Apr. 16—GRAND FORKS — Negotiators from the Grand Forks School Board rejected a request from teachers for a pay boost for postgraduate credits, while teachers said they would not accept a proposal cutting social workers and therapists out of their union.
In their third negotiations session on Tuesday, School Board and Grand Forks Education Association representatives appeared to have move through most of both parties’ more palatable proposals, with the district and union rejecting or withholding judgment on the remaining issues.
District negotiators also put forth a new proposal asking for the union to relinquish bargaining rights on Grand Forks Public Schools’ grievance procedures, which union negotiators rejected almost immediately.
Head district negotiator Amber Flynn said the district could not accept a request for educators to carry over continuing education credits when they moved salary scales.
The current teacher negotiated agreement has separate salary scales for bachelor’s, master’s and doctoral degree-holders, with educators with a certain number of post-graduate credits receiving an additional salary bump.
Many teachers study for and receive advanced degrees while working in the district, at which point they jump to the new pay scale. Educators are also required to take continuing education courses to retain their teaching credentials in North Dakota.
When educators move to a new salary scale, their credit for continuing education courses resets to zero.
The union argued this can disincentivize educators with a significant number of continuing education credits from pursuing advanced degrees, because the salary boost moving from one scale to the next can be marginal.
“We really feel that it was essentially double-counting,” Flynn said of the union’s proposal.
Union negotiators, in turn, rejected a district proposal to remove social workers and occupational and physical therapists from the teacher contract.
The union offered a survey of the district’s five occupational and physical therapists and 21 social workers showing overwhelming opposition to leaving the union.
Union negotiators said they’d held “frank conversations” with social workers and therapists, including non-union members (the teaching contract applies to all “certified” staff, regardless of union affiliation), and pointed out that district leadership was unable to confidently say what would happen to employees if they left the contract.
“There was just too much uncertainty with leaving, and so they want to stay,” lead union negotiator Melissa Buchhop said.
GFEA officials have
aggressively resisted efforts to remove some licensed staff
from their contract after a North Dakota Supreme Court ruling narrowed the definition of “teacher” in state collective bargaining laws.
District negotiators repeated a claim that these employees would be better compensated if they were paid at market rate rather than the rate negotiated by union leaders and cast doubt on the survey’s methodology.
“We don’t know what the prompts were for the person to answer yes or no,” Flynn pointed out.
A new proposal from the district, its first since negotiations began two weeks ago, was also rejected by union negotiators after a brief caucus.
That proposal would have removed language from the teacher contract that mandates the GFEA and the School Board to mutually agree to any changes to the grievance procedure teachers go through during contract disputes, like the one
brought before the board by band teacher Dave Christianson
last year.
Flynn said the proposal was meant to comply with a recommendation from the North Dakota School Boards Association and there was “not any sort of malicious intent.”
Buchhop, though, said statewide teachers union North Dakota United had recommended local unions preserve that language if it was already in their contracts.
“Frankly, we have looked at the new language of the NDSBA and we don’t feel it protects our teachers the way the current proposal does,” Buchhop said.
Negotiators also discussed two reports presented last week on special educators’ workloads and extracurricular activities compensation.
Flynn again questioned if the bargaining table was the appropriate avenue to address special educator burnout, pointing to a
slate of administrative changes proposed by the report
and later suggesting a committee should be created to continue advising the School Board on this issue.
“If we’re setting the standards or accountability practices, is it appropriate to do it here or in the negotiated agreement now when you don’t necessarily know how things are rolling out?” Flynn asked. “We’re not saying nothing is going to happen, it’s just what and how and when.”
The union has proposed a slate of salary bumps that would boost compensation for special education teachers who take on responsibilities outside their job description.
“You only have to pay those out if those duties are added onto a teacher’s plate,” Buchhop said. “You find another way, you don’t have to have those on the plate, it doesn’t cost anything.”
Activities Director Mike Biermaier presented an update to his report recommending several updates and adjustments to extracurricular salary schedules.
He estimated several “clerical changes” to music salary schedules meant to create parity among those contracts would cost $41,323, while Academic Olympiad and Science Olympiad contract would add another $5,000 in cost.
Biermaier has also suggested the district switch from a $6 per week “experience pay” bonus for long-serving coaches and advisers to a percentage increase — a stance the GFEA has echoed in its proposals.
The school district rejected a handful of GFEA proposals to regulate CTE teachers’ work calendars and when extracurricular contracts needed to be issued, with Flynn saying negotiators agreed in principle to these changes but believed these should be district policies, not negotiated ones.
It also rejected a proposal to reserve prep time for middle school teachers.