D.C. Public Schools is scheduled to begin negotiations on a new contract with its teachers union next week, a grueling process that took nearly three years and the intervention of a mediator last go-around. Neither party wants a repeat of what Washington Teachers’ Union President Nathan Saunders calls “a movie miniseries in and of itself.”
But DCPS said it does not expect to bargain over the controversial Impact teacher evaluation tool that attaches as much as 50 percent of a teacher’s rating to student test scores. And Saunders said in an interview, “My middle name is ‘changes to Impact.'”
A spokesman for DCPS confirmed that Jason Kamras, chief of human capital, will meet with Saunders Oct. 20 to begin negotiations but declined to comment on Chancellor Kaya Henderson’s priorities.
The current terms negotiated by former Chancellor Michelle Rhee and former union President George Parker are set to expire in September 2012. The groundbreaking contract increased salaries by 20 percent over five years, allowing teachers to reach salaries of $130,000, and implemented a performance-pay program.
It was far from an easy road. The dean of Howard University’s law school was called in to mediate the standoff between DCPS and the union. The president of a national teachers union also intervened.
Hassan Charles, a spokesman for Henderson, declined to comment on the school system’s priorities for the year ahead.
Henderson was Rhee’s deputy during negotiations of the current contract. She led much of the bargaining, and her team developed the evaluation tool.
DCPS is required to negotiate only teachers’ working conditions and salaries. “Impact is not a negotiable item, hence we do not expect it to be part of the negotiation,” Charles said.
Many teachers view Impact as “a sorting and terminating tool,” according to a report from Mayor Vincent Gray’s education transition team. The union has gone to court to protest firings because of poor evaluations — more than 300 in the past two years.
Saunders said he also will fight for a document with simpler language so that teachers better understand their rights; labor-related issues involving early childhood education; and matters involving athletic trainers and special-education teachers.
