Reynolds Educators Vote to Ratify Agreement

From a press release sent out tonight:

After extended discussion and following a question and answer session on the terms, the members of the Reynolds Education Association (REA) voted overwhelmingly (98.2% yes) tonight to ratify the tentative agreement reached with the school district early Saturday morning.

The final step will be for the Reynolds school board to conduct its own ratification vote. If the school board votes to approve it, then the tentative agreement will be the new contract between REA and the district.

REA does not expect the agreement details to be made public until after the school board’s ratification vote.

REA President Joyce Rosenau: “After five days on strike, we are glad to be back in our schools. We are proud of our bargaining team and the support we had from the community including parents, students, local businesses, and fellow educators. Building a fair contract takes time. The district coming to the table to understand the variety of school issues that needed to be addressed, and staying at the table, was what made this deal happen. Hopefully the school board has learned that all parties need to listen and spend time to understand what our schools and students need.”

Reynolds Educators and School District Reach Tentative Agreement

In a process that began May 2011, the Reynolds Education Association (REA) finally reached a tentative agreement with the Reynolds school district after more than 18 hours in a mediation session that started May 25, 2012 at noon. The strike ends after five days.

REA members will be restoring their classroom and work areas packed up for the strike, and students are expected back in school for classes on Tuesday after a two-hour late start.

REA President Joyce Rosenau: "We are proud of the courage our members showed during the five days of our strike. We will remember this experience for many years."

REA President Joyce Rosenau: "Beyond doubt, a massive factor for us in this bargain was the support we saw and felt at every site, every day, every hour we were out on our picket lines. We were sustained by the words and actions from parents, students, community members, labor advocates, fellow educators, and local businesses in Reynolds, across Oregon, and across the country."

REA President Joyce Rosenau: "We knew what we were doing was important, but to have it affirmed by so many helped us get through the days of heavy rain and the days we wanted to be back in our schools."

Details of a tentative agreement are typically not shared until the constituents of the two parties can review them and conduct a ratification vote. REA members will try to meet next week to conduct a ratification vote, probably on Wednesday May 30.

The Reynolds school board has a regular business meeting scheduled June 13, but may try to conduct a ratification vote at its May 30 work session or an ad hoc public meeting.

Reynolds board again turns its tail and runs

From our May 23 Press Release —

The Reynolds school board has again chosen to leave the bargaining table early, and continues to not be serious about getting a deal done or understanding important education issues.

They moved on their previous ultimatum on financial issues, but gave a new ultimatum and again while the mediator was sharing the details with us, the school board abruptly left. The school board once more refused to engage us on conditions affecting our work and students.

We are willing to meet at any time and challenge the school board to join us in-person Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday, or Monday to get a deal done. We will meet with or without a mediator. The community, our parents, and students need a fair deal and a serious school board.

But despite glimmers of new approaches on Monday, today the school board reverted to past behaviors and left early, despite the hundreds of educators, parents, students, and community members who were encouraging them to do their jobs and get a deal done.

For over a year, we have had one primary message to this school board: come to the table and talk with us about a full contract.

Our priorities include student safety, planning time, and many other working and learning conditions. The last several months, the school board has insisted on ignoring these important issues talking almost exclusively about their often-fluctuating financial numbers.

In the last two years, the school board has laid off 220 employees while growing its surplus to over $18 million. This is way over the proportional average for Oregon school districts.

This school board behavior affects resources and programs and help for students. These are jobs the school board has taken from the community instead of doing what it reasonably and responsibly can for the local economy and our students.

School board paid for several security officers (one near flag)

School board claims aren't credible, we need solutions

The school board claims they have given REA all of the language we asked for. Not true. We wish they would listen to us about these important issues. What we see over and over from this school board and its advisors, especially their legal counsel Paul Dakopolis, is a lack of understanding our schools and students.

Often what the school board considers progress on their part is a mere withdrawal of onerous language they put forward, and reverting to status quo language. We need the school board to understand there are substantive problems in our schools and working conditions that need to be addressed for staff and students. Among the issues the school board has not acted on:

• We asked them to set up a process to address building safety and health concerns, and the school board members have refused.
• We asked them to set up a process and offer training to address student and staff safety concerns, and the school board members have refused.
• We asked them to add language to make sure all members have a chance to use the restroom during the work day. The school board members have refused. This lack of provision has led to serious health issues. The school board wants this to be up to each building principal's judgment (but the problem exists largely because of individual building principals).
• We have asked to be able to meet the wide diversity of working parent needs with parent/teacher conference scheduling. The school board members have refused.
• We have asked them to keep current contract language to ensure a fair process for layoffs and recalling employees back to work. The school board insists on dismissing people without a fair process.

