Unite Summit

Unite Summit Town Hall October 8

Town Hall Invitation
All teachers are invited to our virtual Town Hall on October 8th!
During this Town Hall we will:

Provide information about negotiations for Virtual School and for our first contract
Break out into sites to discuss and give information to Unite Summit’s bargaining team about what is most important for a sustainable Virtual School model

We will hold the Town Hall Thursday October 8th, 5:15-6:30.
Register here. (https://tinyurl.com/UNITESUMMITTOWNHALL)

Virtual School Negotiations
Unite Summit has met with SPS several times in an attempt to negotiate changes to virtual school. Open, honest, and timely communication has been an important goal of US. After our last meeting on September 15, US thought we had come to a shared understanding with SPS regarding the Habits and Content block being basically a rebrand of office hours, as well as leaving meeting times up to the discretion of site leaders. US emailed Diane Tavenner to confirm our understanding, with a deadline of September 21 to send revisions if she did not agree. She did email US on the 17th informing US she did not agree to our shared understanding, and she would email us with revisions. US wrote a newsletter that we felt properly and truthfully reflected all of these events while also acknowledging Tavenner’s disagreement. The intent behind sending our newsletter before Tavenner could send corrections was to keep our members informed about their urgent needs, and to follow through on our commitment of clear, timely communication.

These events — and the differences between our understanding of the conditions of virtual school last year — has made clear that we need to have a much more detailed agreement with Summit about virtual school. As a result, based on the feedback from our town hall, we will be returning to the bargaining table in the coming weeks to ensure we have a clear agreement on virtual school.

Unfair Labor Practice
As we shared this summer, we believe that Summit broke labor law in how it conducted the bargaining around the pay freeze, including by not giving us sufficient time to bargain, not providing us with requested information in a timely manner, and almost doubling the number of threatened layoffs in the middle of bargaining. While restoring our pay was an important and positive step forward, we believe that Summit still needs to be held accountable when we believe they don’t respect our rights. Therefore, last week we filed our fifth Unfair Labor Practice against Summit about their conduct during the pay freeze negotiations. You can read our filing here.

Bargaining Update #10

Check out this week’s video update!

In this newsletter:

Update on the unfreezing of pay and retro pay
Summary of our bargaining session with Summit
Information on virtual school negotiations

Pay Unfrozen!

At Monday’s meeting, the SPS Board approved restoration of our salaries, along with full retroactive pay. This is huge. This is a result of our union’s efforts to reach an agreement with Summit this summer, as well as continued efforts to review the budget with SPS. To everyone who signed petitions this summer, attended board meetings, and advocated for Summit unfreezing our pay: thank you for your advocacy on behalf of us all.

Bargaining Update

Increasing Classroom Support for Students

We presented a counter proposal on Class Size that keeps our strong language to guarantee the small class sizes that our students deserve (Summit’s proposal promised to make “reasonable efforts” to maintain class sizes). Our proposal does raise the mentor group size to 26 students (up from our previous proposal of 25) and adds in class size limits for Expeditions and Electives.

Reducing Teacher Turnover and Improving Job Sustainability

We presented a counterproposal on Hours of Employment, Work Year, and Job Duties. Summit management continues to insist that our school year should run through the end of June. This does not make sense to us logistically, nor pedagogically. At our last bargaining session, we expressed deep concern that extending the school year by a month (for the same salary) would impact teacher sustainability, retention, and recruitment. Summit management’s response this week was that their data show teachers say they work at Summit because of our program and our philosophy and that if potential hires are making decisions about whether or not to work at our school based on the salary and the calendar, then “we don’t want them here.”

Perhaps if you are the highest paid K-12 education leader in the state, you can afford to ignore basics like salary and work year. But for the rest of us, we have expenses like rent, student loans, and childcare — not to mention the need for time over the summer to recharge, spend time with our families, take on second jobs, prepare for the new school year, or engage in our own professional development. Summit management’s seeming belief that adding 22 days to the school year (with no corresponding increase in pay) will not have an impact on sustainability, retention, and recruitment of teachers who otherwise align with the value and vision of our schools is baffling.

We also made a counterproposal on Leaves. Our major compromise was getting rid of our sabbatical proposal. While we still believe having the opportunity to take a sabbatical would be a great way to improve teacher retention, we ultimately decided there are other, more pressing priorities to achieve in our first contract. We can reintroduce this idea in negotiations for our next contract, if this is still an idea that is important to our members.

Increasing Teacher Voice in Decision-Making

Summit management provided a combined counterproposal to our Technology and Resources and Assessment and Curriculum proposals. Summit’s proposal was mostly unresponsive to our proposals, which provided detailed language on issues such as student data privacy, teacher freedom to update and modify the platform and use other resources outside the platform, and guidelines around if and how a site administrator can change a student grade.

