| Reminder — Please fill out our Fall Survey! You can find our Fall Survey at: tinyurl.com/USFallSurvey Your responses will inform our work as we move into bargaining our first contract, so please take a few minutes to give us your perspective. Our goal is to have all responses in by next Friday, Oct. 11. Our Status A lot of teachers have questions about where exactly Unite Summit is at in the unionization process. Here’s a quick explainer. We filed for union recognition with the Public Employment Relations Board at the end of January; PERB certified that Unite Summit had support from the majority of teachers at Summit. Summit denied recognition of our union in April and has been arguing since then that deans and certain Home Office employees must be included in our union. We created Unite Summit to give teachers a voice and to make an improvement at our school sites, so we do not think it’s appropriate to include Home Office employees or deans in our union. In July, PERB ordered Summit to give a rationale as to why employees who aren’t teachers should be covered by our union. We are now waiting for an attorney from PERB to issue a decision as to which employees should be included in our union. Once we receive PERB’s decision about who will be included in our union, we can begin bargaining our contract(though there is a possibility that Summit could appeal the decision. Summit could also simply voluntarily agree to recognize our union at any time). So, what does this all mean for us right now? – We are a union. – Our activity as a union is legally protected. – We have the right to request information from Summit. – Summit must notify us of any changes to working conditions and meet with us before changes are implemented. – You have the right to ask for union representation if you have a meeting with your supervisor that you believe could lead to discipline. – We will begin negotiating our union contract once we receive PERB’s decision. This is not a question of “if” we will be certified but “when.” |
Newsletter: PERB and charter legislation
| Ongoing and Upcoming Union Work Site organizers have been working to hold site meetings and office hours in the first few weeks of school in order to answer questions from our new teachers, gather input, and offer updates. We are preparing to launch a survey, so please look out for that soon! In the meantime, we are organizing elections for the open slots on our Bargaining Team. Congratulations to Amber Steele, who is the newly-elected Bargaining Team member from Denali Middle School! The election for bargaining team representative at Denali High School will be next week (please contact Sarah Rivas if you have questions). Stay tuned for election news from Tahoma, Tam, and Shasta. |
| PERB Update On August 28, Summit submitted a filing with PERB that outlined why it believes its Home Office positions should be included in our bargaining unit. The filing was confusing for a number of reasons including: Summit acknowledged that it laid off 79 home office employees (presumably they work for TLP now) but it appears to argue that those positions must be included in our bargaining unit; Summit is asserting that Deans are not supervisors and should be a part of our bargaining unit; and Summit stated that since some Home Office employees work on curriculum, their work is interdependent with teachers and they would not be able to continue to collaborate with teachers unless they were in our bargaining unit (this is not actually the case). We do not believe that Summit made a case for why these extra positions should be included in our bargaining unit; their filing was confusing, inconsistent, and seemed to be yet another delay tactic. The PERB attorney has asked Unite Summit to submit a response to Summit’s filing, and then will make a decision about the appropriateness of our bargaining unit. Again, we will be recognized as the union and will begin bargaining a contract that addresses important issues like teacher turnover and student support services; this is not a question of “if” but “when.” |
| Charter School Legislation Update There have been some significant updates to AB 1505 since we last wrote about it. As always, we encourage you to read the bill itself and/or reach out if you have any questions or concerns. This week, the legislature passed AB 1505. Governor Newsom is expected to sign it; Charter Schools Association is staying neutral on the bill and there is broad statewide support for reforms to a law that hasn’t been changed significantly in 20 years, The law would go into effect July 1st, 2020, unless otherwise noted. Changes to charter renewal AB 1505 updates the academic criteria for charter renewal to reflect California’s current accountability system, separates charters into different categories for renewal, and allows for different time periods for renewal (currently, all charters are renewed for five years). — If a charter has two years of the highest performance levels outlined in the California School Dashboard, does not have fiscal or governance problems, and serves all pupils, including English Learners and students with disabilities, who want to attend the school, the charter must be renewed. The charter can be renewed for between five and seven years. — If a charter has two years of the lowest performance levels outlined in the California School Dashboard, the charter cannot be renewed unless the charter has a written plan on how it will better serve students academically and there is data to show the school is making progress. A school in this category can only be renewed for two years. — If a charter is in neither the highest or lowest performing levels, it can be renewed for five years unless the district finds that the charter is not making sufficient academic progress and closing the school would be in the best interest of students. Most charter schools will likely fall into this category. Additionally, under AB 1505 a charter school in any of the three categories above can be denied renewal due to substantial fiscal or governance issues or because the authorizer finds that the school is not serving all students who wish to attend. Additional Reasons for Denial Current law outlines six reasons that a new charter school can be denied. AB 1505 adds two more reasons for denial of a new charter school: — The charter would financially impact the community and the neighborhood public schools. Denial based on this reason must consider the extent to which the proposed charter would undermine existing programs and services (for example, if opening the charter would lead to cuts in support services, such as counselors, at district schools) and whether the new charter would duplicate existing programs. — The school district is in fiscal distress (for example, if it’s under state receivership). These reasons for denial CANNOT be used for charter school renewals (in other words, this part of the law doesn’t apply to existing Summit schools). However, these reasons