A Heartfelt Thanks

Thank you so much for your attendance at yesterday's negotiations meeting at the board office. It may feel as if you didn't have an effect, but please know that you did. You have no idea how much your support bouyed the team. And even if their decisions didn't show it, we know that the board members ARE NOW aware that it isn't just seven of us spouting off our personal opinions.

The LV Times contacted us for further comment today, so hopefully there will be more balanced information in the next article.

We will also add to this post copies of LNEA's letters to the editor that were published in yesterday's LV times.

We encourage you all to talk about the points made in these letters to all who will listen! Also feel free to speak to community members about the unreasonable proposals made by the board, and explain why binding arbitration is important to us.

We WILL NOT expose ourselves to the bullying of this administration by giving up our right to have a neutral party come in and settle a dispute.

We have visited several times with KNEA officials today, and will be meeting personally with KNEA's lead counsel next week. We will keep you posted as he gives us his advice on exactly how to proceed.

A heartfelt thanks, once again, from your negotiating team - Linda, Janet, Ginger, Kay, Betty, Dennis and Shad

Ginger's letter

I am writing in reference to some statements made recently in a letter from USD 453 school board member Steve Fitzgerald to the Times. The information Mr. Fitzgerald offers about the pay increase requested by LNEA and that offered by the Board is somewhat out of context.

The School Board’s initial contract proposal offered teachers no pay increase (while insurance costs would rise substantially). It required them to work longer daily (adding more than a week’s time to the year), effectively decreased time given elementary teachers for lesson preparation, asked high school teachers to teach an additional class period, required all teachers to give up the right to appeal a grievance to a neutral arbitrator if necessary and to give up the right to introduce new witnesses or testimony if a grievance were to go to the school board level (the school board, however, would still have been permitted to introduce new witnesses or testimony). It allowed the board to decide without input from the grievant whether a grievance hearing would be open to the public and stalled what remained of the grievance policy by three weeks. It required teachers to give up the right to be represented by counsel in case of a suspension hearing and forced a teacher to make a formal request if the teacher were to be suspended and wanted to know the reason.

LNEA did indeed write a proposal that requested an 11 percent increase. It was written as a proportional response to that first proposal. It was not presented to the board until the board declared impasse, meaning they would no longer negotiate with their teachers. LNEA’s negotiators felt that the more rational approach we had adopted up to that point would put us at a strategic disadvantage if we were forced into mediation.

Mr. Fitzgerald also says salaries here are “highly competitive.” Last Saturday, I read a letter from the board to the LNEA negotiating team that was upsetting enough to send me to the Internet to see what I might earn in another district. In a lovely high school building about 25 minutes down the road, I'd make at least $5000 more per year, work two fewer days, have two more leave days, be paid for all my unused leave when my employment ended (even if I were dead, by the way), and get a fully paid health policy, disability policy and salary protection policy, as well as tuition reimbursement of $150 per year. The story was much the same in five other districts.

To be fair, I also found a couple of districts where my pay would not be greater than in Leavenworth. But in those contracts I found other benefits that are valuable to teachers: fewer contract days, more leave time, pay for conference fees and other expenses associated with training we attend to improve our skills, matching funds for money we put in our retirement accounts, etc.

There are benefits to employment in USD 453. In the last 9 years, I have worked with young people who got an excellent education at Leavenworth High School and went on to continue their successes at Georgetown, Duke, University of Virginia, Oberlin, Northwestern, MIT, Stanford, Kenyon, Grinnell, Johns Hopkins, Wake Forest, Boston University, Rensselaer Polytechnic, Pepperdine, Rutgers, University of Iowa, Loyola, DePauw, all the military academies, and Kansas's state universities and private colleges, and that is just a sample.

I work with caring colleagues who spend far more hours than they are contracted, in order to provide quality instruction and timely feedback, to help students through their emotional crises and encourage them in their extracurricular activities, and to support one another.

Teachers in USD 453 are part of this community, and for that reason, the teachers' association does not want to take action that might reflect negatively on the district. It pains me to write this letter. But when there is heightened awareness of a problem, there is usually greater incentive to solve it.

