Virtual School Negotiations Update
Friday 12/4, we bargained for the fifth time about the virtual school model. It was Summit’s turn to present a proposal (here is our last proposal). Summit’s bargaining team used the meeting to explain their process of crafting their first proposal of the virtual school model — which has been underway for a month and which, they said, should produce a proposal soon. (You can see the documents they shared with us here).
Summit’s bargaining team explained that they have identified specific aspects of virtual school, based on surveys and other data, that need to be adjusted. They are:
- The schedule: needs asynchronous time, days are long
- The workload: too much for students
- Student engagement
- Habits and content
- Cameras
These priorities from Summit align with the aspects of virtual school that we expressed concern with in August. Currently, every single day of learning follows a virtual school model that we ALL know can be better. We have asked Summit’s bargaining team to work with urgency, now that we have agreed that the virtual school model is important. Our entire community, and our students most of all, deserve the best possible virtual school experience as soon as possible. We are bargaining again this Friday and hope Summit will have a concrete proposal at this time.
Contract Negotiations
On Wednesday, we had our 15th bargaining session with Summit management. Summit presented counter-proposals on union rights and leaves; we are continuing to negotiate compromises with Summit , though there are still major differences on issues, such as the length of parental leave. We also made a counter-proposal on health and welfare benefits and believe we are close to a tentative agreement on this topic.
We also presented counter-proposals on shared governance (which continues to contain language that enhances sites ability to make decisions that are in the best interest of their school communities), professional development (which continues to emphasize the importance of relevant PD that is responsive to teachers’ needs), health and safety, and academic freedom. We presented a counter-proposal on compensation that had minor adjustments to stipends but continued with ongoing yearly cost of living increases. (We will continue to fight for COLA increases due to recent news that California’s education budget outlook is much better than was projected earlier in the pandemic). Our next bargaining session is this Wednesday.
EL Survey
There is still time to complete this quick survey about how we can better support English Learners. This is an important part of our support services article; your input will be valuable in our continued advocacy for EL students.
SPS Board Meeting
The next Summit Board meeting is this Friday, December 11 from 8am-11:30am. The agenda and the zoom meeting link will be posted here. We continue to be dismayed that these meetings are purposefully scheduled during times that are inaccessible for students, teachers, and most families. We do not understand how the Board can make decisions that are in the best interest of our organization without hearing from our community.