for denial can be used to deny the expansion (adding more grades or additional school sites) of an existing charter. So, for example, if Summit wanted to add grades K-5 to an existing 6th-12th grade school that was up for renewal, a district could deny the additional grades (K-5) based on fiscal impact but could not deny renewing the existing 6th-12th grade school based on fiscal impact. Changes to Appeal Process Under current law and in AB 1505, if a school district denies a charter petition, the charter can appeal to the County Board of Education. If both the district and county boards deny a charter petition, the charter can appeal to the State Board of Education. Under current law, when the State Board of Education receives an appeal, it performs its own independent review of the charter petition and make its own evaluation as to whether or not the petition met the criteria of the law. Under AB 1505, if a charter appeals to the State Board of Education, the charter must delineate how a district or county abused its discretion in denying the petition; the State Board will no longer perform its own independent analysis of the petition. This means the State Board is taking on a role more similar to an appellate court; instead of having a new “trial” and re-examining all the facts, the State Board will review and rule on whether the district and county followed the legal process and provided the charter petition a fair opportunity to be heard. If the State Board of Education rules that the district and county abused their discretion in denying the charter petition, it can reverse the denial and approve the petition. But, the State Board of Education will no longer be a charter authorizer; it will task the local district or county board to be the authorizer and perform oversight of the charter school. This is an important change to the law that moves charter oversight away from Sacramento and back into our communities. Charter schools currently authorized by the State Board (approximately 29 state-wide; no Summit school is authorized by the State) will transition to oversight by their local school district or county office of education over the next few years. Teacher Credentialing Currently, teachers of “noncore, non-college-preparatory classes” at charter schools do not need a teaching credential. However, what constitutes a “noncore, non-college-preparatory classes” varies widely from school to school and there does not seem to be a common definition across the state. AB 1505 would require all new charter school teachers, starting in the 2020-2021 school year, to have the same teaching credential as required of teachers in district schools. The bill gives current charter school teachers until July 2025 to obtain the appropriate credential. It also gives charters the same ability that districts have to request emergency permits and other waivers. The bill also tasks the California Commission on Teacher Credentialing with evaluating whether existing credentials are adequate and requires the CTC to propose additional credentials and/or changes to the credentialing process by June 2022. While the credentialing requirements will vary between current and future charter teachers, ALL charter school teachers must get a “certificate of clearance” by July 2020. A certificate of clearance consists of a background check, fingerprinting, and a professional fitness questionnaire. If you have a credential, you should already have a certificate of clearance. The certificate of clearance also ensures that all teachers have had a background check (which, incredibly, is a fuzzy area of the law) and are part of the state’s teacher database. Other additions to the law The bill allows (and in some cases requires) charters that are struggling to receive the same technical assistance that county offices of education provide to school districts. In light of the recent multi-million-dollar scandals around virtual schools, the bill puts a two-year moratorium on new non-classroom-based charters (this does not apply to Summit) so that lawmakers have an opportunity to determine what new safeguards are necessary to prevent fraud and waste in virtual schools. Finally, the bill adds a requirement that both new and renewal petitions describe how the school will recruit special education and English language learner students in numbers that are reflective of the population of the district in which the charter school is located. |
The Rainier community is advocating for student needs through adjustments to scheduling and space norms, and they ask you to consider signing and sharing this petition in support of these changes.
Support for US from our legislators
On August 23, state legislators sent the below letters to SPS leadership.
We are grateful for our legislators who are supportive of teachers working together to make our schools better and are concerned that Summit Public Schools leadership continues to delay recognition of our union.
The Public Employment Relations Board gave SPS an Aug. 28 deadline to send a justification for the home office roles that they want included in our bargaining unit (see our last newsletter for more information). Unite Summit appreciates the continued support of our members and of our legislators as we continue to push for our top goals of increasing support services for students and improving job sustainability for teachers.
Newsletter: Update on Schedule Changes
In this newsletter, you will find:
- Update on schedule changes
- Update on US recognition process
- What are we working on now?
- How can you participate?
Update on Schedule Changes
Yesterday afternoon, a group of teachers from Unite Summit met with Diane and Anson to discuss concerns we’ve heard from many teachers about the changes to our schedules this year. Given that the new schedule impacts different sites in different ways – some more dramatically than others – we proposed a process for sites to be able to make changes to the schedule to best meet the needs of their school communities.
After some discussion, we agreed to the following plan:
On Wednesday, August 14th, each site will have their first scheduled LT meeting as planned. The first topic on the meeting agenda will be to come to consensus on the 2019-2020 Schedule for their specific site. Below is the agreed upon decision grid and process that will be used.
The decision grid is:
- Decision (D) = Executive Director (delegates the decision to consensus of the school site Leadership Team*)
- Proposal (P) = Primary Team (this cross-functional group of people from across the organization has made a proposal)
- Input (I) = Extensive input was considered during the proposal process. It came from teachers, school leaders, operations, data, learning experience, leadership, students and parents
- Veto (V) = Chief Operations Officer (if the schedule is not legally compliant, does not meet instructional minutes requirements, etc….it will be vetoed). Any veto will be accompanied by a written rationale.
