A look at the nuts and bolts of forming personnel policy committees -- one for teachers and one for support staff -- is one of several items on the agenda for tonight's 5:30 p.m. meeting of the Little Rock School District's Community Advisory Board.
Feedback from the advisory board on establishing the district's first-ever personnel policy committees will be used to finalize agreements with a national organization that will conduct the elections, Little Rock School District Superintendent Mike Poore said Wednesday.
Personnel policy committees are coming to the capital city school system in the aftermath of recent votes by the Arkansas Board of Education to require the committees and end the district's recognition of the Little Rock Education Association employee union as the exclusive contract bargaining agent of district employees.
Additionally, the Education Board waived state laws that authorize employees to conduct the personnel policy committee elections. It voted to restore Arkansas Teacher Fair Dismissal Act employee protections to the Little Rock district employees, which had been removed last December.
The district will discontinue recognizing the union and engaging in collective bargaining when the current negotiated agreement between the district and the association expires Oct. 31.
Personnel policy committees, used in all other districts in the state but Little Rock, are made up of employees and administrators -- with the majority being employees -- who make and respond to proposals regarding employee benefits and working conditions.
School boards are compelled by law to consider the committee positions but school boards are not required to accept proposals or negotiate a resolution to differences.
"We're trying to execute the decisions made by the state board and trying to do that in a timely way so we can have a functioning PPC by the start of the new year," Poore said Wednesday.
The school district already has draft agreements with the American Arbitration Association of New York City to conduct the elections for both teacher and support staff committees.
The American Arbitration Association oversaw similar elections for teachers in the Fort Smith School District earlier this calendar year.
"We believe it is a company with an outstanding reputation and it seems like it has a reputation that's valued by both labor organizations and business entities for work that is similar," Poore said.
The arbitration association's proposed fee is $3.25 per eligible voter at each election in what is the association's typical two-election system. Poore estimated that the cost of the elections to the district will be under $20,000.
The first round of voting by employees is typically the nominating round in which employees use an online ballot to nominate who they want to be their representative on the policy committee.
The second round of online voting centers on selecting committee members from all who have been nominated.
Plans for the Little Rock district call for the election of a committee made up of three administrators as required by state law, plus three elementary school teachers, two middle school teachers, two high school teachers and one special services employee such as a speech and language pathologist or psychologist.
Poore said eight is the number of teacher members that was settled on earlier this year by the district and the Little Rock Education Association for a personnel policy committee that would have served only as an advisory body to to the negotiating team. That was an agreement that pre-dated state Education Board decisions.
"Having said that, when the eight get together and start to work in the second semester of the school year, they get to create their own bylaws," Poore said. "So the following year, that number could be amended."
Poore offered assurances that he and state education leaders will be fair and reasonable. He called teachers the district's most precious commodity.
"As teachers look back there were projections of gloom and doom last year when Teacher Fair Dismissal Act was taken away. Yet administrators and teachers worked together to create a common sense approach that provided respect and accountability," Poore said.
He called rumors he's heard that teachers will be subject to 10 hour work days "outlandish" and "not in the realm of possibility."
Poore cited recent state reports and data about improvements in student achievement, curriculum initiatives and teaching strategies in the district.
"We're doing things with our staff and with the state agency to really move the needle and to continue to move the needle a little bit more aggressively," Poore said.
The Arkansas Board of Education's votes in September and October on Little Rock district issues come as the 23,000-student district approaches five years of being under state control with a state-directed superintendent and no elected school board. The state assumed authority over the capital city system in January 2015 when six of 48 schools were labeled as academically distressed for chronically low student test scores.
State law calls for the Education Board to consolidate, annex or reconstitute a state controlled, Level 5 - intensive support district if that district has not met criteria for exiting state control after five years.
The Education Board has adopted a framework plan for reconstituting the Little Rock District that now has eight, state-graded F schools among its 40 campuses. The framework calls for the district to remain in level 5 - intensive support but also calls for the November 2020 election of a nine-member school board "which may have limited authority as defined by the State Board , or which may operate under the direction and approval of the commissioner of education."
The Education Board voted 8-0 last week to direct Key to end the decades-old recognition of the Little Rock Education Association as the contract bargaining agent for employees, effective Oct. 31.
Key has since addressed a letter to Little Rock district teachers and staff members telling of the Education Board actions and his notice to Poore that the existing professional negotiated contract with employees will be allowed to expire and there will be no negotiations for a successor agreement.
In the letter Key said that workplace conditions that affect teachers -- such as planning time and noninstructional duty -- "will be respected in adherence to state law." He also said that the school district will "continue to observe the currently negotiated compensation/fringe obligations of individual employee contracts until June 30."
Key also sent a detailed letter to Poore on the same day, Oct. 11, directing Poore to end union recognition, implement a personnel policy committee for certified and support staff, implement a specific teacher evaluation system district-wide and update policies to reflect the reinstatement of the Teacher Fair Dismissal Act.
In the letter to Poore, -- which Poore confirmed Wednesday that he had received -- Key detailed several concerns, including the failure of the district and union to improve the salaries of beginning teachers, noting that the district's rank in teacher starting salaries has fallen from 60th to 74th among the state's more than 230 school systems. But the average teacher salary in the district has improved from fourth to third in the state, Key's letter states.
Key also pointed to efforts by the Little Rock employee union to insert into a district policy manual provisions from an old negotiated agreement between the district and the union. The Little Rock district had submitted the manual to Key for approval. He described the removed provisions as "bureaucratic" and "red tape."
"The commissioner tabled this proposed manual and directed that it be aligned with LRSD policy and state law and resubmitted," Key wrote to Poore. "In response to union assertions that the commissioner was refusing to approve the personnel policy manual, the commissioner submitted a letter to the union outlining the expectations for revising the manual. To date, a corrected manual has not been resubmitted," he said, adding that the union continues to demand approval of the manual.
Key also said that the association had introduced no proposals to improve the performance of any lower performing schools and resisted district efforts to do so.
"The best example is its strenuous opposition to proposed revisions of sick leave policies meant to address excessive absenteeism," Key wrote.
Metro on 10/17/2019