ROEA REPORTER

This Is Collaboration?

Last year ended on a sour note in regard to administration's treatment of teachers. Even though the ROEA strongly supported the bond proposal, immediately after the defeat of the proposal the administration abused the contractual rights of several of our teachers.

Here are the contractual violations wrought by the administration:

We have filed grievances for most of these situations. (We currently have 16 grievances filed.) Unfortunately, most of these issues will be inherited by a new superintendent who had nothing to do with their creation. Hopefully, however, a new administration will collaborate with teachers in deed as well as in word.

E-Mail Alert

Five teachers were unfairly disciplined last year when they used the building list serve to express concerns about policies in their schools. According to central office administrators, the expression of a teacher's professional opinion constitutes a violation of the District's technology user agreement. We disagree.

The issues raised by the e-mails had to do with student discipline in one building and rotating teaching schedules in the other building. The e-mails expressed disagreement with the perspective of the building administrators. Both of the issues are typical ones for principals and teachers to discuss at forums such as building staff meetings. Had sufficient discussion of these topics occurred in the building staff meetings there probably would not have been a need for the teachers to express their opinions via the building list serve. Nevertheless, it is unconscionable for the administration to suppress the professional opinions of teachers in this manner. Such draconian personnel practices engender an intimidating work environment. Students are the ultimate losers; when our concerns are discouraged and unheard, their needs are unmet.

Two of the five disciplined teachers received letters in their personnel file. The union has filed grievances in their behalf citing contract language that obligates the administration to only discipline teachers when there is just cause for the discipline. We do not believe that just cause is evident in any of these cases.

In addition to filing the grievances we are recommending that teachers use district e-mail for perfunctory communications only. At this point in time, all of us are at risk to be unfairly disciplined for any other use of e-mail. Please be especially cautious in sending an e-mail to any group of people (either inside or outside of your school) or a building list serve. Call me if you would like more details about any of the involved e-mails.

Contract Feature

Personal Leave

(Personal Business Leave language is on page 36 of the contract.)

All teachers are allotted 3 personal business leave days in the beginning of each school year. The 3 personal leave days are a part of our 11 paid sick leave days. If personal business days are unused at the end of the year they are converted to sick leave days and accumulate as sick leave days. If, for example, a new teacher takes 2 personal leave days and 4 sick leave days in their first year, that teacher will carry over 5 sick leave days. At the beginning of the next year the teacher will have 16 paid sick leave days (11 allotted for the new year and 5 carried over from the previous year). The teacher will again have 3 days for personal business leave.

Brief History

In negotiations for the 1997-2000 contract we were able to secure one of the 3 days as a discretionary day. This means that on your discretionary day it is not necessary to fill out the leave slip. It is necessary to notify your principal and/or supervisor and to call in to the employee absence system. In negotiations for our current contract the term "Personal Business Leave" replaced "Personal Emergency leave." This language change is important as it conceptually changes the nature of this leave.

Commentary

Problems with personal business leave have fallen into two areas. One area is when personal leave is needed on a day adjoining a holiday or within the last week of school. In this situation, the teacher needs to apply to the Joint Committee for permission to use personal leave. The Joint Committee is a monthly meeting of union representatives (Linda Flynn, Curt Lange, and me) with central office administrators. The ROEA almost always supports these requests, not having a vested interest in defining teachers' personal needs. The administration often wants to disapprove of these requests. We discuss the merits of the request and a decision is made. It is best to apply early to the Joint Committee. When you send your request to Sandra for Joint Committee consideration it would be helpful to send it to the ROEA as well. We are then better prepared to address your need for the day. If we can't secure the day for you, administration has usually allowed the teacher to take an unpaid day.

The other problem occurs when administration feels that the teacher request doesn't fit the definition of personal leave. Several teachers were either turned down or challenged by administration when they wanted to use leave time for a political event such as activities to raise money for a charity. Other employees were challenged if they applied for a day which is associated with an activity such as hunting. We feel that these activities are proper uses of our discretionary day. If you are turned down, please let your building representative know. I feel that it would be appropriate to file a grievance to protect our rights to a true discretionary day in which administration has no role to play in our decision

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