Lawrence Teachers Association's picketing picks up over class-size grievances

The Lawrence Teachers Association, now nine school years without a new contract, took a new tact in protesting as LTA members picketed at the homes of three Board of Education trustees last week and two Lawrence School District buildings.

The LTA is working under an agreement that expired on June 30, 2011. After the city of Buffalo settled with its teachers in 2016, after 12 years of negotiations, the Lawrence district now has the longest-running contract negotiations in the state. The LTA has nearly 280 members, including librarians, speech therapists and social workers.

On Sept. 17, LTA members rallied outside the homes of Trustees Abel Feldhamer and Tova Plaut and two days later by Dr. David Sussman’s house. In addition, the teacher’s association held rallies at the Lawrence Primary School at the Number Two School in Inwood and the Broadway Campus in Lawrence on Sept. 19.

In its continuing battle with the school district on specific issues, the LTA President Lori Skonberg said the “district ignores class-size caps.” Skonberg said that 21 classes in the middle school are over the cap, nine in the high school and two in the elementary school. There are different class cap sizes for the grade levels. Previously Skonberg said that elimination of the class-size clause from the contract leads only to saving money not improving educational practices. In the past, Board President Murray Forman has said that class-size caps impedes the district’s ability to deliver effective education.

“They knew they were over from day one, they ignored the contract and placed those students in classes causing grievances throughout the district,” Skonberg said, adding eight grievances have filed over the class size issue and five other for various reasons.

The grievances wind their way through a four-stage process until they get to arbitration. Skonberg said that the process is at stage 2 on five of the grievances, and two are headed to the arbitration stage.
“None of these grievances would be happening if Murray agreed to compromising,” Skonberg said. “Negotiations are give and take. We were willing to do things we didn’t want to do, but Murray wasn’t.”

Forman said the all the grievances are “entirely without merit.” “The district’s position is we have negotiated extensively in good faith with the bargaining unit and look forward to modifying the existing work agreement to reach appropriate accommodations,” he said.

Negotiations, Forman said, are not impacted by the grievances. However, the parties have not come to any agreements and both super conciliation sessions this year have yet to push the process forward. Super conciliation is defined as post-fact-finding mediation that is agreed to by both negotiating parties and conducted by the New York State Public Employment Relations Board or another mediation service.

As for picketing outside trustee homes, Sussman, a board member for 27 years, said that dissent is part of the democratic process and he welcomes the orderly protest that shows the LTA members’ desires for a new contract.

“I have total confidence in our negotiating team to come up with a contract for the students, community and teachers,” he said, adding that the rallies are teachable moments for the students. “We are public servants and if we don’t do what the public wants, we hear it.”

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