Swimming in the Pensieve

In a span of eight days, the Press-Telegram’s Editorial Board attacked the highly respected unions representing the hard-working police officers and teachers of our community. It also praised the governor for attacking the state employee unions in his ill-conceived $80 million special election set for November. Your readers, many of whom are parents of the students we teach, deserve better from the only daily newspaper in Long Beach.

Your Editorial Board lamented the demise of a productive relationship between the district and the 5,000-member Teachers Association of Long Beach. What we have had in Long Beach for too long is a joint effort to give the district nothing but positive public relations.

Almost 500 teachers left our district last year, a 10 percent turnover. It’s impossible to retain our best teachers, and keep their morale high, when they have poor compensation and few contractual rights.

There is no process at all for teachers to seek relief from abusive principals, other than to transfer out of that school. Our teachers lack basic rights found in almost all teacher contracts, including due process, safeguards against retaliatory reassignments and transfers, and other basic rights that would treat our educators as professionals at no cost to taxpayers.

If the school board had taken seriously the concerns of many teachers and parents, rather than following the superintendent’s support for fellow administrators (right or wrong), public disputes over ineffective principals would have been dealt with in a timely manner.

Tony Diaz
President, Teachers Association of Long Beach

Published: Saturday, June 18, 2005 - 7:17:16 AM PST

2005.09.15

Long Beach Unified School District administrators, fresh from cutting about $20 million out of the current budget, now are girding for negotiations with a newly aggressive teachers union.

The school district’s contract with Teachers Association of Long Beach expired Aug. 31. In the past, the contracts have run for three years, with salary renegotiated each year. The entire contract is open this year, and TALB has released a “Teachers Demand Respect” bargaining proposal that calls for significant changes in the way the district does business as well as sizable raises.

TALB’s board has changed in the past year, according to records, and new management has taken the reins at the union. That leadership started pressing for change - most noticeably leading an effort to censure or replace some principals - last spring.

Its first bargaining proposal “demands positive changes” in 23 areas, including first-ever clauses on “respect, dignity and due process” for teachers and a “professional collaboration” team with the power to hire and evaluate administrators.

“The bottom line is, the budget is what the budget is,” Superintendent Chris Steinhauser said. “We’re facing rising health care and workers comp costs, and we’ve been mandated to raise our legal reserves from $7 million to $14 million. At the same time, we’re losing revenue.

“Everything people want has a price tag. If you get one thing, we have to take it from somewhere. The bottom line is, we have to live within our means.”

The LBUSD school board will conduct a public hearing Tuesday at its next meeting to “sunshine” TALB’s proposal, and will offer its own counter-proposal at the same time. After two weeks for the public and union to review the district’s proposal, there will be another hearing at the Oct. 4 school board meeting. Negotiations will follow.

Union officials did not return calls seeking comment. However, in a press release on Aug. 30, bargaining chair Bob Joplin claimed there was teacher discontent and low morale that could only be addressed with a better contract.

“Our bargaining proposal is centered on getting our teachers the respect that they deserve,” Joplin says in the statement. “We’ve had 25% of our teachers leave the district the last three years and the Board of Education has yet to respond to that exodus in any meaningful way. Our bargaining proposal addresses the working conditions and compensation issues that our teachers most want fixed.”

Steinhauser disputed the assertions that there is discontent and that teachers are leaving. He said that declining enrollment has reduced the number of teaching positions available, and only 89 experienced teachers left the district in the last year to teach elsewhere. Most of the “exodus” is due to retirements or other attrition, he said.

“We had 1,500 experienced teachers apply for jobs here this year,” Steinhauser said. “That’s 17 experienced teachers for every vacancy. People want to teach here. Our compensation package compares well with the area. We want our teachers to have the best salaries possible, but you have to look at the whole package when you compare.”

Long Beach teachers do not pay any insurance premiums for health coverage, unlike many nearby schools, Steinhauser said. Teacher salary schedules are extremely complicated and difficult to compare due to factors such as graduate work, experience and special skills, but TALB’s claim that Long Beach is the 39th of 40 districts in comparative pay is simply wrong.

According to the Los Angeles County district survey of salaries and fringe benefits for the 2003-04 school year, Long Beach ranged between second and 22nd on a series of pay scales, and appeared in the top 10 of most schedules.

After automatic pay raises and a restructuring of the pay schedule last year, the average annual teacher salary in Long Beach is $55,850 for 182 days of work, according to Chris Eftychiou, the district’s public information director. A new teacher with full credentials starts at $43,227 a year.

While money is always an issue in any contract, Steinhauser said a larger concern may be a demand by the union to create “Professional Collaboration Teams” at each school. The union proposal would give these teams control over individual schools, including hiring of new administrators and teachers, evaluation of administrators, creation of school curriculum and discipline policies and more.

Most of the two pages of demands are unrealistic, Steinhauser said.

“There are two things you simply don’t get to do,” Steinhauser said. “One is to hire or fire your own boss, and the other is to evaluate your boss’ job performance. We have an extensive complaint process, and we follow it. But you don’t get to pick your boss.”

The union has posted its entire bargaining proposal on the Internet at www.talb.org. Tuesday’s board meeting begins at 5 p.m. at the school district’s administration building, 1515 Hughes Way.

An agenda will be posted at least 72 hours in advance at the administration building and on the school’s Web site, www.lbusd.k12.ca.us. For more information, call 997-8240.

Published: Thursday, September 15, 2005