Story updated and corrected in bold.

By Mary O’KEEFE

Members of the Glendale Teachers Association (GTA) were out in force on Tuesday demonstrating in front of the offices of the Glendale Unified School District just before its board meeting. Their purpose was to urge the GUSD board and administration to settle contract talks. The district and GTA have been in meetings since January in an attempt to reach wage agreements that date back to the 2020-21 school year.

“Both sides were close to a wage settlement for 2020-23 until GUSD attached non-wage related conditions to the wage settlement,” according to a GTA release.

“It was a real kick in the teeth,” said GTA member Alicia Harris.

Harris was describing the recent changes added to the contract by GUSD. She said GTA and GUSD had almost reached an agreement on wages when these new conditions were attached.

“We felt we were getting very close in the last bargaining session. Our team went to the table hopeful; not everything was done but it was very close and then the district team added contingencies to the affordable wage that would jeopardize collective bargaining,” Harris said.

She added there were three contingencies that were added that are of concern. The first would be to remove the process for resolving grievances, a fundamental part of labor organizing.

“One of the contractual provisions for [almost] all collective bargaining agreements in school districts is that if the district violates the contract in some way there is a remedy for that and it is called the grievance process. In the grievance process the two sides try to work out their differences and if they can’t they go to arbitration. It takes time and it costs money for both sides but ultimately the district is held accountable if there are occasional instances [when] the contract may be violated,” said Chris Davis, GTA president.

He added in his 31 years with GUSD he had never had any bargaining team ask to drop “all your grievance.”

“The wage settlement was tied to the union agreeing to drop the three grievances that are outstanding,” he said.

The second issue has to do with prep [preparation] time at secondary schools.

“The district imposed this seven period block schedule and it is required within our schedule that teachers get a prep time each day,” Harris said. “When they imposed that schedule they didn’t seem to think it through [and the] fact that it would be hard to honor our required prep,” Harris said.

Davis added that some secondary school administrations have worked with teachers to make certain they have daily prep time but not all schools are doing that. Prep time is used in several ways including meeting with parents and going over paperwork.

“That can create a gantlet of work,” he said.

The third issue dealt with the COLA (cost of living adjustment).

“We have a three-year arrangement. We were aligned a one-time 4.5% stipend for 2021,” Harris said.

This is something that has been agreed to. The GTA is seeking 5% COLA for the 2021-22 school year and a 3.5% for 2022-23. The district, according to Harris, wants those numbers to be reversed so 3.5% for 2021-22, and 5% for 2022-23.
This would affect the retro check for teachers if they received a 3.5% adjustment for 2021-22.

The COLA raise is comparable to that in the Burbank school district.
Harris added there were a lot of positive accomplishments by the bargaining team and a lot that was in agreement until these last three issues were presented.
Davis said they were demonstrating at the GUSD offices and at its board meeting on Tuesday because it is ultimately the school board members who will make the recommendations to the district administration.

CV Weekly attempted to get a response by a representative of the GUSD but was unable to as of press time.