Negotiations

IRC Teachers,

The district and IRCEA have signed Temporary Agreements on the items brought to the Special Magistrate at the recent Impasse Hearing. The district and IRCEA have agreed to accept the Magistrate's recommendations.

Below are the actual TA's signed last week along with IRCEA's rational for each Temporary Agreement.

ALL TEACHERS vote the week of June 3rd on this new contract. You will receive specific directions to vote on-line next week. Please take the time to read over the TA's and the other TA's found on the IRCEA website.

5/24/10 Signed Temporary Agreements

Rationale for accepting the Special Magistrate's Recommendations

RACE TO THE TOP - Update

The school district has applied for the Race to the Top Grant money by signing a Memorandum of Understanding with the State. IRCEA did not support this application because the district refused to sign a separate MOU with IRCEA to protect teachers from the school board imposing Race to the Top items. For example: IRCEA and the district have been at impasse two years in a row. Allotted Time for Professional Development has been part of this impasse both years. The RTTT MOU with the state contains many items related to Professional Development. If IRCEA opens negotiations with the district regarding PD, and the district wants to significantly increase the amount of time teachers must spend in PD in order to comply with the RTTT Grant guidelines and IRCEA does not agree with the methods to accomplish this, then the district could impose their will upon teachers. This ability to impose their will on teachers destroys the collaborative format needed to negotiate items that will significantly change our profession.

We shall see what the future of RTTT will be.

Please channel your questions on the TA's and Voting through your IRCEA representatives and I will compile the questions/answers and share with all teachers prior to voting day.

As always, thanks for your support for the IRCEA negotiating team. It takes many hours of hard work to negotiate a contract.

Special Magistrate Recommendations

Here is how this works:

The Impasse hearing conducted on Tuesday, April 6th of this week concluded that same day. Both parties presented evidence to support each stance regarding the length of the contract day for teachers, Salary Schedule and STEP, and provisions for staff development, all other items where eithered agreed to by both parties or taken "off the table". Both parties will present briefs to the Special Magistrate by Monday April 19th.

The Special Magistrate will render his recommendation to the school board within 15 working days following the presentation of the briefs. Then, the school board will meet in a public meeting to decide if they will follow the magistrates recommendations (if IRCEA also agrees with the recommendations a Temporary Agreement will be drafted and signed) or impose other language on the bargaining unit. From there, ALL teachers will vote on the agreed to items AND any items imposed by the school board. Teachers are encouraged to attend this school board meeting where IRCEA will again present (and so will the district) our stance on these items the special magistrate worked on. More to follow on date, time, and venue for this School Board special meeting.

FS. 447.403 on Impasse Resolutions states:

(3) The special magistrate shall hold hearings in order to define the area or areas of dispute, to determine facts relating to the dispute, and to render a decision on any and all unresolved contract issues. The hearings shall be held at times, dates, and places to be established by the special magistrate in accordance with rules promulgated by the commission. The special magistrate shall be empowered to administer oaths and issue subpoenas on behalf of the parties to the dispute or on his or her own behalf. Within 15 calendar days after the close of the final hearing, the special magistrate shall transmit his or her recommended decision to the commission and to the representatives of both parties by registered mail, return receipt requested. Such recommended decision shall be discussed by the parties, and each recommendation of the special magistrate shall be deemed approved by both parties unless specifically rejected by either party by written notice filed with the commission within 20 calendar days after the date the party received the special magistrate's recommended decision. The written notice shall include a statement of the cause for each rejection and shall be served upon the other party.

(4) If either the public employer or the employee organization does not accept, in whole or in part, the recommended decision of the special magistrate:

(a) The chief executive officer of the governmental entity involved shall, within 10 days after rejection of a recommendation of the special magistrate, submit to the legislative body of the governmental entity involved a copy of the findings of fact and recommended decision of the special magistrate, together with the chief executive officer's recommendations for settling the disputed impasse issues. The chief executive officer shall also transmit his or her recommendations to the employee organization;

(b) The employee organization shall submit its recommendations for settling the disputed impasse issues to such legislative body and to the chief executive officer;

(c) The legislative body or a duly authorized committee thereof shall forthwith conduct a public hearing at which the parties shall be required to explain their positions with respect to the rejected recommendations of the special magistrate;

Florida Administrative Code Rules state:

60CC-3.008 Approval of Recommended Decision by Parties.

The recommended decision of the special magistrate shall be deemed accepted by the parties except as to those recommendations which a party specifically rejects, by filing a written notice with the Commission and serving a copy on the other party, within twenty calendar days after the date the recommended decision was received by that party. The written notice shall include a statement of the cause for rejection of each recommendation.

Specific Authority 447.207(1) FS. Law Implemented 447.403(3) FS. History–New 5-6-79, Amended 7-14-83, Formerly 38D-19.09, 38D-19.009.

MOU Extending AC teacher evaluations to May 30th

Below find the Temporary Agreements signed by the SDIRC and IRCEA during recent negotiations and at the Impasse hearing.

4-10 TA's Part 1

4-10 TA's Part 2

4-10 TA's Part 3

All notes and website updates have been compiled into one Word document. It is 25 pages long and available for any who would like to review the information from Negotiations for the 2009-2010 school year.

2009-2010 Negotiations Notes, Links, Proposals and Updates

(All links to proposals and documents work, hold Ctrl+click the link)

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