SPS wasted our negotiation time on arguing that our proposal to allow teachers to add supplemental resources to the platform would undermine the student-centered science that created our model and would undermine student outcomes. When we brought up that curriculum and resources can be outdated — such as the AP Government curriculum aligned to the 2018 exam — they stated that of course project changes may be necessary. We need SPS to speak clearly about their proposals and stop using our negotiation time for criticizing our values.
SPS argued that our proposal that teachers should have authority over a final grade–which would include approving students’ work plans for summer school– demonstrates that we should approve of their proposal to extend the school year to the end of June. Interestingly, teachers have the right under state law to assign final grades, but because Summit is a charter school, that portion of the law does not apply to us. California’s 1,000+ school districts must give teachers authority over final grades — and they do so without extending their school calendars to the end of June — so we are confused by Summit’s logic.

Summit management also provided comments, and no actual counterproposal, on our Shared Governance proposal from May 4 (you can hear more details about our proposal, which includes protections for site-based decision making in this week’s bargaining update video) They stated they were not prepared with a counterproposal because they were confused about “what we wanted” — that there was a conflict between wanting some decisions made through our union contract and some decisions made through site decision-making and consensus. We actually don’t see a conflict between these. We have heard consistently from our members that within the boundaries of a stable, enforceable contract, some job duties and daily aspects of teaching are best made by sites because they have specific student bodies and staff cultures. We believe that staff are the best authority on how they want to engage as a site community, and we will continue to work for our network to realize your professional skill.

Summit also made a counterproposal on Organizational Security (dues deduction).

The following Unite Summit Bargaining Team members attended today’s meeting: Joey Hughes, Expeditions; Fuchsia Spring, K2; Amber Steele, Denali Middle; Sarah Rivas, Denali High; Hillary Odom, Shasta; Evan Anderson, Everest. Daryl Hemenway and Ona Keller from CTA also joined the discussion.

The following Summit management Bargaining Team members attended: Diane Tavenner, CEO; Kelly Garcia, Chief of Staff; and Jimmy Zuniga, Everest Executive Director.

Virtual School Update

As you may remember, we have essentially agreed to the working conditions of virtual school version 2 from last school year as our model for virtual school this year — with a few exceptions. Summit management has made additional, unilateral changes to virtual school, including adding HCD and not allowing for flexible meeting times for GLT/LT/MLT.

Over the past week, more than 115 teachers signed our petition for a sustainable virtual school. After presenting the petition to Summit management’s bargaining team on Tuesday, Diane Tavenner informed our team that site leaders in fact did have discretion to change GLT/LT/MLT meeting times and that HCD was not an additional class but akin to the office hours we conducted during virtual school last year. She repeatedly insisted that there have been no changes to the working conditions of virtual school 2. Our team was pleased to learn that we were wrong, and we were eager to share this information with our sites. We know the inflexibility of meeting time for many of our members, especially those with young children, has been a hardship and that the messaging around the purpose and expectations for HCD has been confusing and inconsistent.

We have also learned during the last few months of bargaining that it is vital that we ask Summit management’s bargaining team to memorialize in writing what they have told our team verbally at the bargaining table. So, we followed up our meeting with an email detailing in writing what was said during our meeting. We received a response from Diane Tavenner that our summary of the meeting was incorrect and that Summit would provide a more detailed response soon. We look forward to Summit management’s clear explanation in writing regarding HCD and the scheduling of meetings and will keep you updated once we have an answer.

[Correction: The version of this newsletter emailed to our members mistakenly stated that the AP US History curriculum, instead of the AP Government curriculum, aligned to the 2018 exam. We apologize for the error].

Pay Freeze Update and SPS Board Meeting

Pay Freeze Update
As you have probably seen, on Tuesday Diane Tavenner sent an email indicating that the pay freeze would be rolled back. This is an important win for all of us. It demonstrates that all of your activism this summer — from attending board meetings to signing petitions to reaching out to parents — had an impact. It also demonstrates that having a union increases transparency around budget and finances and ensures that teacher voice is included in important decisions.

Many of you have reached out with questions — will this include back pay? Is regular pay guaranteed for the rest of this year? We had the same questions and sent SPS management an email to clarify these important questions; we will keep you updated with their response.

Our union has never believed the pay freeze was necessary. As we have outlined before, the millions of dollars in COVID relief, high pay for the top employees in our organization, and a State budget with no budget cuts led us to conclude that Summit could have made different financial choices. Summit should never have cut teacher compensation, nor the compensation of lower-paid hourly staff. We also predicted the legislature would make further adjustments to funding this fall and allow schools to receive more funding for increased ADA; as Diane mentioned in her email, the recently passed budget trailer bill did just that.

Instead, Summit chose to start the summer by threatening to lay off over 20 of our colleagues. This ultimately forced us to agree to a pay freeze so our colleagues would not lose their jobs in the middle of a pandemic and so that our students could continue to have a robust Expeditions program. The pay freeze has significantly impacted our teachers; teachers moved back in with their parents, found second jobs, and made other important life decisions based on the freeze. Now, a month into the school year, Summit has announced the pay freeze is no longer necessary. The mental and emotional stress teachers were put under was unnecessary and does not indicate SPS values their teachers.

We will keep you updated on what we learn about the pay freeze rollback.

In the meantime, we know that your actions and activism have a real impact on our organization. Please sign our petition for a sustainable virtual school (if you are not one of the many teachers who has already done so) at tinyurl.com/SustainableVSPetition.

