COLUMBUS, OHIO TEACHERS MAKE REAL GAINS BY STRIKING

I salute the Columbus, Ohio teachers for going on strike. 94% of the teachers voted to go on strike but only 71% voted to accept the agreement negotiated to end it so not everyone was happy with the settlement. I like how they fought for and won better ventilation in their schools and much more.

Here are some of the details of the settlement as reported by WBNS10:

• A contractual guarantee that all student learning areas will be climate controlled no later than the start of the 2025-2026 school year, including installation of heating, ventilation, and air conditioning in buildings currently without HVAC, and in buildings that currently only have partial HVAC
• Reductions in class size caps in all grade bands, lowering the number of students in every classroom by two over the course of the contract;
• The first-ever limitations on the number of buildings assigned to each elementary art, music and P.E. teacher, with scheduling intended for one specialist per subject area per building;
• The first-ever contractual limitation on the number of CEA positions that can be outsourced to out-of-town corporations, thereby ensuring that our students are educated by experienced professionals from our local community; and
• A ground-breaking paid parental leave program for our teachers, as well as salary increases for each of the next three years which will help attract and retain the high-quality educators that our students deserve.

You can read the full agreement here.

Thanks to whoever put it out. It is informative. I saw in the Agreement, in addition to what is mentioned above, they won an improved disciplinary process for teachers that includes the ability for teachers to grieve any formal reprimand, some pretty decent wording on academic freedom, not only reduced class size but also a reduction in the number of classes teachers can teach as a maximum load in middle and high schools.

As for salary increases, this is from NBC 4:

The contract gives CEA members a 4% annual raise for the duration of the three-year deal. Reports state that the union was initially seeking an 8% annual raise.

Maybe we should use some of the language from Columbus to give some ideas on gains New York City UFTers can make that won't cost the city much money but are absolutely essential if we are going to get our schools back to some kind of sanity.

The Columbus disciplinary process (see below) won't be totally applicable to us because terminations of tenured pedagogues are covered under NYS law here but what is below certainly would apply to us as a model for bringing back grievances for letters in the file like we had up until 2005 and for a fair disciplinary process for non-tenured people. Take a look.