The Newton Teachers Association has filed a “charge of prohibited practice” with the state Department of Labor Relations against the School Committee. The charge stems from the School Committee’s vote on Nov. 5 rejecting the Memorandum of Agreement the committee’s collective bargaining team had previously agreed to with the NTA regarding COVID-related changes to employee working conditions.
According to the Boston Globe, a new vote was discussed for Dec. 14 but I don’t see it on the agenda or in the meeting documents for that date. In his latest (Dec. 6) blog post, NTA President Mike Zilles listed his requirements to get NTA consent:
1. They must negotiate in good faith at the bargaining table. They must recognize that we are equal partners, with an equal stake in the well being of Newton’s students, and a right to advocate for our own safety. They must respect and welcome our perspective. And they must give that perspective place of pride even though we do not have the same legal means to constrain the district that DESE does, or certain advocacy groups do.
2. They must negotiate to agreement, and they must give up the idea that they must retain managerial prerogative to make whatever changes they see fit unilaterally, absent our consent. To hold to this will be to lose our consent at a deeper level, through slow erosion. And to lose our consent is the surest path to rigidity and inflexibility on our parts. The School Committee and central administration must give up managing us if they wish to lead with us.
3. They must reach agreement with us on a new tentative agreement before the winter break, and the School Committee must vote yes on that agreement.
4. They must acknowledge that have a fundamental responsibility to keep our members safe, that of all the boxes they must put an ‘X’ in during this crisis, that is the most important.
I’m not sure what to make of Zilles’ demands, given that NPS has okayed a hybrid plan for the high schools without approving an MOA, But, a complaint with the Department of Labor Relations has made headlines in the past.
The NTA can’t “okay” a hybrid plan. That isn’t part of a teachers unions authority, especially a union that hasn’t agreed to an MOA in any form. I think this is really important for the public to understand. The ONLY think NTA has any amount of control over is the MOA.
Every decision made this far has come unilaterally (or bilaterally I guess) from SC and NPS. The teachers can voice their opinion and complain on social media just like the parents can, but ultimately if SC continues to reject the MOA and bargain in bad faith in order to maintain their unilateral control, the NTA has NO say in what is happening in schools.
This is actually illegal, bargaining in bad faith, which is why the NTA filed a grievance. As a school committee you cannot bargain and then have your own bargaining team veto their own agreement. You also cannot delay bargaining excessively so that you can continue to act unilaterally and essentially force union members to work without negotiating. This is what has been happening since March of last year in Newton. This is why teacher contracts takes years to negotiate in Newton. It’s bad faith bargaining.
To repeat, the NTA has zero control over the hybrid plans, the return to learn plans, the wednesdays being asynchronous maybe, the start time- ANYTHING. The delays and seemingly last minute decisions made by SC and NPS are a result of their own negligence to act, not because they were “too busy” arguing with the NTA. Until the MOA is agreed upon with teacher stipulations incorporated (which are mostly related to managerial things like sick days and health insurance) the NTA will have had no bargaining power at all.
The narrative that teachers are making or agreeing to any decisions thus far needs to stop and people need to be more informed. It’s fuel for angry and frustrated people to take it out on teachers- you reading this may not be one of those people, but there are plenty of people who don’t understand and blame us. It’s really disheartening- to work so hard and feel like you’re bending over backwards only to read or hear hateful things.
I hope that clarifies why Mike Zilles email and requests actually make sense.
@newton teacher, did the MOA as written call for in person learning?
@Mike Zilles, it is not clear that you will ever agree to in person learning absent the total elimination of Covid-19. What boxes need Xs?
The High Schools remain closed yet they exceeded DESE standards for a safe return. NNHS is a brand new school. NNHS is nicer than most private schools. Will my daughter who has not been in front of a teacher since March ever be taught in person in a Newton Public School? Or will she remain home alone while we are all at work staring at a computer for 8 hours? Where do the students fit into this dynamic between the school committee and the union?
It is beyond the pale that you cannot be adults and get the students in the classrooms.
While I would agree that SC members, who were at the bargaining table, bringing to vote an agreement that they themselves vote against is absolutely preposterous, the list of Zilles’s demands/conditions is ridiculous. Same stakes in student well being? What a joke. The NTA is by teachers for teachers, first and foremost, and could not have made it clearer during this pandemic.
“Must”….that’s a strong word…good luck with it.
Along with the Great Depression, this is the most unprecedented time of uncertainty is US (if not Global) history.
Police, Fire, EMTs, Doctors, Nurses, Healthcare Aids, Supermarket workers do not have the luxury of opting out of going to in person work. Small business owners and workers do not know if their paycheck is guaranteed from one week to the next. Corporate workers forced to take Covid pay cuts (yes, even the Red Sox front office workers) don’t know when their pay will be restored.
This is not to say Teachers don’t have a beef with the SC, NPS and Fleishman. Nor that we do not hold teachers in very high regard as they are the key to our children’s education.
But the days of teachers receiving a pauper’s pay have greatly improved in modern times and it’s one of the few fields that still benefits from a pension program – both of which are guaranteed. Perhaps I should have studied harder to become a teacher, as guaranteed pay, long breaks, snow days and summers off seems like a pretty sweet gig!
https://www.newton.k12.ma.us/site/handlers/filedownload.ashx?moduleinstanceid=1276&dataid=12794&FileName=Unit%20A%20Grids%203YR%205_1_20.pdf
The MOA was flawed. Procedure wise the SC has to vote to send it back to the negotiating table. It’s better that the SC members on the negotiating team acknowledged that there were issues with the agreement than passing a flawed agreement. Zilles was on the NTA website saying no changes will happen without us, and his words worried the SC that they would not have the flexibility to make changes needed to adjust to student needs in this time of constant change. The contentious relationship between all parties created this mess. Leadership has failed all the way around.
