Bargaining Updates
OEA Bargaining Update #11
Quality Public Education is a Civil Right!
The OEA Bargaining Team, assisted by Adult Education teachers, Special Education teachers and nurses, negotiated issues in Adult Education and Special Education/Special Services with the OUSD bargaining team on 10/27, 10/28, 11/6 and 11/7,.
Overload and understaffing are facts of life in many parts of OUSD, but nowhere is the situation worse than for nurses. OUSD employs 29 nurses to cover its approximately 37,000 students. With 4 nurses doing state-mandated screening, and 9 nurses working with 4,000 special education students, 16 nurses must handle the needs of 33,000 general education students—a ratio of 1 to 2050. Every nurse must travel to multiple sites, often in the course of a single day. At a time when the number of students with diabetes is increasing, the District has eliminated or lost its dedicated diabetes nurses. This work has been added to the workload of other nurses, who must drop everything at certain times of day and drive to a school site to administer insulin to students. (The District must recognize some of this as well—the only OEA proposal in these four days to which the District partially agreed was to guarantee nurses a designated workspace.)
Reasonable case loads—for nurses, special education teachers, and others—are the key to providing the services which our most vulnerable students need. Resource teachers asked to take on additional students beyond their caseload will be unable to give enough attention to the students on their caseload. A nurse rushing to get to the next child at the next school may not pay enough attention to the student in front of her. So far, the District has not agreed to any limits on caseload in Special Education/Special Services except those few already in the State Education Code—and even these limits are routinely violated.
Issues discussed in these four days:
Adult Education
Subcontracting of work to hourly employees
Increasing the floor number of contracted teacher FTE’s in Adult Education
Split assignments and travel time.
Special Services
District proposal to delete the current requirement that Resource Specialists only serve students with an IEP
Class size/caseload maximums
Required student/aide to handicapped ratios for SDC and Resource classes
Stipend for supplies for Special Education classrooms.
Union member participation in developing the district special education plan (SELPA)
Nurse caseloads, training and time for record-keeping and report-writing
Definitions of Full Inclusion (which is regulated in the contract) and Mainstreaming (which is not)
In both Adult Education and Special Education, we are waiting on important data we have requested from the District regarding current assignments and caseloads/class sizes—but thus far, the District has been unable to produce valid current lists. The District gave us data about Special Education assignments — which they almost immediately withdrew from consideration when we raised questions about its accuracy. We will meet on 11/17 to continue our discussion of special services and nurses. In subsequent sessions, we will take up other provisions in Article 21, including substitutes. Soon after, we will be discussing compensation.
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OEA Bargaining Update #10:
Quality Public Education is a Civil Right!
The OEA Bargaining Team met with the District on 10/9 around issues in Adult Education. Our team was joined for this session (and next) by members of the Adult Education Caucus Bargaining Sub-committee. The District team arrived more than an hour late and announced that they had to stop early, so bargaining time was limited.
· We proposed restoring the three teacher preparation days that adult education teachers gave up during the Adult Ed financial crisis. The District team said that they would respond at a later date.
· Both sides agreed that we needed to discuss 10.1.3.2, the Adult Extended Contract Rate, but that this should be done when we discuss compensation and several other rates in Article 24.
• We had an exchange regarding negotiating a procedure for the Adult Education calendar; OEA and the District will continue to discuss the adult ed calendar. The District’s belief is that it’s their prerogative to assign Adult Ed teachers to work any schedule, and any day, even Saturdays.
· Both sides presented proposals on 10.6.5 regarding Adult Education travel time. The District proposed to eliminate any travel time allowance if the “split” time between the two sites was greater than two hours. In response to Adult Education members’ complaints about “splits” that can start as early as 8:15 AM and end as late as 9 PM (for a six-hour work day!), the OEA team proposed that all “splits” of longer than two hours, whether at different sites or at the same site, be paid for half an hour of time for travel and to pack up/set up classrooms.
The District cancelled the planned 10/16 bargaining session, so we will meet on October 27 and will continue to discuss Adult Education. On October 28 we will be discussing Special Education/Special Services.
