Teacher’s Association says district responsibilities require
extra work without extra pay
Gilroy – The Gilroy Teacher’s Association and the district have agreed to work toward a compromise on class size and hours of a work day, representatives from the two entities recently reported.
Since the GTA and the Gilroy Unified School District already settled salary negotiations in June, these two issues are the final pieces of the puzzle. If the two entities come to an agreement by the end of April, then they can move forward on 2006-2007 negotiations, GTA President Michelle Nelson said.
“It’s a way to condense the process and present the interests on one sheet of paper and to express our interests,” Nelson said. “We both would like to look at hours and we both would like to look at class size.”
The GTA would like to more clearly define the time required to both teach, complete a variety of student assessments, implement new programs and attend meetings and staff development seminars.
“During the past few years, instructional techniques, teacher accountability and new programs have created additional duties for bargaining unit members,” the GTA stated in the report presented to the board. “Even without considering all the numerous changes in education, unit members spend a great deal of time in grade level meetings, staff development, implementing new programs and performing student assessments. These increasing demands on teacher’s time have occurred without a corresponding increase in adequate compensation.”
But the GUSD “has an interest in increasing student instructional minutes and providing students with added learning opportunities. To provide sufficient time for staff development, teacher collaboration and administrative mandates, the district has an interest in increasing the time available for district-directed and principal-directed meetings.”
Still, the district said it shares the union’s desire to reduce time demands on teachers and proposed that the two units “brainstorm options, consider the best use of funding and bargaining unit members’ time and create new solutions for the identified problem.”
Regarding class size, the union would like a cap to be place on class size for grades four through 12. The state class size reduction program only applies to kindergarten through third grade.
In the district’s view, the lowest class size possible is important, but it also needs to assess the affordability of the ongoing cost of making a move. The union and GUSD will meet Thursday at 9am in the district office.
The meeting is open to the public.