SPS Board Meeting September 14

The next SPS Board meeting will be from 3pm-4:30pm on Monday September 14. You can join via this link. The agenda for the Summit Public Schools board meeting was posted today at 3pm.
Agenda items listed include:

Closed session discussion of our union negotiations
“Recommended action to approve adjustments to staff compensation and benefits” (presumably the pay freeze rollback)
A ten minute public hearing on the Learning Continuity and Attendance Plan (you can see the draft plan for each school here).

The supporting documents for the agenda should be posted here. As we said in our last update, it is disappointing but not surprising that Summit has scheduled this important meeting during a time that is inaccessible for teachers and working families. If you want to make a comment to the Board but can’t attend the meeting, you can email your comment to: CABoardofDirectors@summitps.org

Virtual School Petition and Bargaining Update #9

Highlighted in this newsletter:

We believe Home Office has made illegal changes to virtual school, including taking away our sites’ flexibility to schedule LT/GLT/MLT meetings. We have emailed SPS leadership and executive directors to ask that all changes are immediately reversed and that any future changes are bargained with our union. In order to show that SPS teachers support these asks, today we launched a petition for our union’s vision for a sustainable, stable, and equitable virtual school model. If you want to see change towards this vision, it is important to sign our petition.
We met with SPS’s bargaining team for contract bargaining on Wednesday. We remain far apart on some fundamental issues (like at-will employment). Support your bargaining team and our push for a fair contract by wearing your union t-shirt and/or changing your Zoom background to our union logo during every staff meeting!
SPS management filed an Unfair Labor Practice charge against our union, which we believe is unfounded and suspect is an attempt to distract us from their own possible violations of the law (details below).
In case you missed it, here’s information we sent out last week regarding our agreement with Summit management to increase our work from home stipends.
The SPS Board has scheduled two meetings in September (on the 14th and 29th) to solicit input on their Learning Continuity and Attendance Plan (basically the state-required plan for running our schools during the pandemic). The meetings are during the day, making them inaccessible to teachers, students, and working families — this timing has historically been an issue.

Our vision for sustainable virtual school

Summit management has implemented and/or planned changes to job duties and scheduling which add unnecessary challenges to our work — but do not add value to the student learning experience. As we begin the unprecedented challenge of teaching during a global pandemic, SPS needs to work with our union to create a plan for a virtual school model that is stable, equitable, and sustainable for teachers and students.

We sent this letter Tuesday to Summit management requesting to bargain over a number of changes that management has implemented without prior notice or an opportunity for our union to bargain. This includes taking away site autonomy in scheduling LT/GLT meetings (forcing sites to stay on zoom until 5pm on Mondays seems both unnecessary and less than productive) and unclear expectations around the new Habits and Content Block.

We formed our union so that teachers could have a voice in decision-making. This year, it is more important than ever that Summit work with teachers to ensure that we have a successful virtual school. If you agree, please sign our petition to Summit’s management and Board in support of a sustainable virtual school model.

Bargaining Update
On September 2, we held the 9th bargaining session to negotiate our contract with SPS management. Here’s what happened related to our three main priorities.

Increasing Classroom Support for Students
SPS management made a class size proposal which simply states that Summit will make “reasonable efforts” to stick to class size averages. Our previous proposal on class size has much stronger language to actually hold Summit to low class size averages. We know that many of our students come to Summit schools because they thrive in a small school environment. We want class size limitations that ensure our students receive the attention they deserve.

It is important to note that Summit management has still not offered a counterproposal on the very first proposal we introduced back on March 20: Support Services. Our proposal would make critically needed investments in the mental health of our students and improve our program for English Learners and Diverse Learners. Summit has yet to address these critical issues in contract negotiations — issues integral to our core mission of providing holistic support.

Reducing Teacher Turnover and Improving Job Sustainability
Summit’s bargaining team presented a counterproposal on Calendar, Work Year, and Work Day. While in the proposal, we would end by 4pm every day, Summit also proposed adding more than three weeks to our work year, much of it in June. This significant extension of our work year hardly seems sustainable and makes little sense — not academically, not logistically.
Summit’s last proposal on employment status would define us as at-will employees, which means our jobs can be terminated at any time for any reason. We explained to the SPS bargaining team that we do not have a counterproposal at this time because we cannot provide a genuine compromise on an issue which is so important to our teachers. Our members do not want to continue to be at-will employees. This is one core reason we formed a union. We need confirmation that when we do our jobs well, we will continue to be employed by Summit. We also need to be able to advocate for ourselves and our students without fear of hostility nor retaliation.

Our bargaining team presented a counterproposal on Layoff and Re-Employment. It provides a clear definition of when layoffs may occur and a clear process for us to be automatically offered our jobs back if there is an opening after a valid layoff has occurred.

