Central Falls tentatively agrees to rehire fired teachers

School officials and teachers in Central Falls announced a dramatic breakthrough Sunday in the quest to remake Central Falls High School, saying both sides have tentatively agreed to a plan that would allow all teachers to return next year without applying for their jobs.

In return, teachers will have to "recommit to their jobs" and interview with the school's new principal. They will also be expected to work a longer school day, provide more after-school tutoring, accept a new evaluation system and participate in "targeted and embedded" professional development sessions, according to a joint news release issued Sunday.

"From the start, my principal concern was not who would be working at the high school, but whether the new school leadership team would have the flexibility it needed to improve student achievement," said Superintendent Fran Gallo. "Today's agreement provides this flexibility. Thankfully, these very important, common-sense reforms will help more of our students succeed."

http://newsblog.projo.com/2010/05/central-falls-district-and-tea.html

That alone is a victory.

But that victory existed from the moment the school fell below whatever arbitrary bar had been set. None of the four RTTT fixes allow the principal to remain.

The firing originally occurred because the teachers wouldn't work all the district mandated extra hours without compensation. It sounds like, in this new agreement, that the teachers have agreed to do so. MIght this have been the intention of the district administration all along?

But I don't think we know at this point whether either strategy worked. Both sides seem to have kept a tight lip on what the actual deal entails. It's possible that the teachers got what they had pushed for, though some preliminary hints seem to say the opposite.

I continue to believe that they would have been better off taking the earlier deal and then bargaining for better compensation afterwards.

"passed overwhelmingly" - but on a voice vote.


http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5jQe6oVWR8RCYpv36bVIUomkB09NgD9FOPTR80

Randi Weingarten was here this evening and talked about Rhode Island. She said the union president and the superintendent were able to come to an agreement late Saturday evening and the teachers approved it yesterday. All teachers will be back at the school next year with a new principal and plenty of opportunities for overtime pay.

So it's a win.

I asked Randi to please tell the media. :)

are going to get paid for accepting all the new duties gallo initially wanted them to accept without pay?

I don't have a link for what I posted. I was at a meeting for union members with Randi and I didn't see any reporters there.

Sessums said her members “overwhelmingly” supported the slate of reforms — even though they include the exact same six conditions Gallo had asked the union to agree to in February before the teachers were fired.

These include working a longer school day; providing tutoring once a week after school; attending weekly professional development meetings after school; participating in two weeks of training over the summer; eating lunch with students once a week and submitting to more rigorous evaluations.

As she originally offered in February, Gallo will pay the teachers extra for some of these duties — $30 per hour for 10 days of training in the summer, for a total of $1,800 and a $3,000 stipend for the 90-minutes of weekly professional development. The stipend also recognizes the longer school days the teachers will work, Gallo said Monday.

This week, Gallo was able to secure more compromises from the union, including the flexibility to assign teachers based on experience, not just seniority, and increased authority for the new principal Gallo hopes to hire next week.

The new principal will be able to design a new schedule and improve the culture of the school, Gallo said.

“In the past, when we wanted to make changes, the contract was an immediate barrier,” Gallo said in an interview. “What this agreement does is move that contract aside and give the principal the flexibility to say to his or her teachers, this is where we need to go.”

http://www.projo.com/education/content/central_falls_agreement_05-18-10_E6IH8TJ_v65.13618042.html

I'd like to hear more specifics on this "flexibility".


these things were listed at wsws:

• a new system for teacher evaluations will take effect in September to determine which teachers will return for the 2011-2012 school year;

• a new staffing policy will eliminate strict seniority guidelines;

• the union must drop its lawsuit challenging the February firings;

• a “streamlined” collective bargaining agreement is to be developed in the next year.


i'm not seeing discussion of them in the mainstream media. if this is factual, those are bad concessions.

It's the same offer sitting on different facts.

The original offer was the $1800 for summer training (essentially the existing contract rate for such training), plus an additional $3,000 IF the super could secure grant money to pay for it.

I think that most here must have assumed that this was either a lie or that the grant wouldnt' come through, so they just ignored that part of the offer.

All that's changed is that the "if" is now a reality... so the additional $3k is as well.

i'm not seeing discussion of them in the mainstream media. if this is factual, those are bad concessions.

Yes... but they have their jobs. And nobody in the administration appears to be hitting them over the heads with it so they retain some dignity.

to pay $30/hr for the extra 90 minutes/week.

$30/hr for 90 minutes/wk for 42-44 weeks isn't $3000, it's $1890-$1980.

they're giving guaranteed pay for the extra 90 minutes, plus guaranteed pay for the "additional" duties there was previously "no money" for:

"Gallo said she offered to pay teachers $30 an hour for two additional weeks of training in the summer...Gallo also said she would TRY TO FIND GRANT MONEY to pay for 90 minutes of common planning time a week after school hours at the $30 an hour rate.

But she says she has no extra money to pay for other changes she is pushing for, including lengthening the instructional day by 30 minutes... a tutoring schedule, so a teacher is available to help students for an hour before and after school...have lunch with students one day a week."

http://newsblog.projo.com/2010/02/money-a-sticking-poin...



sorry, you're wrong.

The only thing that's really changed is that the grant came through and she kept her word.

$30/hr for 90 minutes/wk for 42-44 weeks isn't $3000, it's $1890-$1980.

Let's imagine for a moment that you're correct. Then what you're saying is that they gave up all the things on that list (and a couple you didn't mention) for about a thousand dollars?

How is that a victory?

they're giving guaranteed pay for the extra 90 minutes, plus guaranteed pay for the "additional" duties there was previously "no money" for:

All paid for with a federal grant. How is that confusing? Are you alleging that they actually HAD the money before and lied about it?

