By NANCY DOCKTER
Leader staff writer
The school board for the Pulaski County Special School District last night approved the contract for a new superintendent and voted down contracts for district teachers and support staff.
The board voted unanimously to table a motion to revise the bell schedule for all district schools. Several parents spoke against the new schedule, saying that it would be bad for young children by making them get up earlier and get home later in the day.
Arkansas native Charles Hopson, who currently serves as a deputy superintendent for Portland, Ore., schools, will be paid $205,000 a year to head the third-largest school district in the state. His contract is for three years, renewable annually. He will be at his new post full-time July 1, but is expected to spend much of the interim in the district and will be paid as a consultant.
Marty Nix, president of Pulaski Association of Classroom Teachers, the collective bargaining agent for district teachers, said before the 4-3 vote against contracts that teachers would be in classrooms the rest of the week.
“A strike is only one option,” Nix said. “We have a lot of options – in the courts, through discussions in the community and with parents. Parents should contact board members to tell them that the contract remains in effect and to resume negotiations.”
On separate motions made by Bill Vasquez to approve the teachers’ and support staff’scontracts, board members Danny Gilliland, Mildred Tatum and Charlie Wood and school board president Tim Clark voted no. Vasquez, Sandra Sawyer and Gwen Williams voted yes.
Before the vote, Vasquez told fellow board members he was not interested in telling them how to vote, but simply to vote one way or the other, in accord with the terms of the existing contract, which requires either ratification or a return to negotiations.
The tentative agreements had been awaiting board action since December, when they were ratified by the union members.
Instead of ratification, the board on Dec. 8 voted to withdraw recognition of PACT as the teachers’ bargaining agent. On April 8, Pulaski County Circuit Court Judge Tim Fox declared that the board’s Dec. 8 vote violated state law and hence was null and void. He said that the board had the authority to rescind recognition of the union, but had to follow state law.
Vasquez took fellow board members through the preamble and several clauses in the current contract that spell out the obligation of both the district and teachers to negotiate in good faith and the process to follow, even in the event of impasse.
“Judge Fox put us back to Dec. 8,” Vasquez said. “We either need to vote up or down or go back to negotiate.”
Vasquez defended the contract as a “useful tool and very simple document to follow,” akin to the PCSSD student handbook, which is explicit about expectations for behavior and the consequences if the rules are not followed.
“The contract does the same thing in relation to employees; it doesn’t tie your hands at all,” Vasquez said.
The contract, which is 150 pages, has been criticized for its length. However, most of the policies that comprise the contract came straight from the PCSSD personnel policies manual that existed before PACT became the collective bargaining agent for teachers more than 20 years ago.
If the board ultimately withdraws recognition of PACT, it must form a personnel policies committee to serve as an advisory body that recommends policies for board vote. The committee would consist of five classroom teachers, elected by their peers and three administrators, appointed by the superintendent.
Before the vote, Gwen Williams alluded to the board discussion last week about the contract the district has with a provider of after-school programs, D.R.E.A.M. (Directing Resources to Excel All Minds), who had fallen behind on meeting its obligations under a contract.
“Last week, when we were dealing with the D.R.E.A.M. program, Tim Clark asked Ms. Abernathy if she had a contract with the district, and when she said yes, you told her she needed to honor her contract,” Williams said. “We as a board need to follow the contract that we have in place.”
Board member Charlie Wood, who led the charge to withdraw recognition of PACT, said before voting, “We are taking about the process. I am glad Mr. Vasquez put it on the agenda. Nobody will say we didn’t vote it up or down.
Wood went on to say that the main reason he would vote against the contract was the policy in it allowing for teachers to rollover accrued leave from one year to the next and then use large amounts of leave in one school year. He said he knew of “a few” teachers who had used 75 days of leave in one year.
“I don’t want the teachers to miss that many days,” Wood said. “It is not in the contract.”
Board member Sandra Sawyer said she would vote for the contract because it was in accord with process “as stated in the (contract) and the courts.”
She asked Wood if he understood that if he had a problem with something in the tentative agreement, which had been reached by the chief negotiators, then “that is the purpose of negotiating – to remove the things you disagree with.”
During public comment before the vote, eight school patrons went to the podium to urge the board to follow the bargaining process laid out in the current contract and to support teachers by ratifying the contract.
Donna Morey, president of the Arkansas Education Association, also implored the board to reconsider its December vote.
Morey, who started her teaching career in PCSSD in 1978, recalled a time when there was harmony among teachers, administrators and parents “working together so that all students could achieve.” She said she was saddened at this point that this relationship no longer exists.
“I urge you to find some way to come back to the table so all teachers and support staff can be included in decisions” that affect students, Morey said.