UPDATE: January 25 Meeting Summaries
- Alex's Pen
- Jan 26, 2024
- 6 min read
Updated: Jan 27, 2024
If you would like a quick timeline of collective bargaining in ACPS please read our "Collective Bargaining: A History So Far" article.
Today was a busy day for the collective bargaining process in ACPS. Both sides of the collective bargaining coin had their own meetings today, signaling a significant step forward in determining what a collective bargaining resolution will look like for ACPS employees.
The first meeting came today at 4:30 PM when the EAA Board of Directors met at Alexandria City High School. According to a member who wishes to remain anonymous, the EAA board of directors discussed a number of different things including:
First order of business was a campaign pitch from Carol Bauer (1) in her bid to become VEA President. Details about that election will be released when available.
On January 24 the EAA Executive Committee met to reseach information about full-time President funding. Basically, this means that the Union President would be its own fulltime position. More information needs to be collected about this before it moves forward.
The executive committee also discussed potential work that needs to be done to the EAA office which includes tending to the HVAC, spot floor replacements, and general cleaning.
The executive committee talked about an inquiry VEA made into the elections for the NEA Delegates. More details below.
EAA Vice President, Mary Gaddis, details about the VEA inquiry were given. It was stated that the nature of the inquiry was due to a miscommunication about the timeline on when ballots were delivered. Counting of the ballots for NEA delegates have been postponed until the conclusion of the inquiry.
EAA President, Dawn Lucas, reported that Tim Beaty won the special election in Alexandria District A after receiving the endorsement from APACE.
Members who wish to be a part of APACE need to contribute to the group to enroll.
There was a collective bargaining committee meeting on January 10 where they discussed filling out more authorization cards, brainstorming different committees and negotiating teams. Potential for T-Shirts!
MOST IMPORTANT: Next EAA collective bargaining committee meeting will be on January 31 and it will be virtual. During this meeting the committee will be discussing the collective bargaining resolution drafts.
This is an important meeting for union members to understand collective bargaining in ACPS. Please be in attendance if you can be there. A way to RSVP will be made available, according to EAA leadership.
There is an upcoming election to select who will represent VEA District H. More details will be released soon.
Our VEA contact and UniServ Director, Fabricio Rodriguez, detailed times when are appropriate times a member should contact their UniServ Director. This times include:
You are contacted by Child Protective Services or the police
You are being investigated, disciplined, reprimanded, suspended, or dismissed.
A student or parent threatens you.
School division leadership or human resources contacts you for a meeting.
You receive an unsatisfactory evaluation or are placed on an improvement plan.
You want to know if you can file a grievance.
You have questions about policies or regulations that your worksite leader/rep cannot answer.
For advice on any other employment-related matter that your worksite leader/rep cannot answer.
I'm Here Badges to support LGBTQIA+ individuals will be made available soon.
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The ACPS School Board's collective bargaining committee meeting was at 6:30 PM. In short, during this meeting the collective bargaining committee went over the committee's collective bargaining resolution draft. In attendance were committee members Michelle Rief, Ashely Simpson-Baird, Meagan Alderton, Abdel Elnoubi, Superintendent Melanie Kay-Wyatt, ACPS attorney Robert Falconi, and another advisor whose name I missed (will update this article later if I learn it).
The conversation began with a history of collective bargaining from the committee's perspective. Before moving into a discussion about various items within the draft. The biggest topics covered were which groups were covered in collective bargaining, what topics would be negotiated over, and the conditions by which employees would select their exclusive collective bargaining representative. After the conclusion of the draft's discussion the meeting adjourned.
More details about the collective bargaining meeting are below:
Meeting is called to order and Chairperson Michelle Rief explains the background on how we have gotten to this January 25th meeting.
The collective bargaining committee recognizes that they must respond to the EAA's affidavit requesting collective bargaining by February 13, 2024. School Board must answer the collective bargaining question at the February 8, 2024 School Board meeting (2).