- Must be informed (MBI) = All Summit Schools and employees, authorizers, parents, students, neighbors, co-located campuses, etc…
The specific process for Wednesday, August 14-19, 2019:
- During the Wednesday, August 14, 2019 leadership team (LT) meeting of each school faculty, the Executive Director, Assistant Director, Dean of Culture and Instruction(s), and Dean of Operations will present a proposal for the 2019-2020 schedule, inclusive of office hours and meeting time.
- The faculty will consider the proposal and attempt to reach consensus on the proposal or a revised version of the proposal. Consensus will consist of a thumbs-up of the proposal from every member of the Leadership Team.
- If consensus is reached, the proposal will be reviewed by the COO by 5pm on Thursday, August 15, 2019, and if not vetoed it will be implemented on August 19th. If the schedule is vetoed it will include a written explanation as to why from the COO.
- If consensus is not reached by the end of the meeting, the Executive Director will make the final decision on the 2019-2020 schedule. The proposal will be reviewed by the COO by 5pm on Thursday, August 15, 2019, and if not vetoed it will be implemented on August 19th. If the schedule is vetoed it will include a written explanation as to why from the COO.
Some school sites may be perfectly OK with the schedule, so this should be a quick process. For others, they may want to propose adjustments. Our goal was to make sure sites had the ability to propose necessary adjustments, have a clear timeline for decision-making, and have a clear explanation as to why any changes were vetoed.
Changes Moving Forward
Given the short timeline, we thought that some sites might decide not to propose changes and simply see how the new schedule works out. But, it was important to us that teachers have the ability to suggest changes to the schedule for next semester if it’s clear the current schedule isn’t working.
While we had initially put a timeline on possible changes for next semester, Diane said the below process could be used at any time (our only suggested addition was the timeline for the COO to veto changes with a written explanation)
- Any school site can use the above decision grid and process to decide on changes to the schedule at any point.
- While the D will always be the Executive Director and the V will always be the COO, the group proposing the change can be people other than the Primary Team. For example, it can be the teachers of a particular site.
- The expectation is that the COO will confirm or veto any schedule changes within one week of a decision being made by an LT. If the schedule is vetoed it will include a written explanation as to why from the COO.
We started to hear about proposed changes to the schedule in April, and Unite Summit proactively reached out to SPS leadership to request that they follow their legal obligations by discussing any proposed changes to working conditions with our union. We continued those requests to meet at the end of July. During PD, teachers wrote down some of the issues we saw with the schedule and presented them to Anson on August 6. Then, on Friday, August 9, Diane agreed to meet with a group of representatives from Unite Summit on Monday afternoon.
We appreciate Diane and Anson meeting with our union — which was represented in this meeting by Brendan Boland (K2), Dan McClure (Prep), Eric Jones (K2), Keith Brown (Expeditions) and Liz DeOrnellas (Expeditions) — and engaging with our proposals. While we wish the meeting had happened earlier, we believe this was a positive step in building a productive relationship between our union and SPS leadership.
We are cautiously optimistic that this process will help address teacher concerns. If you have any questions or concerns about the process, or the implementation of the process, don’t hesitate to reach out to members of the organizing committee or bargaining team at your school, or email unitesummitteachers@gmail.com
Update on US Recognition
- The Public Employment Relations Board (PERB) wrote to SPS saying that they could not find any reason for why the additional employees listed by SPS should be included in the Unite Summit Bargaining Unit. They asked SPS to respond by August 7 with a rationale for these additional employees, which included roles from home office and in other groups that were not classroom teachers.
- SPS filed for an extension and now has until August 28 to send a justification for the roles that they want included in our bargaining unit.
- Once this justification has been received by PERB, PERB will then assess whether the rationale has merit. If it does, then this process will move to a formal hearing. This hearing will determine who should belong in the Unite Summit Bargaining Unit. If PERB does not find adequate justification for these additional employees joining the unit, then we will not go through an additional hearing. We will be recognized by PERB.
What this means:
Unite Summit will be recognized, the only question is when this will happen. As soon as Unite Summit is recognized, we will officially be able to bargain a contract with SPS that addresses issues teachers have voiced were important to them.
What are we working on now?
Even though we are still waiting to officially be recognized, your elected bargaining team representatives and organizing committee members are working to ensure that we are ready when the time comes!
Here are some of the key actions that your colleagues are taking now:
- Your organizing committee members are beginning to draft bylaws that will help provide structure to our union for years to come
- Your elected bargaining team (BT) representatives have drafted bargaining proposals, and are continuing to craft them in preparation for bargaining. They will be assisted moving forward by members of the Contract Action Teams (CAT) at each site.
- These CAT teachers will help by making sure we are hearing the needs at each campus and incorporating the feedback into proposals and future conversations with SPS leadership.
- While there are teachers currently involved in various committees on Unite Summit, we always want more people involved! We are currently solidifying CAT and BT teams for the following sites: Shasta, Denali, Tahoma and Tam.
How Can You Participate?
- Join the Bargaining Team at Denali, Shasta, Tahoma, or Tam
- Join the Contract Action Team at any school
- If you didn’t get a chance last year, of if you’re a new teacher, fill out our first bargaining survey.
Welcome Back!
