Bill proposes more leverage for teachers Hearing set Tuesday in Augusta

School boards and superintendents are blasting a legislative proposal that would allow teachers to negotiate school year and workday schedules, assignments and evaluation procedures – issues that for years have been off limits under Maine’s collective bargaining law.

Currently, school boards and teachers unions may negotiate working conditions – wages and hours. Everything else, from curriculum and discipline measures to class size and lunch schedules, is deemed educational policy to be decided by elected school boards.

Opponents, including superintendents and school boards, say LD 1344 would erode local control, cost taxpayers money and make negotiations more adversarial. It could adversely affect school accountability on which both state and federal regulations have put a premium.

Teachers already are “protected,” say school officials, by the requirement that superintendents and school boards meet and consult with the union to discuss education policy changes.

But supporters, including the Maine Education Association, contend that teachers feel overburdened by federal and state regulations and that the bill would enable them to have more say in the decision-making process and to feel more “involved and appreciated.”

The legislation would restore some bargaining rights teachers once had, and justly compensate them for work they do on their own time, according to proponents.

A public hearing on the bill will be held at 1 p.m. Tuesday, April 29, before the Education and Cultural Affairs Committee in Room 214 of the Cross State Office Building.

Local superintendents didn’t mince words about what they see as the possible repercussions from the controversial bill that has appeared in various incarnations over the years.

If passed, it “could force deliberation on educational policy … into backrooms and into grievance arbitration out of sight of the community,” said Bangor Superintendent Robert Ervin.

“Endless legal entanglements” could ensue, initiated by people who want to change educational policies in a community in which they may not even live and which ultimately could affect taxes, he said.

Teachers already have a “formal process for feedback and input,” said Superintendent Rick Lyons of SAD 22.

The bill would be “the most significant change in collective bargaining law in 30 years,” said Dale Douglass, executive director of the Maine School Management Association, which represents superintendents and school board members. He said it would effectively overturn years of court and labor board rulings.

Those decisions, over the years, have “developed a balanced approach to the rights and responsibilities of local school boards to govern a school system and the rights of members of the labor union to bargain for the impact of those governance decisions,” said Douglass.

The bill’s sponsor, Brewer teacher Jacqueline Norton, D-Bangor, said her intent is simply to “re-establish boundaries.”

Over the years, teachers’ rights have been chipped away, she said, and now, some don’t get class preparation time or a duty-free lunch at a reasonable hour. In some schools, there’s no defined evaluation process and evaluators may “come in and disrupt” the class, she said.

Court and labor board rulings that have pared down the definition of working conditions haven’t always been fair to teachers, according to Rob Walker, president of the MEA.

“Some decisions have been way out there and we think beyond the scope of trying to protect the interests of the school board. We’re just trying to balance the table back again,” he said.

Noting that many teachers use their own time to set up their classrooms before the school year officially starts, Walker said, “There’s got to be recognition that some work should be accounted for within the bargaining agreement.”

The bill is about more than money, said Keith Harvie, an MEA spokesman. It would enable teachers to feel “valued and involved” and to have “some measure of control over their personal and professional lives that’s been lost over the last three decades.”

Teachers are “burning out,” feeling overwhelmed because they don’t have the time and resources to fulfill the requirements of the state’s Learning Results, new academic standards that go into effect for the Class of 2007, and the federal No Child Left Behind Act, he said.

The bill could stem the flow of teachers who are leaving the profession by making them “feel more appreciated and more influential,” he said, noting that half of new teachers leave during the first five years.

The bill may not pass in its current form, according to officials. Instead, said Commissioner of Education Susan Gendron, the state and the MEA likely will jointly recommend that a task force be created to try to resolve teachers’ workload concerns.