The committee went over a draft of a resolution to formally answer "yes" to the collective bargaining question. The committee voted to bring this resolution to the School Board meeting on February 8, 2024. Unanimous yes vote to advance the resolution to the School Board.
IMPORTANT NOTE = This resolution is simply answering the question "Should ACPS employees have collective bargaining?" The exact conditions of collective bargaining will be hammered out in the coming weeks.
Committee discusses their proposed timeline to bring a collective bargaining resolution to the School Board to vote. Important dates include a public hearing on collective bargaining on February 29, 2024 and March 21, 2024 when the committee proposes to bring the resolution draft to the School Board "for action" (aka vote). (Timeline linked here)
IMPORTANT NOTE = This resolution would be setting the official terms of collective bargaining.
Committee discusses various aspects of their collective bargaining resolution draft. There were 2 drafts of a collective bargaining resolution submitted. One from the EAA and one from the collective bargaining committee. The committee discussed their draft and discussed the EAA draft only when to compare it to their draft. If you want to read a comparison of the two documents please read our "Collective Bargaining Drafts Comparison and Analysis" article.
The committee went over important definitions to define what bargaining units they would recognize in ACPS. These bargaining units are:
Administrative Employees = people like principals, vice principals, supervisors, etc.
Licensed Personnel = people like teachers, counselors, specialists, and others who need recognized credentials to perform their job.
Education Support Professionals = did not define it more than "all Employees, as defined herein, except Licensed Personnel, including 10-month, 11-month, and 12-month Education Support Professionals."
The committee discussed that Licensed Personnel and Education Support Professionals ARE being given collective bargaining rights. Administrative Employees ARE NOT being given collective bargaining rights.
Abdel Elnoubi posed a question about administrative employees like front office staff. The committee will be discussing whether to make them their own bargaining unit as they have done in Arlington.
The committee discussed that during the first year of collective bargaining only 4 "topics" can be negotiated over and 2 "topics" will be added to the negotiations every agreement after that. They did not discuss what would constitute a "topic" for collective bargaining.
The committee then discussed typical rights and responsibilities for employees and the employer.
The committee talked about the process an employee representative group would have to go through to become ACPS employee's exclusive bargaining agent. The first step is for an employee representative group, like the EAA, to get 30% of employees to make their request to be on the ballot. Once the ballot is set then ACPS employees will vote on who they want to be their exclusive bargaining agent. The committee is proposing that 30% of employees must participate in the election in order for it to be verified. If employees fail to meet the 30% threshold another election will occur. If that election also results in "non-certified" then collective bargaining is effectively dead at this time.
The 30% threshold triggered a discussion where member Elnoubi questioned the 30% participation requirement, stating that their elections to become school board members did not have a voter participation requirement. Members Alderton and Simpson-Baird expressed their support for a 30% participation threshold for now, because they had concerns about too few people making a decision for such a large organization. Member Alderton also stated that the voting participation threshold should not be "too high." The committee decided to keep the 30% participation threshold in the draft for now.
The committee then discussed how conflicts that arise during this process would potentially be resolved.
The committee expressed the desire to begin negotiations by April 15. While that is close to when the budget needs to be passed, the committee said that due to the limited scope of bargaining it is possible to start negotiations on April 15.
The committee discussed a clause that if both parties agree to a collective bargaining agreement but don't get the funding from city council then they need to go back to the negotiating table.
After concluding this portion of the discussion, the meeting was adjourned.
As of the publishing of this article, the recording of the meeting has not been released. This article will be updated as soon as the video is uploaded to the School Board achieve.
As mentioned in the notes, if you want a more detailed explanation on what is in the collective bargaining resolution drafts and an analysis on it from my perspective please read our "Collective Bargaining Drafts Comparison and Analysis" article.
Thanks for reading.
-Alex's Pen
RELATED ARTICLES
COLLECTIVE BARGAINING REFERENCE MATERIALS
REFERENCS
3.) ACPS School Board Collective Bargaining January 25 Meeting (Pending)
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