We’re so happy to start the 2019-20 school year with all of you! We’re grateful for all our hardworking veterans who are returning and excited to meet our new colleagues.
In this newsletter, you will find:
- Schedule Changes and Curriculum Adjustments
- Information on Bargaining Preparations
- An Update on Union Recognition
- An Update on Wrongful Terminations
Schedule Changes and Curriculum Adjustments
We started to hear about proposed changes to the schedule last spring, and Unite Summit proactively reached out to SPS leadership to request that they follow their legal obligations by discussing any proposed changes to working conditions with our union. SPS leadership denied that changes to working conditions would be made without leadership meeting those legal obligations; however, despite repeated requests, SPS leadership has yet to meet with union representatives. These requests started in April and would have allowed us time to communicate with our site teams and create a system in which there was genuine shared governance around the decision-making process that would have allowed teachers to have a real say in the proposed schedule changes.
Our union is still asking for SPS leadership to meet its legal obligations and negotiate with teachers surrounding these proposed changes to working conditions. We are pushing to get these meetings started as soon as possible as we know teachers want their concerns addressed before students return to school.
We have also heard concerns regarding last-minute changes to curriculum, and we would like to work with teachers and SPS leadership to gather teacher input and expeditiously address those concerns.
Information on Bargaining Preparation
Last school year, we gathered input from meetings and surveys about what teachers wanted in our union contract. Our elected bargaining team has been working on putting those ideas into draft contract proposals, and, in the upcoming weeks, there will be more opportunities to give your input — including Office Hours at school site PDs.
Current elected Bargaining Team members are:
| Rainier: Isela Mosqueira, Spanish | Tam Middle School: Fahima Zaman, Science | Expeditions: Liz DeOrnellas, Journalism |
| K2 Middle School: Haley Ralph (Holt), History | K2 High School: Brendan Boland, English | |
| Summit Prep: Dan McClure, Science | Everest: Evan Anderson, Science |
Last school year, teachers across our campuses expressed a preference for a larger Bargaining Team that included separate representatives for each middle and high school campus, plus the Expeditions team. That means there are openings at Shasta, Tahoma, Denali Middle, Denali High, and Tam High. Please reach out to the following Organizing Committee members if you are interested in learning more about running in September elections for our Bargaining Team:
- Shasta- Sarah Day Dayon
- Tahoma- Morris Shieh
- Denali Middle- Amber Steele
- Denali High- Sarah Rivas
- Tam High- Ernesto Umana.
We are also looking for volunteers to join each site’s Contract Action Team. This is a much more informal position; you would be tasked with helping your elected Bargaining Team representative solicit feedback from the teachers at your site and craft bargaining proposals. If you’re interested in that role, contact the Bargaining Team member (or election coordinator) listed above.
An Update on Union Recognition
This summer, we met with lawyers from Summit and a lawyer from the Public Employment Relations Board to try and facilitate an agreement about who should be in our bargaining unit (in other words, the people represented by our union). See here for more details.
While we didn’t come to an agreement at that meeting, we did file paperwork to explicitly state that we are no longer trying to include residents in our union (because they are not technically employees of SPS) and that we do not want employees from the Home Office included in our bargaining unit.
Summit responded that Home Office positions such as Diploma Manager, UX Research Manager, and District Success Director, and others “perform duties typical of teachers…[and are] integrated with the functions of certificated teachers” and therefore must be included in our union.
The law is clear on the issue of who can be included in a bargaining unit. We petitioned to form a union for teachers, those who work at our school sites and on the Expeditions team — it’s our legal right to define our bargaining unit in the way that we did.
The PERB attorney has now ordered Summit to prove why our request for union recognition should not be granted. In other words, Summit has to provide evidence and proof as to why Home Office employees must be included in our bargaining unit by August 28. You can see the full letter from the PERB attorney here.
This is a very positive development! We are on firm legal ground and, if the PERB attorney finds that Summit cannot show that our proposed bargaining unit is inappropriate, she can recognize Unite Summit and we can begin negotiating our first union contract!
There has never been a question of if we would be recognized as the union for Summit teachers – the fact that 75% of teachers signed our petition to unionize makes our recognition inevitable. The only question left is when we will be recognized; we hope that Summit stops with the legal delays and recognizes our union so that we can sit down at the bargaining table and work together to increase support services for students, help reduce teacher turnover, and include teachers in decisions that directly impact our classrooms.
An Update on Wrongful Terminations
As some of you know, three of our co-workers were let go by Summit administration at the end of last school year after they were given contracts for this school year. As a union we responded rapidly to this situation because we believe SPS admin acted illegally as these three educators were not only hardworking and dedicated but also had been active in building our union. As you know, it is illegal (not to mention unethical) to discriminate against anyone for their union activity. As such, we responded to this decision by immediately taking action, including:
- Meeting with SPS leadership to express our deep concerns
- Filing a formal complaint with the Public Employment Relations Board
- Launching a petition that already has over 1700 signatures (you can add your name at tinyurl.com/StandByUS )
- Meeting with elected officials from the state legislature and school districts who represent the communities where our schools are located
We have been overwhelmed by the unity demonstrated by Summit educators in response to this inappropriate behavior by administration and encouraged by the numbers of colleagues and community members who have offered to help. Summit’s behavior only reaffirms why we overwhelmingly decided to unionize in the first place. We will continue to stand up in solidarity with members of our community and are confident the unfortunate mistreatment of our colleagues will be remedied.
