Plunderbund reports on the disputes between the school board and the teachers in Reynoldburg, Ohio.
The district gets high ratings from the state, even though poverty has steadily increased in the student body and nearly half the students live in poverty. Yet despite these accomplishments, the school board has not kept pace with teachers’ salaries and is now making a divisive contract offer.
Plunderbund writes:
“Reynoldsburg has consistently performed among the top school districts in Ohio, and over the past four years has shown continued improvement based on reporting by the Ohio Department of Education. In 2010, the district received a rating of “Effective”. In the three succeeding years, the district advanced to receive ratings of “Excellent”, then “Excellent with Distinction”, and then received a grade of “A” on the state’s new report card last year. In all three of those years, the district met 100% of the state’s performance indicators.
“Even more impressive, the teachers in Reynoldsburg have accomplished this feat with a changing student population – specifically an increase in the number of students living in poverty of over 10% (from 37.6% to 47.9%). With socioeconomic status being a huge factor in student achievement, such gains on state indicators simply cannot be ignored.
“Instead of recognizing these accomplishments on the part of the teaching staff, the Reynoldsburg School Board has chosen to engage in negotiation tactics designed to divide the teaching staff, implying that a great disparity exists among the teaching ranks. The performance of the district as a whole contradicts that notion.”
Nonetheless the school board is trying to drive a wedge among teachers by changing health benefits based on marital status.
“If Reynoldsburg truly wants to recruit good teachers and retain the excellent teachers they already have (as evidenced by the district’s improving performance), then the School Board should quit messing around and seriously reflect on how their actions are driving away experienced teachers. Instead of eliminating benefits packages that, by their own admission, most other districts have in place, they should retain the benefits for married teachers so that young, talented unmarried teachers don’t feel the need to seek employment in a district that has a better benefits package. That’s part of retaining teachers in a competitive environment, especially when the salary schedule is so similar.
“And regarding the salary schedule, they should seek to increase it across the board, but especially for the large number of teachers with Master’s degrees who should be most tempted to look to competing districts that will pay them more for that extra experience (that may also help pay off the student loans required to obtain the degree).
“The Reynoldsburg School Board thinks it is being innovative and forward thinking in trying to attract and retain teachers, but their misguided information, deceptive marketing, and lack of understanding of the “competitive teaching marketplace” has them driving a wedge between the excellent teachers that they already have employed in the district and instead is driving their best teachers away.
“Instead of playing games, the Reynoldsburg School Board should listen to the teachers who are leading the way in improving the district’s overall performance. While School Board members come and go, it’s the teachers who will be there for decades, continuing to have a positive influence on the lives of the children and families of Reynoldsburg.”
Lovely. Let’s set one employee against another! :
“There are two kinds of inequities involved in our current health insurance rules. First, imagine Faith and Hope, two great teachers, both single. Faith gets married and takes a family plan from the district. Immediately taxpayers are investing about $10,000 more a year on Faith than on Hope, despite the fact that they are both equally good at their jobs.
For Hope, this amounts to a penalty for her making the lifestyle choice of staying single. That’s seriously unfair. Now let’s talk about inequity to the taxpayers. It turns out that Faith’s new husband has a job with an employer who offers coverage. But they like the Reynoldsburg plan better, so they both go on it. Faith’s husband’s employer now is free of cost for him, but Reynoldsburg taxpayers are picking up his coverage, despite the fact that he provides no benefit whatever to Reynoldsburg students. That’s unfair to taxpayers. The board’s proposal is designed to [enact] one-size-fits-all inequitable coverage, and replace it with cash payments that teachers can use to select the best products for themselves. Not only is unfairness eliminated, but teachers have more ability to choose what’s right for them.”
This is nonsense, by the way. All they’re doing is pushing the inequity in the other direction. The “idea!” is to drop health care benefits and give employees the “choice!” of purchasing a private plan on an exchange. But this penalizes older teachers, because they will pay more than younger teachers (the exchange is age-rated).
They’re trying to get rid of older more experienced teachers to save on staffing costs.
I have a suggestion for them. They could stop contracting with Ohio’s huge, corrupt rip-off online charter industry and sending public money down that black hole and save a bundle and then they wouldn’t have to push out older more experienced teachers. Win/win!
Thank goodness ed reformers didn’t succeed when they backed union-busting in Ohio. These women still have a union (and it is mostly women, let’s be blunt about who this particular race to the bottom on wages affects).
I imagine the anti-labor caucus in ed reform will be back for another round of attacks when Kasich wins re-election, so hopefully the good people of Ohio will beat them again.
Note the dog whistle of sexism in Reynoldsburg’s proposal – teaching is “for the girls” and the lil’ lady should just bat her eyes and hitch up with a guy carrying health insurance. This is the true belief of the caveman caucuses now oozing as far right Republicans in the Midwest. In Wisconsin it was “boy” unions like police and fire are good, “girl” unions like teaching and nursing are bad. Why women still vote Republican in Ohio is confounding. Throw in ageism, too, by suggesting older, veteran teachers with families are a burden to taxpayers.
Of course, younger teachers DO get married and start families. I talk to younger and older teachers in Reynoldsburg and they are disgusted. Look for churn as teachers leave.
By way of anecdotal story, the company I work at does not give you a stipend for waiving health insurance and getting it elsewhere; however, if you choose health insurance for your spouse, and your spouse can get it through his/her employer, you pay a penalty on top of premiums. I do not take the insurance, and my husband and i pay premiums to his employer for coverage, but not a penalty.
Meanwhile, if you are in a domestic partnership, where I work says they will give you a RAISE as a gross up because insurance premiums penalize you for not being married. I don’t know if anyone has told them they are in a domestic partnership and clammed their raise.
Ridiculousness, but great PR as a domestic partnership friendly firm….that penalizes married couples. Now, I don’t care one way or the other, but they can’t have it both ways, and yet, they do.
I went for the waiver and we used my spouse’s policy. I did use that fact to get another $5000 added to my severance package. Spent that on an education degree. Was I an idiot?
The Reynoldsburg Education Association filed a 10-day strike notice today with the State Employee Relations Board. 😦 The School Board is entrenched with a philosophy direct from Michelle Rhee.
http://www.plunderbund.com/2014/08/25/reynoldsburg-school-boards-proposal-direct-from-michelle-rhee-organization/
Thank you for shaing this! Reynoldsburg teachers are wonderful and deserve a contract that shows respect for all they have accomplishes!
It is amazing and wonderful to see our situation being discussed in a national forum by Diane! I am a teacher in Reynoldsburg. I am not a spokesperson for the REA, but I do have permission to share with you the latest. Sunday evening the REA voted 97% to reject the BOE’s latest offer http://bit.ly/1rrobSH and today at 3 pm the notice of intent to strike was served to the BOE http://www.abc6onyourside.com/news/features/top-stories/stories/reynoldsburg-teachers-file-notice-strike-10-days-34928.shtml#.VA5POqPgp
Community members have formed support pages such as Raiders We Are Strong on Facebook.
And as much as an individual I would LOVE to join in the conversation with other commenters, I think I’d be violating collective bargaining rules by doing so.