Gilroy
– After meeting nine times this summer, the school district and
teachers’ unions are in tentative agreement over at least one of
five major 2004-05 contract issues.
By Lori Stuenkel
Gilroy – After meeting nine times this summer, the school district and teachers’ unions are in tentative agreement over at least one of five major 2004-05 contract issues.
The groups resolved a contract article relating to teacher transfers and reassignments within Gilroy Unified School District, according to Michelle Nelson, president of the Gilroy Teachers Association. The agreement will give teachers more of a choice, when possible, to remain where they’re at, Nelson said.
“One example is, why reassign someone against their wishes before even opening that position up to other people?” she said. “Another would be last-minute reassignments.”
Teachers also will be able to receive more hours of pay for moving back into classrooms at the beginning of the year.
They will be paid for up to 22 hours of moving after major construction, Nelson said, where they used to get paid for up to 15 hours.
Meanwhile, progress made on another hot-button item – teacher evaluations – will be placed on hold until the question of health and welfare benefits is resolved, Nelson said. The other major articles to be negotiated include salary, class size and safety.
GUSD has proposed changing the way it pays for health insurance, by covering Kaiser Permanente individual, couples, or family plans accordingly rather than paying the family rate for every employee, a so-called three-tiered program.
While employees under Kaiser Permanente would be fine with the plan, Nelson said, “it would mean more out-of-pocket (costs) for anybody who doesn’t have Kaiser.” About 58 percent of GUSD teachers have Kaiser.
The district has said it would save more than $400,000 by using the three-tier cap.
Teacher evaluations are still on the list of contract items to be hashed out, although Nelson said some progress has been made. Evaluations became an item of interest for both GUSD and teachers after a contentious teacher firing at Gilroy High School this spring. Some teachers and parents said the district lacked measurable evaluation criteria.
“We have started to talk about that, and the district and the association are looking at criteria and making them measurable,” Nelson said. “The good thing is, the district recognizes that (the current process) doesn’t work; it doesn’t work for the teachers and it doesn’t work for the administrators, either.
“We’re coming up with a list of documented strengths and weaknesses … a timeline for evaluations, and a better procedure.”
