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February 2006
Boston Union Teacher Highlights
Notes from the President
By Richard Stutman
The membership, after spirited debate, passed a collective bargaining package on January 11. The packet was compiled from hundreds of items submitted by the membership over a period of eight weeks. Our collective bargaining proposals will now be exchanged with the school department’s proposals, and contract negotiations will begin in earnest at the end of January. Negotiations as of now are scheduled through April, and both sides will continue the process until we have reached an agreement that we can recommend to the membership. Many thanks go to our 55-member Collective Bargaining Committee, whose members spent more than 18 hours reviewing the items submitted.
Our packet runs the gamut from ‘traditional’ requests to ‘new’ items. On the traditional side, we are asking for, to name just a few, a packet of compensation items and a smaller class size. Our new items are varied and represent many quality-of-life issues designed to improve our working conditions. To give just some examples, we are seeking what we call a ‘common courtesy’ provision that will provide notification to teachers when a visitor is coming to their classrooms. We are also seeking school assignment preference for children of BTU Bargaining Unit members. There’s a lot more to our packet, which runs 32 pages. Click here to see it in its entirety. A hard copy will also be mailed out to your school or to anyone who requests a copy from the BTU office.
Should you have any questions on the BTU’s negotiating package, please speak with your Building Representative or call the BTU office. When the school department’s package is announced, we will send a copy out to all buildings.
Let me go over in some detail a few (actually a very few) of the items in our collective bargaining package. Please keep in mind that I’ll be detailing just a few items. The list is neither exhaustive nor meant to give any indication of our priorities.
Quality of Life Issues: We are seeking a major change in the quality of our facilities, from a few perspectives: One, we want the department to property outfit our classrooms that service kindergarten and multi-handicapped classrooms by providing them with working sanitary facilities. We are also requesting that that the department ensure that our classrooms at the start of the school year are as clean and orderly as they were when we left them in June.
Testing: We want the department to make a few changes when it comes to the issue of testing, giving us sufficient time to input data where necessary and enough copies in advance of every test we have to administer.
School Year/Time : We are seeking to have the department rotate start-times for elementary schools every three years.
Charter Schools: We’d like the department to reach out to Charter School parents and students and invite them into the BPS, and we have crafted a few negotiating items towards this end. Charter schools recruit our students from right under our noses. Why shouldn’t we do the same? We have better programs, a better trained and educated teaching force, and we welcome all students. We are proud of what we have, so let’s take the inititatve: We want the department to begin to recruit students from the charter schools, and we intend to work with them to do so. Each charter school child we recruit will bring $10,0001 (the per-pupil tuition cost) back to the school department in what would have been lost revenue. This is an unusual item to be sure. But if we don’t take the initiative here, who will?
Currently, each student who attends a charter school costs the city $10,000 in lost revenue, as the city must pay tuition for each student who attends a charter school.
Books, Equipment, Supplies, Computers : We have crafted many items designed to get the department to pay more attention to the supplies, materials and equipment we need—and currently lack—in our classrooms.
Elementary P & D—Getting back the fifth P & D period is very important to our membership. We also want to maintain what is now the fifth P & D as an administrative period.
Class Size and Reduction of caseloads. We have proposed pretty much an across-the-board reduction of class size and caseloads, along with an increase in settings for alternative education.
For individual groups within the BTU—Nurses, ETFs, OTs P’s, SAs, SLPs, Psychologists, Community Connections Facilitators, Clinician Social Workers, Guidance Counselors, Academic Coaches, Vocational Teachers, and so on—we have approved a wide range of items, all of which can be accessed on-line.
Performance Evaluation: We have proposed a number of items designed to help in the performance evaluation process. Among the more important items are a few designed to bring in a second evaluator, or a second pair of eyes, under a variety of circumstances at the teacher’s request. We have drafted a series of optional and voluntary interventions such that a teacher can call in a 2nd evaluator and/or a peer counselor and/or a content coach for help and assistance at different points in the evaluation process. We feel these options will help out a good number of our members.
Further on the issue of Professional Development, we are seeking, among other things, to have some control over the content of the 18 hours and we’re also seeking to establish a budget for each department (Psychological Services, Nurses, and the like) for the planning and implementation of a professional development program for their own department.
On the establishment of a Professional Career Ladder, we are seeking to re-establish an avenue for teachers to advance professionally without leaving the classroom. We hear requests for this every day and would like to be able to create other avenues for teacher advancement—other avenues, that is, without having to leave teaching.
Weare also seeking to correct a few payroll problems for Paraprofessionals, i.e., getting 26 checks, establishing a 120 credit pay lane, and dramatically increasing the pay for a paraprofessional when the teacher is absent.
For the Substitute teacher we have crafted a package that will reward per diem subs for longevity and create a salary differential for those substitute teachers who hold a teaching license.
These are a scant few of the items in our 32-page packet. Please review the entire package on-line or in your school and give us a call if you have any questions.