The easiest way you can help is to sign the petition if you haven’t already (tinyurl.com/StandByUS). If you already have and want to do more, please contact a member of the Organizing Committee or email us at unitesummitteachers@gmail.com.
In Solidarity,
Sarah Rivas, Denali
Eric Jones, K2
Isela Mosqueira
Liz DeOrnellas, Expeditions
Sarah Day Dayon, Shasta
Unite Summit at New Teacher Orientation
Sign Our Petition to Stand Against Wrongful Termination
Sign our petition to stand against the wrongful termination of SPS educators:
On the last day of the school year, June 7, three union organizers were fired without cause. All three had received offer letters for the 2019-20 school year. To our knowledge, no other SPS educators were fired that day. Use tinyurl.com/StandByUS to sign the petition demanding the immediate reinstatement of these teachers.
Unite Summit has worked to promote the retention of high-quality educators who are invested in our students’ success. Educators have the right to speak out about how to improve their schools without fearing retaliation. The California Educational Employment Relations Act, Section 3543.5.a, states that it is unlawful for an employer to “impose or threaten to impose reprisals on employees, to discriminate or threaten to discriminate against employees, or otherwise to interfere with, restrain, or coerce employees because of their exercise of rights guaranteed by this chapter.”
We are therefore calling on SPS leadership to respect Summit teachers’ legal rights to unionize, to own their responsibility to refrain from intimidation, harassment, threats or retaliation, and to immediately reinstate the three fired teachers — Aaron Calvert, Evelyn DeFelice, and Andrew Stevenson.
The three teachers who were let go are integral parts of their school communities:
Evelyn DeFelice is an English teacher who has been at Denali High School for two years. She mentors sophomores, who are now rising juniors and were told that she would be returning. She was not given a chance to speak to her mentees; in fact, she fully participated in last-day-of-school activities with the understanding that she would be returning, and she was then summarily fired and asked to leave campus after turning in her laptop and losing access to her school email account. Ms. DeFelice is a member of the Unite Summit Organizing Committee, and she is a five-year classroom veteran.
Andrew Stevenson is a physics teacher who has also been at Denali High School for two years. He mentors sophomores. His experience paralleled that of Ms. DeFelice. Neither were given a chance to inform their mentees of their dismissal. Both received positive feedback from their administrators during last-day-of-school faculty celebrations and were then informed they would not be returning. No performance-based justification was given for the decision. Mr. Stevenson is the elected bargaining team representative for Denali High School.
Aaron Calvert teaches Entrepreneurship and Adulting 101 for the Expeditions team, and he is a member of the Unite Summit Organizing Committee. He has taught for nine years and has been on the Expeditions team for three years, during which he has also taught an Exploring Music course. Mr. Calvert’s Adulting 101 course has been featured in multiple Summit newsletters and communications posts as well as profiled on the local news. Here’s what the SPS Superintendent’s end-of-year reflection newsletter had to say about the course; the TV news footage was filmed in Mr. Calvert’s class at Denali High School:
“Our California schools had a great Expeditions course offering this year, and we weren’t the only ones who noticed – our Adulting 101 class was featured on ABC7 News on January 18, 2019.”
Please join your colleagues, SPS families, and the larger community in signing our petition (also found at tinyurl.com/StandByUS) to Summit Public Schools administration to demand that Summit:
- Follow the law and honor the rights of teachers to organize our union, advocate for our students, and be treated with professional respect
- Immediately reinstate Aaron Calvert, Andrew Stevenson, and Evelyn DeFelice to their teaching positions
We believe it is our collective obligation as a union, as teachers, as peers, to protect the Summit Public Schools teaching and learning community. It is our collective obligation as a union to always come together to protect what is best for our students, which means leveraging our collective power against SPS when it acts out of step with this shared value. This means demonstrating our shared values by standing together and leveraging our collective power to correct this egregious act committed by SPS leadership.
Sincerely,
Unite Summit Organizing Committee
Newsletter: PERB Meeting, Summit Board Meeting, and Outreach to Other Educators
It’s been a busy summer for Unite Summit! Please continue to check unitesummitteachers.com for updates as we approach the start of the new school year. You can always reach us at unitesummitteachers@gmail.com. Also, look for us at New Teacher Orientation and all-staff Professional Development at the start of the school year! We are excited to welcome back our returners and meet our new teachers.
Below you will find information about:
- Our meeting with Summit and the Public Employment Relations Board about recognizing our union
- The Summit Board meeting
- Our outreach to other teachers who use our model
PERB mediation regarding recognition of our union
On Thursday, June 20th, Liz DeOrnellas, Enrique Coon, and an organizer and a lawyer from CTA had a meeting at the Public Employment Relations Board with two lawyers from Summit. A lawyer from PERB tried to facilitate us coming to an agreement about who should be in our bargaining unit (in other words, the people represented by our union).