Increasing Teacher Voice in Decision-Making
One of the most fundamentally important parts of any union contract is the ability to enforce that contract — if we can’t make sure the contract is followed, there’s not much point in having one! In our last proposal on this topic, we offered a clear system for resolving future disputes about if SPS management has violated our contract (this is a grievance). We believe a neutral, third party arbitrator (basically a judge) should be the final resort in determining if the contract was violated or not. This is called arbitration. While arbitrations are rare and grievances are usually resolved at lower steps in the grievance process, we believe it’s important that a neutral person be the final decision-maker on a grievance if necessary. In Summit management’s last proposal, the final decision-maker on a grievance is not a neutral outside person but SUMMIT’S OWN BOARD or a special committee on which teachers would hold a minority of seats (Summit admin and classified employees would hold two-thirds of the seats). Summit’s own Board or a committee should not decide if Summit violated our contract. We don’t have a counterproposal at this time due to this fundamental disagreement.

Summit’s last proposal on management rights gave Summit management the ability to suspend our union contract for up to three months in an emergency situation. We don’t think Summit should be allowed to suspend our contract. We don’t have a counterproposal at this time due to this fundamental disagreement.
Summit made a compensation proposal, salary schedule, and leaves proposal that stops the use of the compensation consensus process to determine compensation and benefits. We think this change is a positive one; we heard from our teachers last year that the consensus process took up an enormous amount of time and energy but didn’t actually result in more teacher voice in determining compensation or benefits. The compensation consensus process also didn’t include the salary of the highest paid employees in the organization, which seemed arbitrary and inequitable. We believe negotiating compensation and benefits through our union contract is the best way to move forward, and we are encouraged that Summit seems to be listening to this feedback!

Our union also made counterproposals on Assignments, Reassignments and Transfers and Organizational Security (dues deduction). The following Unite Summit Bargaining Team members attended the negotiating session: Joey Hughes, Expeditions; Fuchsia Spring, K2; Amber Steele, Denali Middle; Sarah Rivas, Denali High; Hillary Odom, Shasta; Evan Anderson, Everest; and Douglas Wills, Tahoma. Daryl Hemenway from CTA also joined the discussion. The following Summit management Bargaining Team members attended: Diane Tavenner, CEO; Kelly Garcia, Chief of Staff; and Jimmy Zuniga, Everest Executive Director.

Important Legal Update
Overview:
We were surprised last week to receive notice that Summit administration filed an Unfair Labor Practice charge against our union with the Public Employment Relations Board (PERB). The charge alleges that we’ve bargained in “bad faith” and that our communication to our authorizing school boards over the summer regarding layoffs was an “unlawful pressure tactic.” Our lawyers will respond very soon. We are confident that the charges are baseless and suspect that they will be dismissed by PERB.

Why Would Summit Administration File Baseless Charges?:
Initially it was a bit surprising to us when we found out that administration filed these charges. Upon further reflection, we suspect they did so because they are trying to distract attention from the numerous mistakes they’ve made during negotiations and outright violations of the law. In fact, as we’ve previously reported, we have filed four legal charges against Summit to correct their behavior for:

The improper firing of three union activists
Summit’s conduct during the process to recognize our union, which included dragging on the process for almost a year and misleading PERB about the role of Home Office employees, who Summit argued should be included in our union
The threats made against Rainier teachers for speaking out about issues at their school
The almost three-month delay to the start of bargaining our contract

Additionally, we are concerned that they are violating their charters and in some cases legal requirements by, for example, refusing to provide us information under the California Public Records Act, improperly conducting Board meetings in violation of the Brown Act, and closing Rainier without any input or notice to Rainier’s community. We suspect Summit administration is hoping to distract attention from this inappropriate behavior and perhaps trying to delay the process through these frivolous claims against our union. Despite their efforts we have no plan to be deterred. We are confident important changes are coming soon.

What happens next:
Our lawyers will soon respond to these charges. We will make the response available as soon as it is ready. In the meantime, we will continue to push hard to fix the many problems at Summit, and especially focus on restoring our pay and negotiating a virtual school schedule and working conditions that are sustainable and stable.

What can I do to help?
We have had many questions about how folks not on the bargaining team can best help. We appreciate the conscientious offers and want to share the best ways to help move this process forward despite administration’s misguided and transparent efforts to slow down the process. Specifically, you can fill out our welcome back survey, sign our petition for sustainable virtual school, and show your support for our union by wearing your Unite Summit t-shirt and/or changing your Zoom background to our union logo during LT, GLT, CLT, and MLT meetings. Also, if you have any questions, please reach out to one of our school site reps or bargaining team members.

Union Visibility – Show Your Support!
In order to show support for our union and our goals of settling a contract that provides greater support services for students, reduces teacher turnover, and allows teachers to have a voice in decision-making, wear your Unite Summit t-shirt and/or change your Zoom background to our union logo during our LT, GLT, CLT, and MLT meetings. If you need a t-shirt, fill out our welcome back survey. And if you have any other questions or ideas, please reach out to your site rep!