Obviously, we will not be able to negotiate all that we wish. Nor will the school department. Both sides will meet, as they always do, somewhere in the middle, after the give and take of negotiations. What will help us win a just and reasonable settlement will take the continued, united determination of our membership.
Thank you and let us know if you would like any member of our staff to visit your school to discuss any of these issues.
BTU Members Show Support at the Showcase
of Schools
By Erik Berg
The last time BTU Members were out in force on a chilly night in January, they were picketing the State of the City address. But on January 5, hundreds of BTU Members were at the BPS Showcase of Schools, showing their support for the schools in which they teach. Hundreds of BTU members stood at tables alongside BPS administrators and parents at the annual event, held at the student center at UMass/Boston.
The Showcase of Schools kicked off the BPS student assignment period, when parents enroll their children in schools, making choices from a list of schools in one of three assignment zones. The Showcase provided an opportunity for parents to speak with representatives from all the schools in their zone in one place at one time. Each school set up a table with samples of student work, brochures, photos, slide shows, and other displays to spread the good news about the work that goes on in within their walls on a daily basis.
This year, when welcoming parents at the door with a smile, union representatives offered prospective parents a BTU bag to hold the wealth of materials they receive at the Showcase. On the outside of the bag was a message welcoming parents to the schools, and inside the bag was information about the BTU’s Homework Helper program, which provides homework assistance to students at each of the city’s public libraries. BTU President Richard Stutman, Community Organizer Brenda Chaney, and members Barbara Fragopolous, Nancy Flaherty, and Eileen Ganley greeted parents as they entered and passed out bags to the many grateful guests, who were trying to juggle their youngsters and the mountains of information they received from the schools. The BTU bags were clearly a hit, and were clutched by nearly all of the anxious parents touring the showcase.
The Showcase of Schools is one way that BTU members can “blow their own horn,” touting the successes that we see every day in our schools. Such an event is one way to attract parents to our schools, and counter the barrage of negative press that our schools and our members usually get in the media. The event drew droves of current and prospective parents from across the city, and the BTU’s presence served as another way to strengthen the bonds between our union and the families of the children we serve.
Tom Roach Retires After 25 Years as Boston Union Teacher Editor
Tom Roach, the longtime editor who guided the Boston Union Teacher to numerous national awards over his twenty-five year tenure, retired this month. He became editor of the newspaper in 1981, and was honored with more than a hundred awards from the American Federation of Teachers Communications Association. Tom was always accurate, thorough, and fair. His talent and dedication not only provided a valuable service to our membership, but also set a high standard for teacher union publications across the country. Tom deserves a great deal of credit for the many national awards that the BTU newspaper garnered over the past years. We were very fortunate to have had Tom as our editor.
Tom began his teaching career in the Boston Public Schools at East Boston High School, where he taught for eight years, followed by a 26-year stint at Boston Technical High School, which became the O’Bryant. For the last nine years, Tom taught at Boston Latin Academy, from which he retired in 2005. He remembers his first year teaching, in 1967, which was also his introduction to newspapering. “I was the newbie, and I walked in and was told I was the newspaper advisor,” remembers Roach. “Then I discovered I enjoyed it, I wanted to know more about it, and applied for a Wall Street Journal scholarship,” which led to journalism studies in Savannah, Georgia. He studied labor journalism at the AFL-CIO’s George Meany Center.
Tom fondly remembers one AFT Convention when Al Gore was due to speak. “I was standing with the White House press corps, and they said ‘Get out of the way,’” he said. “So I hopped up on the stage, and I found myself right next to Al Gore. I had a better spot than anyone, even the White House reporters.” Tom’s photographs of that event and numerous other AFT, MFT, and BTU meetings and conferences have earned the Boston Union Teacher plaudits year after year.
Although he is retired from teaching in the BPS and the editor’s job, Tom is looking forward to continuing his involvement with shaping young journalists by teaching at Regis College. Tom is an Assistant Professor, teaching two courses this semester, on Feature Writing and Journalism.
Former President, Edward Doherty reports that "During my tenure as President of the Boston Teachers Union, neither I nor the BTU could have asked for a better editor of our newspaper. Tom Roach consistently delivered a first rate journal to our members keeping them current on union news, educational issues, BTU events, and other important information.”
Richard Stutman speaks for all of us when he says:
"The Boston Teachers Union is grateful for the professional work, the diligence and friendship Tom has given us over the last 25 years. The union newspaper has grown into an award-winning, superior journal and chronology of union activities under Tom's leadership. We appreciate his dedication to the Union Teacher and our membership. Tom has been a loyal colleague and friend to all of us and we are proud to have worked with him throughout these years. We wish him our best, as he moves into another phase of his career. We also wish his wife, Maureen, our best as well. We are proud to call both our friends. Thank you, Tom, for all that you have done for the membership of the Boston Teachers Union. We wish you both good health and happiness."
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