It's Time for the Superintendent to Come to the Negotiating Table and Talk to Teachers!

On Friday, November 18th, thousands of BTU members around the city came to school that morning with an added purpose: to tell the school district that it's time to settle contract negotiations. The message: Talk to Teachers!

Negotiations have been dragging on long enough. The district is represented in negotiations by a team that is headed by outside counsel and the Superintendent is  nowhere in sight. It’s time to Talk to Teachers.

We have a long list of unresolved issues. We need to resolve them to improve our schools. Here’s a partial list:

• Will the school day be extended? What will be the compensation? What exactly will be taught and how can we make the teaching and learning experience mostproductive?
• How can we make performance evaluation meaningful and effective?
• What types of professional growth opportunities will our members be able to attain? How can we strengthen professional development?
• How can we shore up the ELL category training and be sure that it actually helps our English Language Learners?
• How can we have legitimate input on how to fix the disorganization currently existing in our SPED department?
• Should we lower class size in our so-called under performing and close-to-under performing schools?
• Is the Superintendent truly serious about asking for an additional 100 hours per year of professional development or would we all be better off trying to shore up the quality of the development we currently have?
• How soon can we enroll all provisional teachers and newly-eligible paraprofessionals into our tuition reimbursement program, which we insist be increased to $1,000 per year?
• What rate of salary increase do we need to keep our salaries competitive and attractive?

There are many reasons why the Superintendent ought to attend thesebargaining sessions. We’ll pick just four.

Reason #1 — Her team says the district wants an extended day of 30 minutes.The Superintendent has told the Globe she wants an hour.

Reason #2 — Her team has never given any concrete proposal on how many additional hours of professional development the district wants. The Superintendent has told the Globe she wants 100 hours.

Reason #3 — the BTU has never heard back from the school district on a host of issues, such as SPED reorganization and ELL category training.

Reason #4 — this year is slowly moving forward without Reasons #1, 2 or 3 being dealt with.

Our schools need a contract in place. We need to move on, and the school district’s stalling tactics aren’t helpful or productive towards that end. The district’s failure to provide our union with answers to our proposals is counterproductive. It’s time to Talk to Teachers.

View a video of thousands of BTU members as they picketed at their schools and community sites demanding that the school district 'Talk to Teachers.'