Next SPS Board Meetings
As part of its budget, the State is requiring districts and charter schools to come up with a Learning Continuity and Attendance Plan which describes, among other things, how distance learning will take place, how students will access services, and how the mental health and socio-emotional wellbeing of both students and staff will be supported. The plan must be passed by school boards by September 30 and community input is required (which is why there are two meetings). The meetings are: Monday September 14, 3-4pm Tuesday, September 29, 10-11am
It is disappointing — but not surprising — that the SPS Board is continuing to schedule meetings during the day, when they are largely inaccessible to our school communities. The agenda, materials, and Zoom link to join will be posted here

Increase to Work From Home Stipend

You made your voices heard; based on survey feedback and our bargaining team’s push for a legally enforceable memorandum of understanding (MOU) regarding work from home stipends, Summit admin and our union have signed a MOU about our work from home stipend.

In addition to the two $100 work from home stipends, Summit has agreed to provide an additional (one time only) $300 work from home stipend, to be paid on our September paychecks. Additionally, Summit has agreed to increase the internet stipend from $30 to $50 a month. You can read the Memorandum of Understanding here.

While providing the additional money is a positive step, we do think it’s critical to note that Summit stated the purpose of this additional stipend comes from feedback from teachers for “teacher needs as they prepare for the return of students.” And yet, everyone in the Summit organization is receiving this money. Some of the top-paid Summit employees make 4 to 8 times the salary of a first year teacher, yet all will receive $300. This hardly seems equitable.

The additional stipend also shows us that Summit can find more money when it wants to. That is why it’s critically important that we continue the push for the full restoration of our pay. Be on the lookout soon for concrete steps on how you can make your voice heard about this important issue.

Welcome Back and Bargaining Update #8

Dear Unite Summit Community,

Welcome back to school! Our union leadership is proud to serve our students with you as we engage in professional development and begin to prepare for student orientation. The amount of time we have spent on zoom for these last two weeks is virtually unprecedented. We want to acknowledge that this coming year, our work as mentors and teachers will be incredibly challenging. It is hard to support our students when they, and we, need to confront isolation and illness. We want to acknowledge the importance of your work.

In this newsletter you will find information on:

Unite Summit welcome back meetings
An update on cash advances
A summary of our 8th contract bargaining session
An update on virtual school negotiations

Welcome Back Meeting

Your school site’s union representative will hold a welcome back meeting within these next two weeks. Your rep will invite you to take specific actions to support our current goals. These goals include:
1) reopening during COVID 19 with a fair agreement;
2) restoring compensation;
3) bargaining a fair contract.

Your rep will invite you to show support for these goals each Wednesday by wearing a union t-shirt or using our logo as a zoom background or profile pic! You are also invited to join a union committee focused on specific actions. At your site meeting, ite reps will provide further context and information about future actions. In order to ensure that your contact information is up to date and to participate, we ask that you complete this survey.

Cash Advance Update

During bargaining, we inquired about the process for receiving a cash advance, as outlined in our pay freeze agreement. You should have received an email in your SPS account earlier this week detailing the timeline: you will receive instructions for how to opt-in to the cash advance on Monday, August 17. You have until Friday, August 21, to sign up to receive the cash advance.

Bargaining Session #8

On Tuesday, our bargaining team had our eighth negotiating session with Summit about our first union contract.

SPS management presented three counter-proposals:

Employment Status. Summit management wants to retain at-will employment, no matter how long you’ve been with your school. The SPS management bargaining team asserted that no job security was “what’s best for students” according to “research,” but when pressed, did not provide any further research, rationale, or information. This counter-proposal added a deadline of April 15 to let teachers know if they have “reasonable assurance” (though no guarantee) of being asked back for the following year.
Assignment and Transfer. SPS management wants to keep the current process for teachers who want to move to a different school; we are fairly aligned on this point. While our proposal provided a process for assigning classes, the SPS management team does not want faculty to have input on course assignments and did not agree that teachers should be hired to teach specific subjects.
Layoff and Reemployment. SPS management’s proposal states if layoffs are necessary for the following school year, unit members will be notified by May 1. When asked how the timing of layoffs interacted with their employment status proposal (in other words, a teacher could receive a letter of “reasonable assurance” that they would have a job next year on April 15 and then receive a layoff notice May 1), the SPS team could provide no explanation. Given what we went through this summer, we believe it is crucial to negotiate a strong layoff article.

We are awaiting counter-proposals from Summit’s management team on the following: academic freedom; assessments and curriculum; class size and caseload; compensation; discipline and dismissal; evaluation; facilities; health and safety; health and welfare benefits; hours of employment, job duties, and work year; intellectual property; leaves of absence; professional development and teacher/mentor support; shared governance; support services; and union rights.

We ended the bargaining by agreeing to regular bargaining sessions. Our next bargaining date will likely be September 2. We will be presenting counter proposals on: assignment, transfer, and reassignment; employment status; grievance and arbitration; layoff and reemployment; management rights; and organizational security.

The following Unite Summit Bargaining Team members attended today’s meeting: Joey Hughes, Expeditions; Fuchsia Spring, K2; Amber Steele, Denali Middle; Sarah Rivas, Denali High; Hillary Odom, Shasta; Evan Anderson, Everest; and Douglas Wills, Tahoma. Daryl Hemenway and Ona Keller from CTA also joined the discussion.

