By JOSEPH KELLARD
After the Board declared an impasse in September over its proposed contract, which was to start on July 1, 2001, the New York State Board of Education scheduled a mediator to meet with the board and the teachers' union on Tuesday, Dec. 11 to encourage a settlement.
Contracts in the Oceanside district generally extend three to four years. The last contract, a four-year deal, expired on June 30, 2001, but the new contract wasn't adopted because the OFT found it unacceptable. The dispute between both sides centers on teachers' salaries and the number of hours the contract proposes they work.
The board's contract calls for a 14 percent salary increase plus steps, the raises that teachers in their second year and above receive annually.
Regarding the hours it proposes teachers work, OFT President Leslie Krasnoff said the contract calls for an increase of the normal workday for teachers by roughly one half-hour each day, or two-and-a-half hours a week. Currently, teachers work from first to eighth period or second to ninth period each day. The new contract, Krasnoff argued, proposes they work from first to ninth periods and provide mandatory extra help during the extra period.
Superintendent of Schools Dr. Herb Brown argued that the contract actually amounts to a reduction in the number of hours teachers work, by one hour a week.
Currently, teachers work six-and-a-half hours a day where they are assigned, they are in their buildings thirty minutes a day where they are unassigned, and they perform an hour a week of mandatory extra help, Brown said.
What the board proposes is that these three things be replaced with having to work seven hours a day where the teachers can be assigned, Brown said. We don't assign them to be with kids for seven hours. They still get a lunch and a preparation. But they no longer have to have a half-hour of unassigned time while being in the building, nor do they have to do the hour a week of extra help. The OFT's belief that the teachers' hours increase by a half-hour a day comes from the idea of going from six-and-a-half hours assigned time to seven. They are already in their buildings a half-hour that is not assigned, but they now have an hour a week of extra help that they will no longer have to do.
The 14 percent and step salary increases amount to a 30-35 percent increase over four years for some teachers, Brown added.
Negotiations for the new contract began unofficially in December 2000. They were held again in June and September, in which both sides rejected the other's proposals.
After we met in September for a number of hours, the district said we're going to impasse, Krasnoff said.
After the Board declared an impasse, it notified the New York State Public Employees Relations Board that an agreement cannot be reached without the aid of a mediator. Teachers in the district soon afterwards began wearing black T-shirts with the printed words Working without a contract: It must be Oceanside, and occasionally assembled in front of schools holding signs in support of their cause.
After the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, the teachers discontinued these actions and the union offered to use the expired contract for another year, according to Krasnoff.
We offered to keep the contract in place with just a percentage raise, but keep everything so we don't have the upheaval of going through a contract dispute, Krasnoff explained. We said, why don't we try to just get through this year and heal a little bit, just put a percentage raise, and next year we'll negotiate.' But the district declined this proposal.
The mediator's purpose is to encourage both sides to come to an agreement, not to tell either side what he believes is a fair settlement. If mediation fails to bring both sides together, the district must notify New York State that they would like a fact finder to be sent. The fact finder's purpose is listen to both sides and present what he believes is a fair settlement. The results of both mediation and fact finding, however, are not binding to either side.
On the eve of entering mediation, both sides expressed hope that the contract dispute would finally be settled.
It would be foolish if you ask an expert to come in to help you, who looks at all the facts and is objective, and then either side says Well, we don't like your answer,' Krasnoff said. Factually, it could be done, because it's not binding. But my hope is that the mediator will be able to bring us to a settlement that both parties can live with and think is a fair and just contract.
Brown echoed that hope.
I would hope as a result of the mediation both sides can come together so that we could have a new contract as soon as possible that's fair to both teachers and the taxpayers, he said.
