Bayless Teachers Union, Administration Reach Agreement in Negotiations

The difference between the two meetings is stark.

Last month, Bayless teachers picketed outside the school and packed into the multipurpose room, where the school board meeting was held, to deliver angry speeches.

Wednesday, the school board meeting was empty of teachers, except for Bayless Education Association (BEA) President Gina McCullough, who announced that the union negotiating team was happy with the compromise offered by the administration earlier that day.

Negotiations had broken down last month on a single point: the addition of a 186th working day on the school calendar without, teachers said, adequate compensation for their time. The BEA asked the administration to either revisit the 2011-2012 calendar or let teachers do one of their professional development days through study at home.

The new agreement offers teachers the courtesy of going home when students leave at noon on the last day of each semester, provided they had completed their professional duties and semester checkout procedures, such as filing student grades. Previously, teachers were contractually obligated to stay through the full day, even if they had nothing left to do.

All other aspects of the new contract, including a 0.63 percent salary increase for teachers with no step increase, had been agreed upon in May.

The BEA will now take the agreement to be ratified by the teachers, after which it will likely be passed by the school board in August.

Both sides also agreed that the facilitator who moderated the negotiations was helpful and effective, and should be invited back next year.

“We would like to have him back, we felt very comfortable with him,” McCullough said.

At last month’s protest, several teachers denounced what they said was a lack of respect for teachers by the administration.

McCullough said Wednesday that relations between the two sides are improving, and allowing teachers those two half days was a “baby step” in the right direction.

McCullough also said she was pleased that the school board had, at her request, delayed passage of a new policy on personal days until they had discussed it with district teachers.

One exchange last night exemplified this change in tone. When the meeting adjourned and the school board and audience members were filing out, Superintendent Maureen Clancy-May told McCullough in passing that, “I thought that worked. It was good.”

“It was good,” McCullough agreed.