The following Summit management Bargaining Team members attended: Diane Tavenner, CEO; Kelly Garcia, Chief of Staff; and Jimmy Zuniga, Everest Executive Director.

Virtual School Negotiations

As we wrote in our last update, we have not come to an agreement about virtual school/reopening. We filed paperwork with the Public Employment Relations Board to start the next step in the negotiations process: mediation. PERB agreed that mediation is needed. A mediator has been appointed and we are in the process of scheduling our first mediation session.

As a reminder, we have three main asks for a sustainable virtual school:

Meeting times capped at 90 minutes/week
Hard stop of 4pm
Written, guaranteed $530 stipend for working from home.

Please continue to let your EDs know why you support these reasonable asks. We will keep you updated when our first mediation session is scheduled.

Again, welcome back. Look for an email from your site rep, and reach out if you do not hear from them within the next few days. This school year will be difficult, and we look forward to meeting with you soon.

Virtual School/Reopening Update

Quick Summary on Reopening Bargaining (7/23-7/24)

We’re not finished with bargaining over reopening and virtual school.
Our proposal is that our school day have a hard stop at 4pm and that we have a written guarantee of a stipend for working from home.
Summit contends they don’t have to bargain over these issues (for more on this, see “The Full Background”)
We believe we are close to an agreement on the middle school schedule that would switch middle school to the expeditions schedule, and we are awaiting Summit’s response. (Expeditions Schedule at the end of this email)

Teacher Action Item

We are requesting that all of our teachers take a specific action. We are asking that you call, text, or email your Executive Director and Deans to express what you need to have formally, legally negotiated to start this school year in virtual school. Any agreement we negotiate will be effective this year only and does not set a precedent for future years (or a return to in-person school this year, which would also need to be separately negotiated), nor for our contract. You do not need to express what you need in future years because the agreement we negotiate is specific only for reopening during COVID 19.

We recommend that you share your perspective on why all or any of these measures proposed by our union would be helpful. You can read the entirety of our proposal here.

Why you need meeting times to be capped at 90 minutes per week. Four exceptions per semester can be made your ED. Teachers need this for increased personalized time to prep for classes and reach out to families. If the justification for longer meetings and therefore work days is student support, we believe that this can be personalized from coaches.
Why you need your work day to have a hard stop at 4:00 during virtual school. Teachers have said they need this for vision and other negative health impacts; childcare responsibilities; increased personalized time to prep for classes and reach out to families; and the need to take on supplemental income.
Why you need a stipend of $530 guaranteed. While Summit has agreed to continue the $30/month work from home stipend, along with extra money for other supplies, they have thus far refused to include the stipend as part of our agreement. Given the compensation freeze, we need a stronger commitment that Summit leadership will follow through on financial commitments to staff.
Middle School Specific: Why the middle school should change to the expeditions cycle. Middle school teachers had been working with one prep per day. Summit’s EDs proposed this schedule, so it is one reasonable way of solving the issue for Middle School teachers. Unite Summit offered to move forward with implementing this schedule while continuing to negotiate over reopening and virtual school.

If we do not have a budget for teaching materials, time to prepare for class, time to take care of basic health, time to care for children, and the ability to earn our expected income, then we cannot teach. Meeting schedules do not take precedence over the basic things we need to teach. If you need support with reaching out to your Executive Director or deans, you are welcome to reach out to your site representative or union leadership for support. If you have additional needs or perspectives you would like to share, we encourage you to honestly do so.

The Full Background

We believe we are in agreement and asked Summit to sign off on a memorandum of understanding (MOU) to change the middle school schedule to an expeditions model for SY 2020-21 only. We are awaiting their response .

We are still not in agreement regarding reopening school/virtual school. As of the evening of July 28th, we have not heard a counter-proposal from Summit regarding reopening/virtual school. Therefore, we are filing impasse paperwork on the morning of the 29th. Impasse occurs when the parties aren’t able to make any further movement; it allows for a mediator to be assigned to try and help the parties reach an agreement.

SPS believes that there is no requirement to negotiate with the union to reopen school in Fall 2020 due the fact we taught virtually in Spring 2020. However, there is a significant difference between the quick closure and transition to virtual school in March (and its various iterations throughout the spring semester) and starting out the school year fully virtual and unable to teach in person. We know that starting off the school year virtually is going to significantly change our work, and we need to make some changes to adapt to the situation.

We are confused by Summit’s position that they don’t need to negotiate over school reopening/virtual school. We are basically in agreement. We agree with Summit that we should use the schedule we used for virtual school round 2 (except for the changes to middle school). We agree with Summit that teachers should receive a stipend to cover the costs of working from home, but Summit will not put this guarantee into a legally-enforceable memorandum of understanding. Finally, we have proposed that our workday end at 4pm. For some reason, Summit seems to be under the impression that agreeing to a 4pm stop in the context of virtual school negotiations means that the 4pm stop is the new “status quo” that will exist even if we are able to come back to school in person. Again, this is a confusing stance: we are only addressing reopening and virtual school in these negotiations and our agreement would only cover reopening and virtual school. Our contract negotiations, and any changes we need to bargain in how we conduct school this year (for example, if we return to in-person school) are separate. Unfortunately, Summit seems to be conflating the reopening/virtual school negotiations with the other bargaining that is also ongoing; this conflation seems to be preventing us from reaching an agreement.