The school board has insisted that we meet their arbitrary financial demands for over a year now. During this time, they refused to discuss working conditions and contract language unless we agreed to their subjective number. Even to this day, they repeat this number over and over like a mantra in public and in the negotiations. The school board instead needs to focus on the bargaining process, community, and school needs. Things the school board and its advisors aren't telling the community:

• On Sunday, we met the school board's financial demands, and they turned their own offer down.
• Monday morning we met their financial demands again. Despite their clamoring for this condition for over a year, when we gave it to them they ended the mediation session. 
• The school board continues to cry bankruptcy while at the same time proposing a 2012-13 budget that calls for millions in new staffing, equipment, programs, and administrators.

In recent years we have accepted pay freezes. Additional financial concerns we have with this school board, and why there's cause to distrust their claims:

• For the last five years, the school board has not spent an average of $914,582 annually on PERS costs that it budgeted. Where does that $4.5 million go?
• For the last five years, the school board has not spent an average of $834,613 on health insurance benefits that it budgeted.
• This is a combined average of $1,749,195 per year for the last five years in overestimated expenditures. Where does that $8.746 million go?

And the school board's approaches to finance the last few years has hit our local economy:

• In the 2009-10 school year the school board increased their year-end surplus by $10,838,736 from the previous year. They did this while laying off 150 teachers.
• In 2010-11 the school board increased the budget surplus by another $2,612,614. They then laid off 70 instructional assistants who work with students.
• In the last two years, the school board has laid off 220 employees while growing its surplus to over $18 million instead of keeping local jobs and class resources.

All these hits to our workload, the layoffs, and bad financial management have happened while administrator salaries and benefits rise.

There are signs of hope. May 2012 is the first time the school board has agreed to meet with us more than once in a calendar month during this five-month mediation process. The May 20/21 mediation session showed the school board was willing to put in substantive time instead of its typical 9:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. approach the last several months (often disappearing for hours in the middle).

We hope the school board is starting to understand there are complicated issues to address, and that bargaining is more than slapping a number on the table and leaving when you don't get your way.

Reynolds school board needs to stop hiding

How the Reynolds school board hides millions, cuts local jobs & classroom resources & student programs, then hides more millions

Caveat #1: The district acts as if this is all about financials, for educators it's about much more.
Surveys of REA members show that we feel even more strongly about working conditions and learning conditions like:

• Getting enough time to plan quality instruction for students.
• Student safety issues.
• Scheduling issues.

Caveat #2: Districts should be fiscally responsible and open and lauded for it. The Reynolds school board is not honest with the public about its finances, however, and seems unclear even among its own bargaining team members what the facts are.

Waiting out the school board tantrums…

The Reynolds school board proclaims it will not deign to come to the bargaining table to talk about real issues, days (now hours) before a strike, unless we meet their arbitrary financial line in the sand. There are years of reasons to not trust their budget numbers.

Solidarity cupcakes, from the February mediation session.

Superintendent Joyce Henstrand told REA members yesterday that if a strike happens, at all, she will cancel the remaining 20 or so days of school outright for the year. Leaving principals to do the report cards? A big cost savings for the district, sure, but four weeks of putting the burden on parents and the community for student time rather than bargain with educators?

While we remain at the bargaining table, ready to talk about real issues, these dramatics by the district and school board to evade bargaining leaves us drumming our fingers waiting for them to get serious and bring solutions.

The school board's behavior and petulance has already harmed our district and community and students, and threatens to do much worse.

Why the school board's claim, with $18 million in reserves, it can also be "bankrupt" is not credible

IF YOU READ NO FURTHER — The school board needs to be asked: "Every year you set aside millions more for salaries and benefits than you pay out. Why isn't that extra money going to keep jobs? Why isn't that extra money used to keep resources in the classrooms? Why are we going into a strike with that extra money not going to help our students and teachers now?

• In the 2009-10 school year the school board increased their year-end surplus by $10,838,736 from the previous year. They did this while laying off 150 teachers.
• In 2010-11 the school board increased the budget surplus by another $2,612,614. They then laid off 70 instructional assistants who work in the classrooms.
• In the last two years, the school board has laid off 220 employees while growing its surplus of over $18 million instead of keeping local jobs and class resources.
• We've taken hits to our income and losing take-home pay compared to the cost of living during these years, while admin salaries and benefits rise.

The Reynolds school board is way above the statewide average for reserve funds (see below). Fiscal responsibility is important, but it gets to a point where such a large ending fund balance instead of investing in classrooms and student programs is unwise.