What teachers want is for USD 453 to offer salaries, benefits, and working conditions that will keep good teachers in the district and attract high-quality new colleagues. The current stalemate does not help us achieve that goal.

Ginger Riddle
LNEA co-president


Linda's letter:

A recent letter to the Times, posted by Mr. Steve Fitzgerald, praises teachers for the high quality work they do daily in the classroom, and at the same time roundly criticizes Leavenworth-NEA, the recognized bargaining agent for the teachers of this school district.

Teachers are indeed part and parcel of this community, and are undeniably an integral part of every child’s life in Leavenworth Public Schools. We function as mothers, fathers, nurses and friends. We instruct, inspire, nurture and discipline. Outside the classroom we coach, we referee, and we cheer. We sponsor and supervise dances, academic contests, Little League, Scouts and church groups. We hold parent conferences at school, on the phone, and in the grocery store. We prepare lessons, grade papers, and take classes at our own expense to retain licensure or to obtain an advanced degree.

Teachers work tirelessly for your children, and they are to be commended for it. However, Mr. Fitzgerald’s criticism of Leavenworth-NEA is another matter, and his rendition of the contract dispute between the board and LNEA does not depict an accurate picture of the situation.

By law, LNEA’s negotiating team, the legally recognized bargaining agent for Leavenworth’s teachers, is required to represent the teachers and bargain the best terms and conditions of employment possible.

Elected school board members have a much broader and more difficult responsibility. Weighing heavily on the shoulders of these seven people is the responsibility for the health and wellbeing of this district. Subsequently, the health of this school district directly impacts the health and wellbeing of the community it serves.

Mr. Fitzgerald’s statement that the negotiations process is complicated is true. His next statement, however, that “it will unfold from here with a mediator coming in to work with both parties for compromise” is not accurate. While the board has requested the services of a federal mediator, the teachers have not jointly made that request. The teachers’ negotiating team has made repeated efforts to continue to bargain in good faith, and is still attempting to offer concessions in the interest of getting on with the business of educating your children without the unsettling distraction that this conflict causes. LNEA’s negotiating team has invited the board’s team back to the negotiating table and eagerly awaits a reply.

A quick contract settlement is most important for this community. Binding arbitration as an element of the teachers’ grievance procedure is a major sticking point, and the more protracted this issue becomes, the more likely it is that it will become increasingly difficult for both parties, teachers and board members, to focus on their primary responsibilities. The issue then, becomes a consideration of the detrimental effects of a protracted conflict between teachers and the board in settling upon terms and conditions of employment for the 07-08 school year.

Common sense dictates that happy teachers equal happy kids. If teachers are distracted because of the conflict and ill feelings that may occur because of negotiations, they will have a very difficult time doing their best in the very important roles they play in the lives of your children.

Conflict in negotiations will also hurt the community as a whole. Recruitment of highly qualified teachers, especially those in the areas of special education, math and science, has become increasingly difficult recently because the pool of potential employees is shrinking. The addition of a labor/management conflict onto an already stressed recruiting situation will drastically affect the quality of education offered to your children. While Mr. Fitzgerald states that Leavenworth offers competitive salaries, the fact of the matter is, just 40 miles in any direction from this city, potential and current employees will find communities that are not fraught with labor/management conflict, and most probably will find better salaries and benefits, depending on the direction he or she might travel.

As stated before, the sole responsibility of the teachers’ bargaining team is to obtain and maintain the best terms and conditions of employment for the teachers of Leavenworth Public Schools. Simple increases in salary and benefits is not the sum and total of good terms and conditions of employment. Fair and impartial treatment of a teacher in the case of a labor dispute is paramount. Experiences during the 06-07 school year have sharpened teachers’ awareness that sometimes an arbitrator, someone who is not embroiled in a particular conflict, is needed to review the facts of a case and interpret the negotiated agreement, which is a set of rules already ratified by both the board and the teachers, and come to a sensible and logical decision.

The teachers’ bargaining team will remain focused upon the totality of terms and conditions of employment as it continues to attempt to reach a settlement on the contract for the 07-08 school year. We are ready and willing to come to an agreement quickly, so that we can focus solely on the business of educating your children.

Linda Schukman
Co-President, Leavenworth-NEA