Information for Middle School Teachers

Previously, we shared the expeditions schedule proposed by SPS. We want to provide you with information on how an expeditions cycle works from a teacher perspective. The screenshot below is for your convenience.

We want to be very clear that leading up the schedule above would involve teaching for about 6 weeks, followed by 2 weeks of not teaching as students follow their expeditions schedule (above).

During the 6 weeks of the regular (non-Expeditions) schedule, the daily schedule does not change for teachers. The students would have an SDL block instead of an electives block and that would allow them to go for a walk, eat, take a break or work on school if they so choose during that time.

During the two-week period where students take expeditions courses, you would still mentor in the typical morning schedule. Following mentor time, project time teachers typically engage in a combination of professional development (designed mostly by EDs), coaching, and prep. This cycle of on/off teaching would occur four times throughout the school year. The amount of weeks teaching at the beginning and end of the school year would vary from site to site due to the expeditions rotation. If the rotation includes middle schools as well as high schools this would mean Denali MS would see their students for three weeks before expeditions, K2 MS would see their students for five weeks before expeditions and Tam MS would see their students for 7 weeks before expeditions.

If you have any questions about the proposed changes to the middle school schedule, please contact Denali Middle School Bargaining Team representative Amber Steele (asteele@summitps.org).

Return to School Negotiations

Thank you for sharing your concerns about opening during COVID 19. This newsletter includes an opportunity to sign up for a union committee, and a bargaining update.

Committee Sign Up

Union leadership has created a series of committees that will develop our vision for the year and collectively work on behalf of teachers across SPS. The goal of elected union leadership is to use transparent, inclusive practices to support teachers.

In this form, please indicate your interest in joining a committee.

Bargaining Update: Teaching In COVID 19

On Thursday and Friday, SPS and US had scheduled negotiations to reopen SPS this fall. In accordance with state guidelines, school will start completely virtual. Any physical opening would be negotiated. Our priorities in negotiating with SPS this week included:

Hard stop by 4 PM. This would increase prep time, allow teachers to take jobs to supplement lost income, care for families, and reduce negative impacts of screen time.
Faculty meetings scheduled for Wednesdays during flexible work time, capped at 90 minutes per week. Site admin would be able to make exceptions. This would increase prep time.
Sites able to adapt their schedule with majority support from teachers and approval from site administration. This would include repurposing Reads/Solves as both Office Hours, interventions, club, AP study, or prep. This would allow teachers to differentiate for student needs.
Protected, increased prep time including equity for middle school teachers.
Increased professional development including best practices for online engagement.
Student orientation for virtual school, including for students new to the PLP.
Student resources to support economic stability and emotional health.
Virtual school materials stipend of $500.

Beginning negotiations, our bargaining team felt optimistic that SPS would willingly negotiate a temporary agreement, functional this year only, to address concerns with virtual teaching during COVID 19. In alignment with Governor Newson’s reopening guidelines, the SPS bargaining team verbally stated that our schools will likely remain closed and may provide physical workspace for students following state guidelines in the future. They verbally described plans for student orientation; teacher professional development; a materials stipend for teachers; adjustments to the middle school schedule, and student resources which aligned to our priorities. Notably, we will hold class via zoom.

As teachers, we all know it is crucial for our employers to record these items in a legally-enforceable agreement. These last two days, however, SPS has offered only one narrow proposal that describes the change to the middle school structure. They have repeatedly stated that because they are basically following the same virtual school plan from Spring 2020, they may legally reopen without negotiating any further.

Let us be clear: it is legally mandatory for SPS to negotiate on the following topics according to California law:

Hours of Employment: hard stop at 4 PM (priority 1).
Terms and Conditions of Employment: conditions which strongly impact our ability to complete work responsibilities such as prep time and a virtual school stipend.

This is what happened during bargaining:

SPS verbally described their plans to reopen, without a proposal.
US shared a first proposal stating alignment on the principles of SPS plans and asking Summit to write a proposal to define key aspects of their plan.
SPS shared their first and only proposal defining only changes to the middle school structure.
US shared a second proposal. (Note that this is from US, not SPS, as written in the title and first sentence.)
SPS stated that they would not provide a second proposal.
US shared a third proposal including only our bare minimum priorities. They are all mandatory subjects of bargaining:
- Hard stop at 4
- Wednesday meeting schedule with 90 minute cap
- Stipend for materials
- Changes to the middle school schedule

SPS refused to produce any proposals with concessions or compromises. If this continues, this is refusal to bargain over mandatory subjects of bargaining.