As you may remember, back in April, Summit denied recognition of our union because they objected to residents being included in the bargaining unit. We subsequently learned that Summit had also added 90+ Home Office and other non-teaching staff into our bargaining unit. On May 16, we asked for a list of names, job titles, and job descriptions for these 90+ people. At 4:30pm on Wednesday, June 19, we received a list of job titles with the names redacted and did not receive any job descriptions. We believe that this failure to provide necessary and relevant information is a violation of the law, and we have filed an Unfair Labor Practice Charge in the hopes that in the future, Summit will furnish us with requested information and data in a complete and timely manner as required by law.
We learned from the list that we received Wednesday afternoon that Summit wants to include the following job titles in our bargaining unit:
- Professional Development Teacher
- Summit Learning Program Mentor
- Director of Base Curriculum
- Dean
- Site Based Research Manager
- Director of Curriculum and Assessment
- Dean of Culture
- Operations Manager
- Specialist, School Leader Professional Development
- Specialist, Districts and Partners
- SLP – Director of Mentor Operations
- Manager of Data Operations
- Curriculum Manager (including Literacy Interventionist Curriculum Manager, Elementary Math Curriculum Manager, Curriculum Manager – English, Habits Curriculum Manager, etc.)
- Project Director Summit Learning Growth
- Director of Curriculum Operation
- Director of Government Affairs
- Professional Development Specialist
- Curriculum Support Manager
- Manager of Habits Curriculum
- Director of Research and Development
- Diploma Curriculum Manager
- Special Education Program Specialist
- Program Manager – Induction
- Manager of Summit Learning Teacher Residency
- Mentor for Summit Learning Teacher Residents
- Elementary Curriculum Projects
- Director of Research Projects
- Manager of UX Research
We petitioned to form a union for teachers, those who work at our school sites and on the Expeditions team. We explained to Summit why including people from Home Office (especially with the separation of our schools from Summit Learning/TLP) was not appropriate since we didn’t intend for them to be in our union. Summit refused to come to an agreement on this issue. We did agree, however, that Residents cannot be in our union because they are not technically employees of Summit. The next step will be to have a hearing with the Public Employment Relations Board over the issue of Home Office and non-teaching staff, hopefully within the next five weeks.
It is confusing that Summit continues to insist that Home Office and other non-teaching positions should be included in our union, especially when the law is very clear on this issue. Summit’s actions indicate that they seem intent on using legal maneuvering to avoid sitting down at the bargaining table and working together to negotiate a contract that will increase support services for students, help reduce teacher turnover, and include teachers in decisions that directly impact our classrooms. We encourage Summit to immediately recognize our union and stop the legal delays.
The Summit Board Meeting
On June 20, Unite Summit teachers, as well as supportive parents and students, spoke at the Summit Board Meeting in support of our colleagues who we feel were wrongly terminated on the last day of school. Unite Summit members attended the Board Meeting in-person at Summit Prep and also joined from remote locations. The parents and students who attended remotely from K2 were especially disappointed with the last-minute change in the date of the board meeting, as more parents and students were planning to attend the meeting on its original June 27th date.
Unite Summit members explained to the Summit Board that we organized in order to increase support services for students, improve teacher retention, and provide a voice for teachers in the decision-making processes that govern our schools. Parents emphasized their concerns regarding teacher turnover and inequities between campuses. They voiced that they believe Unite Summit will be an important part of the process of increasing stability and support for students at all our campuses. A parent also attended to voice their concerns regarding the cancellation of the camping trip and the nontransparent process that led to that decision.
We hope that the Summit Board will support our efforts to resolve legal delays and expeditiously reach full union recognition so that we can move on to the important process of bargaining our first contract. Please don’t forget that there are spots open on the bargaining team. Our members expressed a strong preference for a larger bargaining team that includes representatives from each campus (middle and high separately), plus Expeditions. Future summer newsletters will include more information about how to run in those upcoming elections at the start of the school year. The elected bargaining team is tasked with writing contract proposals and participating in the contract negotiation process. We are working to update our website with more information on the current bargaining team and organizing committee; our goal is to help easily connect each of you with the organizers on your site team.
Outreach to teachers who use our model
Pictured (from left): Evan Anderson from Everest, Eric Jones from K2, and Mahmoud, a union charter educator from Chicago share info about Unite Summit at summer training!
At the end of June, Summit Learning had a training for teachers and administrators from around the country who use the Summit Learning model. On the last day of the training, Summit teachers and a Chicago charter school teacher passed out information to the attendees about our unionization efforts at Summit and how teacher voice is important to the successful implementation of our model. Teachers there were encouraging and positive about our efforts. We are excited to continue connecting with our colleagues around the country to share our ideas about how to make the implementation of our model more successful.
There will be at least one more summer newsletter before the start of the upcoming school year. We hope you are enjoying rest and rejuvenation during our break, and we look forward to seeing everyone when school resumes!
Updates on schedules, trips and Sunshine document
We are issuing this special edition of the newsletter to provide updates on several key ongoing discussions. As always, please reach out to us if you have any questions! We can be reached at unitesummitteachers@gmail.com.
