Today's news AP puts it in the STRANGE category....
and I find from Berkeley News its NOT WORKING PAST 7-SEVEN hours not 8)
Lawrence Calls BUSD Teachers’ Labor Actions Legal Activity
J. Douglas Allen-Taylor, Berkeley Daily Planet, Page 1, 3/1/2005
ci.berkeley.ca.us
With a week-long teacher work slowdown "having an effect," according to Berkeley Unified School District Public Information Officer Mark Coplan, Superintendent Michele Lawrence has sent out a letter to teachers and community residents explaining the district’s position in the dispute.
Berkeley teachers have worked without a contract for the past two years, and contract negotiations are now being handled through a state-appointed mediator.
Two weeks ago, to enforce their demands for a contract and a pay raise, members of the Berkeley Federation of Teachers union announced a district-wide "work to rule" action in which most teachers are refusing to work outside their contracted 7 hour work day.
A bargaining session with the state mediator is scheduled for next week.
Word of the slowdown has spread rapidly in Berkeley, and Coplan said that the superintendent’s office is "getting a lot of calls and e-mails from parents asking questions."
In response, Lawrence sent out a prepared statement to Berkeley residents late Monday night as a "community version" of a letter placed in teachers and staff pay envelopes on Monday morning. In it, Lawrence called the "work to rule" action a "legal activity" growing out of unresolved contract issues over "class size caps and total compensation."
Lawrence tells residents that the work action "could mean alternative plans will have to be made for special evening events, field trips or some meetings."
On the salary issue, Lawrence holds out little hope for a raise in the near future, saying that "the district budget is very precarious, and has little room for maneuvering." She adds that "at the time of the signing of the last BFT contract, the goal was to achieve teacher compensation comparable to other districts. This goal continues to be met; compensation is similar to other
districts."
On class sizes, she writes that "the district is committed to the class size ratios we promised in Measure B. The class size averages will be 20:1 in grades K-3, 26:1 in grades 4-5, and 28:1 in grades 6-12."
In her letter, as she has done in her public pronouncements and interviews on the action, Lawrence walks a tightrope, acknowledging that Berkeley teachers deserve a raise and sympathizing with their frustration at the lack of a raise while making the case that the money isn’t there in the budget. Instead of fighting on the local level, she says that Berkeley citizens should turn their attention to Sacramento.
"I am asking you and members of our community to write the governor and our legislators to help them understand the necessity of ’guaranteed’ funding for public education, and the need for revenue increases, not cuts, to balance the state budget," she writes. "The education of California’s children should not be tossed aside in an effort to maintain ill-considered tax cuts. Now is the time to tell our state and federal lawmakers that we value public education and the people who dedicate their lives to educating children."
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old news report---
Teachers Refuse to Give Homework
AP
BERKELEY, Calif. - Berkeley students aren't getting written homework assignments because teachers are refusing to grade work on their own time after two years with no pay raise.
So far, a black history event had to be canceled and parents had to staff a middle-school science fair because teachers are sticking strictly to the hours they're contracted to work.
"Teachers do a lot with a little. All of a sudden, a lot of things that they do are just gone. It's demoralizing," said Rachel Baker, who has a son in kindergarten.
Teachers say they don't want to stop volunteering their time.
"It's hard," said high school math teacher Judith Bodenhauser. "I have stacks of papers I haven't graded. Parents want to talk to me; I don't call them back."
The action was organized by the Berkeley Federation of Teachers, which wants a cost-of-living increase next year.
District Superintendent Michele Lawrence said she sympathizes with teachers but said there isn't money for raises. She blamed Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger (news - web sites) for not providing as much money to education as promised.
Schwarzenegger spokesman Vince Sollitto said the governor has promised that the bulk of new funding in next year's budget, $3 billion, will go to education.
Barry Fike, president of the teachers union, said the district will be getting more money next year and that teachers want a share.
But district spokesman Mark Coplan said the district still faces a deficit for a number of reasons, including rising health care costs and the governor's plan to shift some big costs from the state to the district.
Fike said teachers are willing to start paying some health care costs, but without a raise that would amount to a pay cut.
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The union declared an impasse in negotiations last June and has not had a contract for two years.
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BERKELEY
Teachers, district hit contract impasse
- Michael Collier
Friday, June 4, 2004
Teachers in the Berkeley Unified School District have declared an impasse in negotiations for a new contract, their union leaders said Thursday.
The Berkeley Federation of Teachers is asking the state Public Employment Relations Board to assign a mediator to help speed contract talks, union president Barry Fike said.
"We are not happy about making such a serious declaration," Fike said, "but after well over a year of negotiations, we have reached agreement on but two relatively minor articles."
More than 700 teachers in the 9,000-student public school system have been working under a contract that expired last June, Fike said.
They have asked for a pay increase that reflects the district's financial difficulties in light of the state budget crisis, but say district negotiators have been "unwilling to meet halfway," Fike said.
District officials were not available Thursday for comment.
Teachers are also upset that Superintendent Michele Lawrence has reassigned four teachers at Rosa Parks Elementary school to other schools next year, said Fred Glass, communications director for the California Federation of Teachers and a parent of a student at the school.
The teacher transfers came after a majority of the school's staff signed a petition last month asking the superintendent to transfer the school's principal.
Berkeley teachers will protest the transfers at a rally outside the school today, Glass said.
Lawrence could not be reached for comment.
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