What is especially disappointing about Summit’s behavior is that we are actually quite close to an agreement. Our members have made clear that limiting meeting times and stopping at 4pm is a priority, for the reasons described above. This is a simple and reasonable ask. We are unclear why Summit is not willing to put their verbal promises into a written proposal and why Summit is unwilling to agree to a reasonable amount of meeting time, especially given that our teachers have taken a pay freeze.
We have determined that we will email SPS to provide a final opportunity to negotiate on these issues. In contrast with SPS, we are bargaining in good faith and are willing to compromise.Because we formed a union, we have the legal right to negotiate what we need to teach well and to live decently. It is both moral and legal for our union to advocate for what we need in order to teach our students. If SPS refuses to comply with the law and negotiate on mandatory topics of bargaining, then we will take action through the Public Education Relations Board.

Pay Freeze Agreement

Important Update: On July 15, Summit announced that “lane changes” will not be part of the pay freeze. You will be appropriately compensated for obtaining a masters or credential. for more details, see here.

On the first day of summer vacation, our CEO announced that compensation for 2020-21 would be frozen to the 2019-20 salary scale. Our collective work since that day has mitigated some of the immediate harm to our members, prohibited layoffs for this school year, and codified a greater degree of job protection for our members. This newsletter explains the agreement reached by SPS and Unite Summit. We address critical information about the agreement in context of the state budget, Summit’s priorities, and teachers’ priorities. We also ask you to complete a five-minute survey about reopening in the fall.

Priorities in the agreement
In negotiations, our bargaining team prioritized:
1) ensuring teachers would not see an immediate hit to their paycheck and had adequate time to financially prepare for a freeze;
2) creating a mechanism for “unfreezing” pay and
3) prohibiting layoffs and providing greater job security for the upcoming school year.

We want to make it clear that we bargained under duress. The decision to announce a pay freeze and the threat that unless we agreed to pay freezes, 21 of our colleagues would be laid off by July 10, was not bargaining in good faith. Our elected union leadership — site representatives and bargaining team — firmly agree that the agreement we reached around 2020-21 compensation does not adequately compensate and respect our teachers. Instead, we view this agreement as a stepping stone toward winning back our promised pay for this school year.

Can Summit afford the 2020-21 compensation scale?
We believe that Summit can and should compensate teachers according to the 2020-21 scale. As we wrote in our update Pay freeze or layoffs — a false choice?, Summit has a healthy reserve, strong connections to some of the wealthiest people in California who are invested in Summit’s model and growth (including SPS Board member Meg Whitman who has a net worth of $5 billion), and is receiving money from the Paycheck Protection Program.

Our organization is fiscally sound and full of creative, innovative leaders; we are convinced that Summit can make a different choice and not balance its budget on the backs of teachers and hourly workers.

Teachers and hourly workers should be prioritized in the SPS budget, especially in the context of a pandemic. Hourly workers have the highest amount of physical contact with students and families. Teachers have never focused on academics alone. Our teachers chose Summit because we care about holistic, personalized mentoring. Now, we meet unprecedented challenges as we know we will support children through financial challenges, isolation, illness, and death.

Budgets are based on the best available information at the time; they are constructed based on educated guesses. However, budgets are not just spreadsheets; they are moral documents that reflect the values of an organization.

Budgets are dependent on an organization making choices; we believe that SPS can make different choices that honor the promise made to teachers in their compensation letters. As Summit prepares to revise its budget this fall — a routine that happens every year — we will be organizing to urge Summit to choose to invest in the people who interact most directly with students. We ask every person in our organization to speak up if you believe that restoring compensation for lower-paid staff is a concrete action for equity and in the best interest of our students.

Summary of the TA
Here is a link to our full agreement. Below is a summary.

Compensation Increases Frozen
— Pay will be frozen at our 19-20 salary with one exception — you will receive the experience stipend you were originally promised for the 2020-21 school year
— You will have the option to get a cash advance to make up the difference between your frozen salary and the pay you were promised in your compensation letter from July-December of this year. That difference will be deducted from your June 2021 paycheck.
— SPS will roll out the process of requesting cash advances.

Restoration of Pay
— Our pay will be restored (with backpay) if two conditions are met. First, the state does not reduce SPS funding in penalty for taking a Paycheck Protection Program loan ($6.8 million). Second, Summit receives full funding for this year’s enrollment (the budget passed in July only funds schools for last year’s enrollment).
— Summit has stated that the intention is to restore pay to the 2020-21 salary scale as soon as possible. Our teachers have consistently said that the compensation freeze damaged their trust in SPS to follow through on commitments. Following through on providing promised compensation is an opportunity for Summit to restore trust.

Job Security
— There will be no layoffs in the 2020-21 school year. This is now a legally enforceable commitment from Summit.
— Summit must give advance notice and bargain with our union over any termination during the school year (unless the conduct is egregious, in which case we will not receive advance notice of termination and will bargain after the teacher has been terminated). During the past few months, Summit has started to follow this process for terminations. We believe having this process agreed to, in writing, is an important step forward in supporting students, and providing teachers with job security and stability this school year.

Reopening Survey
Please complete this REOPENING SURVEY. This information will determine Unite Summit’s negotiations for re-opening. Your participation will provide us with crucial information as we go into bargaining over reopening next week. We will collect emails so that your site rep can contact you. However, we will keep your participation and name anonymous. Please reach out to bargaining team members if you have additional thoughts or want to discuss your ideas about reopening.