Town Hall invite:
As announced in our previous newsletter, you are invited to attend a virtual Town Hall to receive updates from Unite Summit and participate in a Q&A session. The town hall will held via Zoom at 7 p.m. tonight (Monday, June 3). Please email questions to unitesummitteachers@gmail.com beforehand if you are able! Please also RSVP via this link: tinyurl.com/UStownhallJune3. After you RSVP, you will receive an email with instructions on how to join the town hall. The RSVP is important to help us estimate attendance numbers and effectively balance our agenda to respect everyone’s time. The release of the Sunshine document (linked in the last section of this newsletter) is the only brand new information that we’ll be discussing; so if you can’t attend but want more info, be sure to read this entire newsletter and then contact us if you want to discuss more!
Updates on schedule discussions:
Summit organizational leadership has not yet fully released a new daily schedule for all campuses next school year, which does show they are listening to our requests to not change working conditions without talking to our union. However, we know it’s possible that situation will change at a moment’s notice, and there could soon be a formal schedule announcement.
We will continue to push to ensure that teachers and our union have a say in the daily schedule for next school year. We know it’s not ideal that the issue hasn’t been worked out yet; we took proactive steps to formally request discussions on this issue, and Summit organizational leadership has not yet agreed to hold those talks, despite repeated assurances that they would do so before making any changes to working conditions.
Summit’s organizational leadership has expressed a desire to set standardized schedules across all campuses, and we have worked hard to ensure that teachers are consulted and included in any final decisions. The daily schedule won’t actually go into effect until August; so while everyone would prefer to have a solution now, we do still have time to negotiate, and we will continue to push for a productive dialogue.
Updates on camping and senior trips:
The announcement made last week about the cancellation of both camping and senior trips has stirred debate among Summit educators. Some have expressed that supervising these trips is a challenging demand to place on teachers that could be replaced with better alternatives; others believe these trips are a unique part of Summit culture that help form community and should be preserved. Unite Summit wants to make clear that we did not request any changes to the camping or senior trips. It is very important for us to see teachers included in such organizational-wide decisions that affect our practice, and there was no opportunity for educators to give their direct input on the decision of canceling these trips. A large part of our organizing efforts have centered around involving teachers in crucial decisions, and this decision-making process is an example of what can happen when teachers continue to be excluded from such decisions.
If you have strong feelings about camping or senior trips, and you want to either articulate why and how you think such trips should be preserved or to propose alternatives, please contact us at unitesummitteachers@gmail.com or reach out to your site organizers, and we will do our best to amplify your voices.
Sunshine document (list of bargaining topics):
Our draft Sunshine document will be released at tonight’s Town Hall. Email unitesummitteachers@gmail.com if you could not attend the meeting but want a link to the document. A Sunshine document names all the topics that our union potentially wants to discuss during bargaining (aka, any topics we might want to include in our first negotiated contract). Legally, we must present this document at a Summit board meeting before bargaining begins. The elected Unite Summit bargaining team developed this document based on our site bargaining input meetings and the bargaining input survey responses and also aimed to include best practices from other unionized charter schools whose contract priorities aligned with the priorities our members listed. The best way to give feedback on this document is to contact a member of the bargaining team (listed below), but you can also send feedback to unitesummitteachers@gmail.com. We currently have a meeting scheduled with Summit leadership on June 20 to discuss the status of our bargaining unit (see our previous newsletter for more details). We are hopeful that we will reach an agreement about the status of our bargaining unit at that meeting; presenting the Sunshine document to the SPS would then be the next step on our way to getting contract negotiations started.
We are seeking volunteer Contract Action Team members at each site to assist Bargaining Team members in soliciting teacher input and keeping people informed about bargaining once contract negotiations begin. Please contact your site organizers if you’re interested in that role!
| Bargaining Team Representatives | |
| Summit Rainier:
Elected: Isela Mosqueira, Spanish | Summit Tahoma:
Will hold elections in the fall |
| Tam Middle School:
Elected: Fahima Zaman, Science | Tam High School:
Will hold elections in the fall |
| Denali Middle School:
Will hold elections in the fall | Denali High School:
Elected: Andrew Stevenson, Science |
| K2 Middle School:
Elected: Haley Ralph (Holt), History | K2 High School:
Elected: Brendan Boland, English |
| Expeditions:
Elected: Liz DeOrnellas, Journalism / Creative Writing | Shasta:
Sarah Day Dayon, History (interim – will hold elections in the fall) |
| Summit Prep:
Elected: Dan McClure, Science | Everest:
Elected: Evan Anderson, Science |
Please don’t hesitate to ask questions, voice concerns or send positive feedback from your school sites- you can email unitesummitteachers@gmail.com or visit our website at https://unitesummitteachers.wordpress.com!
Newsletter: Contact info and legislative updates
In this newsletter, we seek to provide updates on the status of our unionization efforts and a legislative update. As always, please reach out to us if you have any questions! We can be reached at unitesummitteachers@gmail.com.
Town Hall invite:
You are invited to attend a virtual Town Hall to receive updates from Unite Summit and participate in a Q&A session. The town hall will held via Zoom at 7 p.m. on Monday, June 3. Please email questions to unitesummitteachers@gmail.com beforehand if you are able! Please also RSVP via this link: tinyurl.com/UStownhallJune3. After you RSVP, you will receive an email with instructions on how to join the town hall. The RSVP is important to help us estimate attendance numbers and effectively balance our agenda to respect everyone’s time.
