Brief History of the Attack on FTE
A coworker and friend on the teacher's association bargaining team, Chris Brenizer, sent me this explanation of the FTE battle, posted here in its entirety with links to supporting documents
Reading the articles available from both OPB and Salem Reporter over the weekend (see our association’s FB page) I was encouraged to see that the press is now spending more time explaining the nuances of the FTE issue and why both parties are still in disagreement, but it occurred to me that the superintendent’s softened language could still prove problematic when explaining to friends, family, or neighbors why the district’s position on the matter is still not acceptable.
So following is my review of both the recent articles as well as the 28 page OERB ruling itself, in hopes that I can explain it a little better when asked. (Ruling linked here)
With comments like “We have no desire to deprive employees of their guaranteed preparation time or to suggest that 100% of teacher time is student-facing,” I can certainly expect one of my neighbors mentioning this and then saying ‘…Well it sounds like that’s not their intent at all, and not how it would be applied, so why don’t you just settle if you are not that far apart on the money ?’
It concerns me that the media has not pressed the superintendent on the fallout from the May 12th, 2022 ruling of the Oregon Employment Relations Board (Case UP-006-21) which found that “…the district violated ORS 243.672(1)e when it unilaterally changed its practice of calculating FTE for the purposes of compensating part-time secondary teachers and for compensating teachers for the buyout of their preparation periods.”
Further, the order from the judge was to make the aggrieved party whole by paying the teachers affected their lost salary * plus interest at 9% a year !
If the district has no intention of suggesting that 100% of teacher time is student-facing, why keep trying to bargain for it ? Just leave the language in Article 9 as it has been for decades…stop removing the word ‘workload’ from their counter-proposals….etc.
…Has the superintendent read the ruling from the OERB ?
*This key point was expertly summarized by Tyler (Scialo-Lakeberg, Union president) in the February 24th OPB article with her quote “In fact, Scialo-Lakeberg said, Salem-Keizer educators were paid back roughly $750,000 in lost wages because “that’s how people were so grossly underpaid by this FTE language that they want to put into practice now.”
The part about the district wanting to put into practice the same framework for calculating wages that they tried to implement during the pandemic (and then failed at implementing because a Judge ordered them to not only cease and desist, but to also pay back the money with interest) is truly disturbing.
TL;DR – The district lost their recent case with the labor relations board for changing how FTE is calculated, so now they are trying to re-implement that same strategy by bargaining for it instead (which is not technically illegal.)