Austintown teachers plan ‘work-to-rule’ days

Heuer says he doesn’t believe the union’s action will cause major problems.

By JEANNE STARMACK

VINDICATOR STAFF WRITER

AUSTINTOWN — The teachers union intends to prove to the school board that teachers do a lot more than what’s required under their contract during a 7.5-hour work day.

Beginning Monday, teachers will be working only their contract day, arriving precisely at their start times and leaving precisely when their day is scheduled to be over.

They will continue the “work-to-rule” days on a day-by-day basis, said Alf Nelson Jr., the Ohio Education Association labor representative who has been working for the Austintown Education Association in contract negotiations.

Schools superintendent Doug Heuer said Friday the union’s action may affect some individual students. “We have some teachers who put in extra time helping students.”

He said, though, that it won’t significantly impact district operations, and he foresees no safety issues. He also said there won’t be any need for early bus dismissals.

The union and school board are at odds over the amount of time teachers get for planning during the work day.

The work-to-rule days are mainly a reaction to school board president Michael Creatore’s assertion that teachers should teach more than 4.2 hours out of their day, Nelson said. He said teachers believe a tentative agreement signed Nov. 17 by both bargaining teams could possibly take away critical planning time that they need.

The union shot down the agreement Tuesday, with 80 percent of the membership voting against it.

Creatore had said long before contract negotiations started in the spring that he wanted to eliminate one of two planning periods for Fitch High School teachers.

He said Tuesday after the AEA vote that the board believes the teachers should teach for six periods a day, not five. He said that with an extra planning period, they are only teaching 4.2 hours a day.

“How do you justify 4.2 hours in front of our kids?” he said, and called the extra planning time a waste of $750,000 a year.

Nelson said Friday that Creatore’s statement demonstrates “a complete lack of understanding of the educational process.”

“You can’t stand there for four hours without preparation time,” he said.

He said teachers need a significant amount of preparation time planning lessons, and the extra planning time also is used for tutoring kids who need extra help.

Nelson also said the proposed contract’s language about scheduling could possibly affect teachers’ ability to plan and meet with kids in the other schools, not just at Fitch.

Creatore said Friday the district needs to be more efficient.

“If they need more time to plan, they can do it before or after school,” he said. “But being in front of kids is going to be more beneficial to a district that is not excellent,” he said, referring to the school’s designation on the state report cards.

Austintown has fallen just short of the excellent designation, remaining effective, for the last two years.

He said he’s heard from teachers in other districts who don’t get more than one planning period, and if more time is needed, they do it in the morning or after school.

He said that the tentative agreement doesn’t even take away the extra planning period at Fitch, but leaves open the possibility that teachers could be required to teach the sixth period if the demand is high for a class.

“More classes are available to kids, and we don’t have to hire more teachers,” he said.

He also said that building administrators need to control the scheduling. “They lost that management right, and that’s where scheduling became inefficient,” he said.

He said that he is not speaking only for himself. “It’s not me against the teachers,” he said, but rather he’s the voice for administrators and the rest of the school board.

The state also recommends a minimum of 5.5 teaching hours a day, he said.

Creatore said the state points out that the district is required to maintain higher staffing levels because of the extra planning time.

If each teacher taught one more period a day, he said, the district could reduce staff. The state calculated a reduction of 17 teachers at Fitch and 15 at Frank Ohl Intermediate School and Austintown Middle School, he said. The estimated savings of doing that is $1.4 million, he said. “What could we do with $1.4 million? We could spend it on books or computers.”

Creatore would not say teacher reductions would come in the form of layoffs.

“The state says we’re not efficient, and we’re overstaffed,” was all he said when asked to elaborate. The district also could reduce staff by not filling jobs as teachers retire.

Teachers in Austintown make $29,151 to $66,493, depending on experience and length of service.

Raises and health care are not an issue in the contract proposal, which offers a one percent raise in the first of two years and no raise the second year. The proposal also calls for an 8.5 percent pickup on health insurance.

starmack@vindy.com