same, the schools will need more teachers than originally planned when the pink slips were issued. However, teachers would be paid less because a shorter school year means fewer working days, according to Wynns.
The district has not agreed to eliminate the Prop. A stipends.
The union is willing to cut the stipends in order to preserve the teachers’ basic salaries, said Kelly.
“We believe that it’s equitable that if you’re cutting stipends, you cut all stipends,” he said.
However, the district sees that money as essential to getting the best teachers to struggling schools, which supports efforts to close the achievement gap, said Wynns. Instead, the district would rather see funding for Advanced Placement test preparation cut.
“To be truthful, we think that the AP prep time is more a representation of inequity, it goes to middle class schools for high achieving kids. And that’s fine if we make a decision to do that if we have the money,” said Wynns.
“But when we don’t have the money, we don’t think it’s OK to take away the money from the kids who have the highest needs but not to talk about taking away from the kids with the biggest advantage.”
The state-appointed mediator met with the teachers union and the district on April 29 and May 4. A final meeting is scheduled for May 10.The mediator will offer up a new proposal, which the union and district each can chose whether to accept. A mediator has been used in the past to negotiate a contract, according to Wynns.
If the mediator’s proposal is rejected by either side, a fact-finder from the state will then review all budget suggestions and decide which measures are feasible. If the fact-finder’s proposal is also rejected, the district can vote to impose a final offer.
“Do we want to do that? No, we want reach an agreement,” said Wynns. “But in the end, if it came to it, we’d have the power.”
A union’s traditional response to imposition of a contract is to strike, said Kelly. Teachers in the Oakland Unified School District held a one-day strike on April 29 in response to that district’s contract imposition.
“I’m always optimistic, but at the same time, we have to plan for if the district might not agree with us,” said Kelly. “So we continue to make plans for if we have to go on strike, but we’re hopeful that we won’t.”
