3/20/2020
Today we held our first bargaining meeting related to our contract! Please read our opening statement if you’d like to learn more about the principles guiding this work.
Since improving support services for students is one of our top priorities, we led with our proposal on mental health, ELL, and diverse learner supports. We hope that proposal, along with the accompanying Health and Safety and Academic Freedom proposals, will lead to an increase in resources and protections for our teachers and a better environment for our students.
Unite Summit presented the following contract proposals:
- Support Services proposal – This aims to increase mental health services, ELL services, and diverse learning supports.
- Health and Safety proposal – This sets guidelines for safe, well-equipped facilities and procedures to ensure emotional safety at work.
- Academic Freedom proposal – This aims to protect teachers who want to adjust their curriculum in accordance with their professional judgment and student needs.
- Layoff and Reemployment proposal – This sets out the procedures governing any future layoffs.
- Grievance and Arbitration proposal – This provides action steps to address any violation of the contract or other related law or regulation.
- Recognition proposal – This defines our bargaining unit and governs any potential additions to our unit.
- Union Rights proposal – This provides for the efficient operation of our union and its communication with unit members.
- Assignability proposal – This ensures that our contract stays in place if Summit were to change its corporate structure.
- Savings and Separability proposal – This guarantees that the contract as a whole stays active if a particular article needs to be renegotiated due to a change in the law.
Beyond the contract proposals listed above, Unite Summit also presented a proposal regarding working hours for the 2020-21 school year. Following member feedback, the proposal includes the conversion of February PD week to vacation time and a reduction in the required meeting hours per week for all teachers. It also seeks to return autonomy to sites regarding the daily schedule and meeting agendas. Here is that proposal and the accompanying calendar. (We also sent this in our newsletter earlier this week).
The following Unite Summit Bargaining Team members attended today’s meeting: Liz DeOrnellas, Expeditions; Sarah Rivas, Denali High; Amber Steele, Denali Middle; Hillary Odom, Shasta; Fuchsia Spring, K2; Dan McClure, Prep; Evan Anderson, Everest; Douglas Wills, Tahoma. Ona Keller and Daryl Hemenway from CTA also joined the discussion.
The following Summit Bargaining Team members attended: Diane Tavenner, CEO; Kelly Garcia, Chief of Staff; and Jimmy Zuniga, Everest Executive Director.
Our next bargaining meeting is set for Thursday, March 26. We will be presenting additional proposals from our Sunshine Document and hearing counter proposals from Summit. If you have questions, please reach out to your site rep or contact us at unitesummitteachers@gmail.com.
And if you haven’t done so already, please fill out our latest bargaining survey about important topics like evaluations and job duties: tinyurl.com/USMarchSurvey