Building Reopening
Yesterday, we had negotiations over site reopening with Summit. Unite Summit presented our counter proposal to Summit’s first proposal over reopening sites.
Any agreement we come to on reopening buildings would only apply to this school year. We believe the fall will be significantly different (in terms of our understanding of COVID, vaccinations rates, etc.) and expressed interest in negotiating a separate agreement about next school year.
We believe it’s crucial that our agreement for the rest of this school year allows for voluntary return. We want to ensure that teachers who want to return to buildings are able to do so, under the safest possible conditions, and we want to ensure that teachers who want to stay home, because of safety, family concerns, childcare concerns, pedagogical concerns, or any other reason, are allowed to do so. We do not yet have complete data on how many families have expressed interest in their students returning, so we don’t know how many teachers would be necessary to volunteer for each phase of reopening buildings.
Highlights Summit made a revision to their first proposal after speaking to RED team over their thoughts regarding Wednesday as a remote or in person virtual learning day. Keeping Wednesdays remote was also deeply important to our members. Summit proposed that Wednesdays would stay as a remote learning day. Unite Summit verbalized alignment with this change.
Unite Summit’s proposal aimed to meet student needs while also maintaining safety. Within Unite Summit’s proposal, here are some major highlights:
- Site EDs will have discretion over if they are to reopen.
- Unit Members will be able to choose whether or not they will return to in person virtual learning at their sites
- There will be 3 phases in reopening sites. The first phase will allow 10% of priority students back on sites. The second phase will allow 25% of students back on site. The third phase will allow 50% of students back on site. Moving between phases will be determined on a two week period of zero COVID cases during the previous phase. Priority students are based on state criteria (such as students with IEPs and English Learners).
- Teachers who work in person will receive a stipend of $200 a week to incentivize returning back to sites and cover the numerous burdens associated with some individuals going back in person
- Expedition members site assignments will be agreed upon by the Executive Director of Expeditions and the teacher.
- Teachers will collaborate with their admin to create student cohorts
- Teachers will be physically present at school from 8:30-3:20 (except Wednesdays) and will not be expected to provide supervision during lunch and prep times
- There will be two teachers assigned to each 14 student cohort. The teachers will not be expected to be in the same room at the same time.
- Strict protocols around health and safety, including providing masks to staff and students and developing protocols for students who don’t follow mask and other safety rules.
After presenting our proposal, Summit verbalized that there was alignment with key parts of our proposal. The main dispute arrived from a disagreement around teachers voluntarily coming back to in person virtual school learning. We will likely have another negotiating session about this topic next week. Again, your survey responses have been incredibly helpful during these negotiations, so please fill it out if you haven’t already!
Statewide Charter Zoom Rally!
A reminder that our union is joining with other charter unions from around California for a historic statewide zoom rally featuring Dolores Huerta!
The rally will be March 10 from 4:30-5:30pm. You can register here: https://tinyurl.com/CCEURally2021.
Our union will be joining with teachers from St. Hope (Sacramento), Gompers (San Diego) and Alliance College Ready (Los Angeles). We’ve all been fighting for first contracts that provide more support for our students, establish job security for our teachers, and increase teacher voice in decision making. We hope you’re able to join us, make connections with other charter educators, and show Summit and other charter management organizations that we are united statewide in fighting for a fair first contract.
This rally is also not limited to our members, so please feel free to share the below flyer far and wide!