The closest thing that I can see is what seems to be a shift from "extra money if grants come through" to what looks like a little extra money now that they expect grants to come through.

Both sides have done a really good job of making it sound like everyone is now on the same page ("both sides got what they wanted" etc). Whether that's a face-saving measure on one side or both is hard to tell... but these things usually don't last.

Pretty much a no-brainer, IMO. :shrug:

because they refused to sign this deal.

I'm not saying this isn't better than a week ago... I'm wondering what what gained by the last few months of strife?

The district and state will now be under the microscope and are providing resources to help these teachers. I'm thinking the kids in this school are better off now because of this media attention. And of course, the teachers have jobs now. I wonder if the teachers would have been rehired without the national spotlight shining on their school.

The default knee-jerk position has always been that the administration (above the school level) must be bad. But if Gallo had wanted to fire the teachers she had the ability to do so from the beginning. Before things ever blew up she said that she was trying to change the school for the better while protecting the teachers... and only gave up when they wouldn't accept what she thought was a reasonable plan (even when the alternative was clearly losing everyone and she had compromised where she thought she could). IF the story here is correct that the teachers essentially accepted her earlier plan and she took them back...

...well... I'd say that shows that she was negotiating in good faith all along.

Now... that doesn't mean that the plan is the right one or that the school should ever have been on some federal hit list... but it does indicate that she would have rehired them without the spotlight, since this is what she was offering before there was a spotlight.

Of course we'll never know for sure so it's a silly argument.

Then why didn't she do so from the start?

I can't read minds. Sorry. :)

The (federal) administration can only pretend to be happy.

Duncan's statement has more spin in it than anyone else's. I'd say that the statements of the local union head and super indicate that the two can work together.

there was NO negotiation. NONE.

The media reports about how gallo "tried so hard" to negotiate, but just couldn't convince the unreasonable lazy teachers of the need for the reforms...

complete bullshit. she made a demand, & when the union rep insisted there be a bargaining session, she told the rep she was going to fire them. and did.

NO NEGOTIATION WHATSOEVER.

That's why the judge ruled for the union. A complete, willful, blatant violation of contract.


But that's not what the public heard, thanks to our bought-off media. And I must say, thanks to the "powerful" teachers' union that couldn't get its story out - or didn't want to, i have no clue what their story is.


So for all those who were arguing for gallo's POV using her story - YOU WERE WRONG, COMPLETELY.

I haven't seen that.

and getting paid for all the extra time.

but the timeline makes it clear. & given as it was all in writing, i'm sure they could have documented it.

and being as the lawsuit was filed 4/29 & they were "rehired" two weeks later, you can bet that was the reason.

There were no "talks" or "negotiations".

On January 11, Central Falls was identified as a "low performing school." The same month, Gallo announced she'd selected the "Transformation Model" to "reform" it.

In February, Gallo announced her six conditions, and:

"35. By letter dated February 9, 2010, Gallo informed the Union that unless it
agreed to her demands, as aforesaid, she would either terminate all of the teachers or
inform Commissioner Gist that 'we have collectively failed to select an intervention
model for the high school.'

36. By letter dated February 11, 2010, Jane Sessums informed Gallo that she
could not and would not agree to change the collective bargaining agreement without
reviewing certain relevant information and meeting with the Dr. Gallo regarding
"changes in time, compensation, or other issues related to the transformation model."

37. After receiving Sessums' letter, on or about February 11, 2010, Gallo
announced that she would fire every teacher at CFHS.

38. On February 18, 2010, Gallo wrote a letter to each Central Falls High
School teacher in which she informed them that she will recommend their termination at
a Central Falls Schools Board of Trustees meeting on February 23, 2010."

http://www.projo.com/news/2010/pdf/central_falls_teachers_complaint_0428.pdf

...then why did you post "That's why the judge ruled for the union. A complete, willful, blatant violation of contract." ???

There were no "talks" or "negotiations".

You have a habit of imagining what happened and then assuming that it was correct. It was reported at the time that there were three negotiations, but rather than assume that you made an error, you imagined what those "negotiations" entailed. The first was the super making her demands without real conversations... the second was the union saying "no"... and the third was the super firing everyone. From then on, anytime you saw reporting about three negotiating sessions you continued to claim that there were none. When it was pointed out that the union agreed that things started with no job security and later progressed to guaranteeing 80% or 90% of the jobs. They claim (contrary to Gallo's recollection) that she never got to 100%... but any way you slice it, someone negotiated something with someone.

Yet every time that was pointed out to you, you went back to your imaginary construct of how the talks went and highlighted the "three times" that had been reported and claimed that this proved that there had been negotiations.

Here, you appear to imagine that Gallo knew that the judge would rule against her so she caved and gave in to the union's demands. All I can tell you is that if the UNION assumed this was the case (that they would easily win), they would NEVER have made the recent deal (a mere $1,000 for all they gave up). If they would have, then they need new leadership.

The rest of your post is spin & lies.

hardball. I think there's more attention on what exactly the "reformers" are doing everywhere.

Hope it didn't happen too late.

you went from "it's a gain" to "those are bad concessions" ??

only seen them in one source) -- are bad.

Your spin is also -- bad.

http://www.cfschools.net/Documents/reform/side-by-side%205-17%20%201220p.pdf

An additional point that I've seen reported is the administration's ability to fire teachers who don't "improve" (by their standards of course) and that their seniority won't allow them to bump a teacher at another school. I'll see if I can find something more reliable.

On edit - more detail here - http://www.cfschools.net/Documents/reform/Settlement%20Agreement%20-%20final%20&%20signed.pdf