On December 9, 2019 Unite Summit was certified as the union for teachers at Summit’s California schools.
Now that we are certified as the union, we can begin negotiations! The first step in negotiations is for our union and Summit administration to present the topics that we want to negotiate over and our initial positions on those topics at a public Board meeting.
This process, called “sunshining” will happen at a special SPS Board meeting next week, on Thursday, January 16th from 8:00 AM -10:00 AM. We will be presenting this “sunshine” document.
Our bargaining team created our sunshine document based on the input we’ve received over the past year through surveys, one-on-one conversations, and meetings about what teachers want to include in our contract. We have a democratically-elected bargaining team that will be sharing what has happened at each bargaining session and will continue to gather input throughout the bargaining process.
In continuing its efforts to delay going to the bargaining table, Summit administration has stated that they cannot begin negotiations until after March 31st. Summit’s stated reason is their desire for more input before the Board adopts its initial proposals during its March 19 Board meeting. However, the law allows us to begin negotiations right after the January meeting. Waiting for three and a half months between having our union certified and sitting down to the bargaining table is unreasonable and is not a demonstration of good faith bargaining. We hope that Summit administration will change course and not unreasonably delay negotiations.
Board Meeting Inaccessibility
We continue to be concerned about the inaccessibility of Summit Board meetings. As we detailed last month, only six members of the public were allowed into the Board meeting. The rest of the parents, students, and teachers who took time off of work and school to drive to Redwood City were denied entry to the Board room at the Home Office and had to participate via videoconference at Prep.
This caught the attention of Senator Connie Leyva, who recently authored a law to make charter school board meetings more accessible and open to the public. She sent a letter of concern to Summit’s Board and administration, which you can read here.
