Teachers unions and Department of Education bureaucrats will be seeing a lot of each other in the coming year. Mostly in courtrooms.
The Providence Journal calls one court challenge “inevitable”, and rightly so. Commissioner Gist’s assertion that the Basic Education Program, or BEP, authorizes her to alter the way teachers are assigned to job openings has rankled union leadership. These leaders have been waiting for the first opportunity to challenge Gist’s directive, and have found it with the Collaborative. RIFT, the Rhode Island AFT affiliate, represents teachers and assistants at the Northern RI Collaborative, whose contract expired June 30. Forty-five staff members have been laid off, and will be rehired based on qualifications and seniority, rather than seniority alone.
The RIFT’s Michael Mullane claims the NRIC action “violates the contract”. But with its expiration, this may be another challenge to the law that mandates a contract remain in effect until another is agreed upon.
If the court sides with RIDE and NRIC, the decision could be a final nail in the seniority coffin.
RIFT is planning to file another suit in the coming days. Gist’s overhaul of the recertification process includes the elimination of teacher iPlans. Many teachers have been working for three or more years completing professional development and electronic iPlans in order to renew their teaching credentials. Union leaders will argue that teachers fulfilled the iPlan requirements as directed by RIDE, and the work should be honored. If not, teachers should be reimbursed for the money spent on conferences and other PD. RIFT is seeking at least two teachers from each district to sign the complaint.
From the beginning, the iPlan seemed a bureaucratic behemoth. Teachers required extensive, and expensive, training to understand the process and be able to use the technology. The paperwork alone was enormous, and “professional development” was too loosely defined. The bureaucrats at the Department of Education wasted a fortune putting into place an ineffective recertification tool. Now new bureaucrats have their own ideas, and teachers are left waiting in the dark.
Teachers near completion of their iPlans should be grandfathered, and union is right to argue on their behalf.