An update on PERB / status of union recognition process:
The Public Employment Relations Board has assigned an attorney to our case. Unite Summit and Summit administration are scheduled to meet June 20 to resolve the issues concerning residents and the non-teaching staff based in the Home Office.
We are hopeful that coming out of this meeting, Summit will recognize our union and we can begin bargaining our contract. For more details, please see our April 17 and April 9 newsletters.
How to contact your union representatives:
You are always welcome to use unitesummitteachers@gmail.com to reach union representatives. At your sites, reach out to your elected Bargaining Team member for information about contract bargaining. Reach out to your Organizing Committee members for more general information and updates. We are seeking volunteer Contract Action Team members at each site to assist Bargaining Team members in soliciting teacher input and keeping people informed about bargaining once contract negotiations begin. Please contact your site organizers if you’re interested in that role!
| Bargaining Team Representatives | |
| Summit Rainier:
Elected: Isela Mosqueira, Spanish | Summit Tahoma:
Will hold elections in the fall |
| Tam Middle School:
Elected: Fahima Zaman, Science | Tam High School:
Synclair Young, SPED (interim – will hold elections in the fall) |
| Denali Middle School:
Will hold elections in the fall | Denali High School:
Elected: Andrew Stevenson, Science |
| K2 Middle School:
Elected: Haley Ralph (Holt), History | K2 High School:
Elected: Brendan Boland, English |
| Expeditions:
Elected: Liz DeOrnellas, Journalism / Creative Writing | Shasta:
Sarah Day Dayon, History (interim – will hold elections in the fall) |
| Summit Prep:
Elected: Dan McClure, Science | Everest:
Elected: Evan Anderson, Science |
| Organizing Committee Members | Note: This is the list of Network Organizing Committee members; each site also has Site Organizing Committee members who have provided invaluable support. |
| Summit Rainier: Isela Mosqueira, Shaila Ramachandran, Katina Ballantyne | Summit Tahoma: Morris Shieh, April Carrera-McGuire |
| Tam: Ernesto Umana, Fahima Zaman | Denali: Amber Steele, Evelyn DeFelice, Sarah Rivas |
| K2: Brendan Boland, Miguel Gravelle, Eric Jones, Davida Lopez, Alyssa Montantes, Haley Ralph (Holt), Fuchsia Spring | |
| Expeditions: Aaron Calvert, Liz DeOrnellas | Shasta: Sarah Day Dayon, Hillary Odom |
| Summit Prep: Patrick Oliver | Everest: Enrique Chante Coon, Jessica Sacksteder |
Legislative updates:
There are some important updates since our last update on charter legislation. The language of these bills will continue to change as people (including union charter educators!) communicate with their elected representatives. One thing has been very clear in all of the committee hearings: this legislation is not meant to target existing charter schools that are serving students well.
AB 1505 passed out of the Assembly last week. The language was updated to make clear that many of the changes to the law do not apply to charter renewals. For example, the fiscal impact a charter has on a district cannot be a reason to deny the renewal of a charter. It also allows more latitude for county boards of education to approve new charters than in previous versions of the bill (Denali is the only countywide charter in Summit). It also adds a new requirement that the charter petition list the names and qualifications of the people serving on a charter board.
Some teachers have been asking how this bill would impact Summit schools that are still adding grades. This bill would have no impact on those schools because the grade spans that they will grow to were previously approved. The bill also makes explicit that teachers must have a credential relevant to their assignment (the current language in the law is vague and charters have been interpreting it in wildly different ways). There are already exemptions regarding credentialing and assignments that apply to district teachers; those exemptions would apply to charter teachers as well under this new language.
AB 1506 has some updates that changes the structure of the charter school cap. Under a previous version of the bill, districts that didn’t have charter schools could not open any charters. In this updated version, a new charter school cannot be added to a district if more than 10% of all students attend charter schools, which would allow districts without charters to open them in the future. This does not impact currently operating charters, unless that charter wants to grow enrollment beyond what had been previously authorized.
AB 1507 passed the Assembly earlier this month. It prevents school districts from authorizing a charter not located in their district (for a breakdown on why that’s important, see this article). One major change since we last wrote about this bill is that charters can operate outside their authorizing district if there is an emergency (for example, the Paradise fires).
SB 756 passed out of committee this month. Since our last update, the bill has shortened the moratorium on new charter schools by 2 years. It also adds in language that references the Charter School Taskforce, which is expected to make recommendations regarding changes to the charter law in July.
Show your support for our union!
Some sites will be wearing US stickers (with the same logo from this newsletter) to show their support of our union. If you are interested in receiving stickers or pins for yourself or other members on your site, please reach out to your Organizing Committee member! If you are comfortable being featured on our next newsletter or website, please send us a picture of yourself and/or teammates with these pins/stickers and/or a “I support Unite Summit because…” picture that we could add to our gallery! (Our end-of-year site meetings would be a great time for this : )
Please don’t hesitate to ask questions, voice concerns or send positive feedback from your school sites- you can email unitesummitteachers@gmail.com or visit our website at https://unitesummitteachers.wordpress.com!