Last night’s BOE meeting had its share of fireworks, with the BOE not receptive to the program cuts brought forward for consideration by the Superintendent.
Here is a Fox 61 story with video.
Here is a WFSB story with video.
Here is the Bristol Press article.
You Tube video of speakers:
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Mrs. Christine M. Sipes
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Greene-Hills & West Bristol Schools
>>> Bristol Federation of Teachers 5/20/2016 6:59 AM >>>
David Hayes posted: “Last night’s BOE meeting had its share of fireworks, with the BOE not receptive to the program cuts brought forward for consideration by the Superintendent. Here is a Fox 61 story with video. Here is the Bristol Press article. You Tube video of speaker”
I know that the budget is an ongoing process but I’m not sure it’s entirely accurate to call these stipend cuts a proposal. Because every person who held one of these positions received a letter that stated that their position or positions would no longer be funded next year and Central Office – through the memo emailed to all staff – has made it clear that they feel they have the contractual authority to eliminate the funding of these positions, I think it makes more sense to call these cuts what they are: a stipend cut mandate.
Thank you for raising this concern, Matt. The wording of the memo from Central Office is important: “All A-2 & A-3 positions are filled annually by the Board of Education upon the recommendation of the Superintendent (pg.50 BFT contract). As of this writing the stipend positions listed below will not be filled going into the 2016-2017 school year.” It appears Central Office is interpreting our contract to mean that they can decide to eliminate any A-2 or A-3 position at the end of any year, without justification. While I am hopeful that the decision to eliminate these positions next year will be reversed, I still think this is an important issue to address in our next contract. Specifically, rather than our contract stating that “All positions on the A-2 Schedule will be annually filled by the Board upon recommendation of the Superintendent,” I would like to see some protection for A-2 and A-3 positions, so that they cannot be eliminated without due process.
What you suggest about changing contract language is a good idea. However, any change in contract language must be agreed upon by both sides. So while it’s worth a try, it’s also unlikely the BOE or administration would be willing to do that.
I also think it’s important to note that we have two issues that we’re talking about here: (1) using our collective bargaining power as a union to try to clean up the contract language regarding the A2/A3 positions in future contract negotiations; (2) whether or not we should concede Central Office’s interpretation of this particular part of the contract to be the only valid interpretation.
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