San Benito High School teachers, irked by the district’s
decision to change the school’s class schedule without teacher
approval, are planning to file an unfair labor practice charge this
week, the teachers union president said Tuesday.
Hollister – San Benito High School teachers, irked by the district’s decision to change the school’s class schedule without teacher approval, are planning to file an unfair labor practice charge this week, the teachers union president said Tuesday.
Teachers will charge the district with unilaterally changing the terms and conditions of their employment without bargaining, San Benito High School California Teachers Association President Chuck Schallhorn said.
“Right now we’re in the process of putting together the paperwork,” he said.
Once completed, the paperwork documenting the charge will be filed with the Public Employment Relations Board, a quasi-judicial administrative agency charged with administering the collective bargaining statutes covering public employees in California.
The charge would then be evaluated to determine if sufficient factual information had been submitted. If the information provided is sufficient to determine the district had violated employment agreements, PERB would issue a formal complaint and allow the district to respond to the charges.
According to the agency’s Web site, a mediator would then be sent in to help the district and teacher’s union come to a settlement. If the charges are deemed insufficient, they would be thrown out.
The action by the teacher’s union resulted from the district’s decision to change the school’s class schedule from a seven period block schedule with an optional zero period for struggling students to an eight period block schedule that makes the school day longer for both students and teachers.
“We’re trying to get the current administration to follow the law,” Schallhorn said. “We want to be able to focus on helping the kids.”
Although aware of the unfair practice charge, Superintendent Jean Burns Slater has not yet seen the paperwork and could not comment. Slater does not believe the district acted unfairly by changing the class schedule.
“We had a signed, tentative agreement with the teachers for the change,” Slater said. “I think that anytime someone calls someone else unfair it doesn’t benefit anyone.”
The schedule change was negotiated and finalized on June 7, but it was never ratified by the teachers because contract negotiations have not yet been completed, Schallhorn said.
SBHS teachers have been working under the terms of an expired contract for over a year and are in the process of negotiating a new contract with the district. Negotiations between the teachers union and the district began last January, but stalled in June when the district’s chief negotiator unilaterally declared the two sides had reached at impasse.
Both parties returned to the bargaining table in August, but have so far failed to come to an agreement.
“If this current contract were to be ratified, this would go away,” Schallhorn said. “This unsettled contract is not helping anyone, it’s diverting attention from the students for both teachers and administrators.”
Schallhorn denied that the union’s action was a negotiating tactic aimed at hastening a contract agreement. “It certainly could be perceived that way, but it is not.”
Brett Rowland covers education for the Free Lance. He can be reached at 831-637-5566 ext. 330 or [email protected]
