Representatives of the Washington Teachers’ Union (WTU) and D.C. Public Schools (DCPS) were scheduled to come to the table to negotiate the terms of a new collective bargaining agreement for thousands of public school teachers.
However, sources close to the negotiations said neither DCPS Chancellor Lewis D. Ferebee nor any other central office representative showed up at the Office of Labor Relations and Collective Bargaining in Northwest to participate in the discussions.
The meeting on Tuesday came 72 days after the expiration of the WTU’s 2019-2023 collective bargaining agreement and more than six months after WTU’s collective bargaining team submitted a list of recommendations to DCPS.
DCPS officials didn’t respond to these recommendations, inspired in part by a WTU survey of 750 teachers, until the day of the D.C. Council’s educator retention hearing. Before then, teachers who helped write the recommendations said they didn’t hear much, if anything, from Ferebee or D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser (D).
Chrystal Puryear, a teacher of 24 years, said that, though she’s pleased to finally be sitting at the table with DCPS, the current state of negotiations not only reflects poorly on District leadership, but represents a pattern going back at least a decade in which contracts aren’t finalized until well after the midnight hour.
Puryear, a member of WTU’s collective bargaining team, expressed her desire that the 2023-2027 collective bargaining agreement be finalized and sent to WTU members for a vote within the next 30 days.
Collective bargaining team recommendations of note for Puryear center on teacher and student safety. She also touted the significance of the Department of General Services’ timely completion of work orders.
Puryear also said she doesn’t want to see teachers’ IMPACT evaluation scores negatively affected when they take sick leave. Another qualm that she expressed concerned teachers’ salaries not being enough to live comfortably in the District.
Such conditions have eaten at teacher morale in recent months, Puryear said. That’s why, for Puryear, DCPS not acting in good faith during contract negotiations would add insult to injury.
“I’m grateful that it’s kind of public that DCPS is dragging their feet,” Puryear said. “If [the chancellor and other administrators] were teachers they would lose their jobs because they would lose core professionalism points,” continued Puryear as she referenced a part of the IMPACT teacher evaluation.
In a statement, DCPS said Tuesday’s meeting, the first in-person meeting for 2023-2027 contract negotiations, follows two months of dialogue between DCPS and WTU about written proposals and ground rules.
A DCPS representative told The Informer that such dialogue was necessary to ensure the production of a fair contract that reflects “the District’s appreciation for educators and commitment to our residents.”
Discussion around the 2023-2027 collective bargaining agreement is taking place amid the D.C. Council’s ongoing efforts to increase teacher retention and improve teacher working conditions. Teacher attrition in D.C. stands at 25%, well above the national average of 16%.
Earlier this year, after WTU retroactively ratified its 2019-2023 contract, D.C. Council Chairman Phil Mendelson (D) implored DCPS and WTU leadership to finalize the next contract more quickly. In November, as WTU collective bargaining team members waited for DCPS to respond to their recommendations, the council’s Committee of the Whole conducted a public hearing about the Educator Retention for Student Success Act.
If passed, this legislation, introduced by D.C. Council member Robert White (D-At large), will provide paid mental health leave to full-time DCPS educators, and require wellness coordinators in schools with a high population of at-risk students and high teacher turnover.
The Office of the State Superintendent of Education would also be required to establish a Fair Paraprofessional Compensation Task Force and Flexible Scheduling Pilot Program. The bill also requires DCPS to conduct a teacher exit survey, the results of which they will share publicly and with the State Board of Education annually.
Public witnesses at the Nov. 21 hearing espoused support for teacher wellness, particularly as it related to flexible scheduling, which the D.C. Council funded in the FY 2024 budget. They also zeroed in on the mental and emotional toll that student deaths and demanding work schedules take on teachers. Other talking points focused on lack of teacher inclusion on administrative decisions and the drawbacks of the IMPACT teacher evaluation system.
In her testimony, WTU President Jacqueline Pogue-Lyons said teachers don’t feel supported and valued. She pointed to flexible scheduling and the timely completion of contract negotiations as instrumental in retaining District teachers.
Per another Informer story, the collective bargaining team wants the recommendations compiled earlier this year to become part of a memorandum of agreement that accompanies the finalized 2023-2027 WTU contract.
Pogue Lyons recently told The Informer that DCPS didn’t officially respond to the recommendations until the day she spoke before the D.C. Council Committee of the Whole. That development, months in the making, compelled her to express concern about the likelihood of negotiations dragging on for several months and years.
Such delays, Pogue Lyons said, are unique to the D.C. education system. She went on to say that DCPS has to start respecting teachers, a significant portion of whom are in their 30s and surrounded by peers in other school districts and career fields who are making much more money under less stressful conditions.
“You can go to a county just 15 minutes from our office and get a job in another school system,” Pogue Lyons said. “D.C. hires the best and the brightest teachers, but we do an awful job of keeping them. It’s even worse in underserved communities. We don’t have ELL teachers, psychologists, and social workers for our most vulnerable students. These are the folks who our children need the most.”