Regional Audited Expenditures Comparison

2010-11 AUDITED	ENDING FUND BALANCE	PORTION OF EXPENDITURES	STATEWIDE AVERAGE	+/- DIFFERENCE FROM STATEWIDE AVERAGE
REYNOLDS	$18,618,114	20.8%	11.0%	+9.8%
GRESHAM	$12,714,159	14.2%	11.0%	+3.2%
PARKROSE	$2,230,299	7.8%	11.0%	-3.2%
PORTLAND	$31,541,472	7.3%	11.0%	-3.7%
N. CLACKAMAS	$6,351,528	4.9%	11.0%	-6.1%
CENTENNIAL	$5,267,188	10.4%	11.0%	-0.6%
DAVID-DOUGLAS	$7,750,939	8.9%	11.0%	-2.1%
AVERAGE		10.6%		-3.86

More questions for the school board and budget committee:

ADMINISTRATOR SALARIES

• In 2008-09 the District general fund budget stated $3,682,306 would be spent on administrator salaries.  The district actually spent 3,784,045 on administrator salaries.  The district spent $101,739 more on administrators than budgeted.
• In 2009-10 the District budgeted 3,162,630 but actually spent 3,364,592 on administrator salaries.  This is a difference of $201,962.
• In 2010-11 the District budgeted $3,327,495, but actually spent $3,623,592 on administrator salaries.  This is a difference of $296,097.

This means that since the start of the recession the District has spent $600,000 more on administrator salaries than it has budgeted.


Question: “What will the district budget be for administrator salaries next year, and who is going to make sure that the District does not continue to spend more than it budgets?"

According to audited data from 2001-02 to 2010-11, Gresham-Barlow, Portland, David Douglas, Centennial, Parkrose, and the North Clackamas Districts all decreased the percentage of their general fund expenditures that went to administrator salaries.  Reynolds is the only district in that group that actually increased our percentage for administrator salaries.  In 2001-02, 3.6% of the general fund budget went to administrator salaries.  In 2010-11, 4.1% went to administrator salaries.

Question: “What percentage of our general fund budget will go to administrator salaries for next year? Will Reynolds continue to be the only district in the region that increases its percentage for administrator salaries?"

HIDING BUDGETED FUNDS
According to audited data for the past five years ending in 2010-11, the school board annually budgets far more money for PERS and health insurance benefits than it actually spends.

• For the last five years, the school board has not spent an average of $914,582 annually on PERS costs that it had budgeted. Where does that $4.5 million go?
• Additionally, the District has not spent an average of $834,613 on health insurance benefits that it has stated it would spend.
• This is a combined average of $1,749,195 per year for the last five years in overestimated expenditures.  Where does that $8.746 million go?

Question: “Is it possible that the school board might avoid a teacher strike if it actually spent the money that it budgets on annual basis for employee costs?"

TELL THE SCHOOL BOARD TO MEET TEACHERS AT THE BARGAINING TABLE AND STAY UNTIL A CONTRACT IS DONE!

Theresa Delaney Davis (Chair) – theresa_delaney-davis@reynolds.k12.or.us 503.489.5316

Robert E. Lee – robert_lee@reynolds.k12.or.us 503.969.8447

Joe Teeny – joe_teeney@reynolds.k12.or.us 503.667.6630

Tamara Schaffner – tamara_schaffner@reynolds.k12.or.us 503.805.8687

Dane Nickerson – dane_nickerson@reynolds.k12.or.us 503.255.3879

5th grade teacher April Azizi on packing her classroom

Packing up a classroom is an emotional, exhausting experience for educators, their family, and friends. But for 5th grade teacher April Azizi, role modeling for her students and standing up for what she believes in is important. It's also served as a time of reflection for her and her husband on all she does for her students.

VICTORY! Event to train subs to cross our picket line canceled!

Today at the Multnomah ESD, an event to train substitute educators to work during a possible Reynolds EA strike was schedule from noon to 4:00 p.m.

Because of the work of REA members and supporters (including Jobs with Justice, We Are Oregon, IBEW, Occupy, parents, and others) with informational flyers, the handful of people who did show up for the training read the info and decided to not attend. The Multnomah ESD Superintendent came out to chat with us at our informational picket to let us know she was sending her staff out of the room and cancelled the training. She then called our OEA office in Gresham to confirm the cancellation.

Times are tough, and we appreciate the vast numbers of substitute educators who are making the choice to stand in solidarity for the working conditions and fair contract we all can benefit from!