Among city’s contract demands: flexibility to lay off teachers
A much smaller pool of jobless-but-salaried teachers and slimmed down rubber rooms are two of the requests on the city’s list of contract demands.
The list of demands, which had been kept secret for months as the city and United Federation of Teachers tried to reach an agreement, was included as part of a legal complaint filed against the city by the UFT. The complaint was sent to reporters yesterday by Department of Education spokesman David Cantor. The uniondistributed its own list of demands to chapter leaders back in September.
Many of the demands are recycled from years past, but there are several new ones tucked into the three-page document. For years, Chancellor Joel Klein has trumpeted Chicago’s method of laying off teachers, which gives out-of-work teachers a year to remain on salary and find a new job in the schools. Klein’s new list of demands would shrink that window to four months.
Another provision would force any teacher who’s been charged with misconduct or incompetence off of the city’s payroll while their case proceeds through termination hearings, effectively decreasing the rubber rooms’ ranks.
The city’s decision to release its contract demands is yet another sign that the city and teachers union havegiven up on negotiations and resigned themselves to state mediation. In a letter sent to the state Public Employment Relations Board, attorneys for the city agreed with the union’s determination that the two sides had reached an impasse.
The next step is for the state’s Public Employment Relations board to confirm that talks have indeed stalled and then bring in a mediator to re-launch negotiations. Failing mediation, a fact-finding panel would then be called in to make recommendations for a settlement.
I’ve summarized some of the city’s demands below:
Salaries
- The city wants to pay teachers more for working in hard-to-staff schools, in specialties that are in demand, and for having a “proven ability” to raise student achievement.