Having recently had Parent Teacher Conferences I have much respect for my kids’ teachers. I know they are working hard. They are truly caring individuals trying to do the best they can in tough circumstances. I don’t feel that the Union represents them well publicly. I also have an issue with the few vocal Teachers who are out there actively on social media (Facebook conversations on student, Teachers sites, etc) communicating with kids saying how scared they are to go back to school. The students are kids not adults. It is not fair to make them feel if they want to be back in school that they are hurting their teachers. They do not need that stress on them. It is frankly not ethical in my opinion to take advantage of the power in the relationship. They love their Teachers; do not manipulate them for your advantage.
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/16/opinion/covid-deaths-young-adults.html
By Rachel Wollensky who also mentions the initial assumption that Covid was relatively harmless for young people has not proven to be true. A lot of unknown and much of the guidance is not a rule of thumb (including 6 feet distance as being the right level of distancing – that was what the cdc were able to negotiate with the White House).
last night’s community forum hosted by Matthew Miller, how was it?
@highlandsmom
The teachers you alluded to that have been encouraging students to stay remote and/or bad mouthing administration on SM have meetings scheduled with principal. About time something is being done. I wish I could post FB screenshots of their slander.
If teachers are classified as front line workers and able to receive the vaccine say in March or April, will the expectation be that kids will return to in person learning full time or will NPS say that it is logistically not possible?
I would hope if teachers lobby to be classified as front line workers, then once Newton teachers are vaccinated as a whole, in person learning will resume, Anything less means teacher should not be classified as frontline workers.
This whole situation is very comparable to what SLATE reports has been going on in Brookline (https://slate.com/human-interest/2020/12/school-reopening-teachers-unions-parents-brookline-massachusetts.html).
Here in Newton, as in Brookline, many (not all) parents have pushed reopening “because of the science,” but they do not insist that NPS meets all the science-based criteria for safe reopening (e.g., proper ventilation, regular testing of asymptomatic people). That’s claiming the mantle of scientific authority, NOT taking science-based actions.
Many parents have also been ignoring that NPS, like Brookline, has stated that hybrid learning is going to LOWER the amount of academic content that the schools can teach this year–for all kids, both those fully remote and those going hybrid. At one SC meeting, Supt. Fleishman estimated that in fully remote, they’re covering 60 percent of what they would in a normal year. He was explicit that the percentage will DECREASE with the transition to hybrid.
Additionally, NPS administrators (as a rule, from what I have observed over the past 10 years) as well as many SC members and many parents do not treat teachers as experts. Instead, there is a tendency to vilify the teachers’ union (just read through the comments on this thread).
If we as a community really care about our schools then we have to start working in partnership with teachers, treating them as respected professionals and experts. Respect means when they raise concerns based on their professional experience, we have to take it seriously and address it in forward-moving plans. Unfortunately, we also have to be prepared that it’s going to be a long, slow path for Newton as a community and for NPS to regain teachers’ trust.
I want to add some additional points to the discussion above:
(1) Parent (and taxpayer) perceptions are based not only on the NTA’s actions, but also on the actions and statements of the various state-level teachers’ unions. The conduct of these state-level organizations has been, to put it as politely as I can, almost entirely obstructionist. Suggestions of returning to normalcy at schools has been met with a general attitude of “just say no”. Protests. Lawsuits. Hyperbole. Etc.
I read an article the other day in the Globe where these state-level organizations cautioned that even if all teachers are inoculated with a vaccine, school will not return to normal until other public health goals are met. Sorry, but what does that mean?
Finally, there was a recent editorial, again in the Globe, that outlined how some of the unions’ demands are not just tied to COVID safety. There are other concerns, like eliminating the MCAS. So I guess my kids are bargaining chips in this broader struggle? Wonderful.
(2) There is perhaps nothing more upsetting for me as a parent than hearing statements like “They must recognize that we are equal partners, with an equal stake in the well being of Newton’s students.” Look, expert after expert has cited the severe mental health impact, let alone the educational impact, on kids being out of school. Kids need to be back in the classroom.
I just wish the NTA and the unions more generally would drop this line of reasoning. You care about your members. You are prioritizing their health and well-being. And that’s fine – that’s your right as a union. As a parent, I obviously disagree with this approach and wish there was something more constructive that could be done. But at least be transparent about it. When autoworkers go on strike, they go on strike for better pay and benefits. They don’t spin it as an exercise to somehow benefit people who buy the cars.
(3) @ Newton Upper Falls Resident – you make valid points. But I disagree with some. The ventilation issue has been resolved. I am not aware of any major public system that regularly tests its entire student and teacher body on a regular basis for COVID (please correct me if I’m wrong). And when it comes to issues like the quantity of academic content – my simple question is, why? What are the management assumptions underlying these statements? The NPS administration needs to be transparent, and not just present conclusions, because many of their constituents have little confidence in their managerial abilities.
Once Trump bellowed “OPEN ALL THE SCHOOLS” in a July tweet, he turned the school issue into chaos. The public health experts said schools could and should open in places like Newton. Unfortunately, the NTA decided that “opposing Trump” was more important than “following the science”. It is six months later and the stakeholders are still haggling. The result has been a disaster for the children in the NPS.
Can high school teachers please realize the lifelong harm you are doing to students by selfishly finding any excuse not to educate the kids?
Maybe you should consider another profession?