Teacher Strike

As we discussed in class on the very first day, the most important take away for this semester will be your ability to spot the legal issues that surround you and apply the concepts we have been learning to protect your business from potential liability. For this assignment, you are being called upon to evaluate a current event in your community and apply the concepts from Chapter 15 regarding collective bargaining, unions, and federal rights.

Read the three articles below (and feel free to do additional research on your own) regarding the current situation involving teachers within the LRSD. Answer the following questions and apply the legal concepts of the National Labor Relations Board.

To help you achieve this, I am providing you a link to the "Basic Guide to the National Labor Relations Act": https://www.nlrb.gov/sites/default/files/attachments/basic-page/node-3024/basicguide.pdf

1)What are the issues at play in this dispute?

2)What rights do the teachers have under the National Labor Relations Act? (Ex: Call in sick, picket, protest, organize, block others from entering buildings, ask students to call in sick?)

3)What rights does the school board have? (Ex: Replacement employees, closing schools, non-renewal of contracts?)

4)If you were the superintendent of the school board, what ideas do you have on how to resolve this conflict with your employees? (none is not an answer)

1st article:

Hold the line:' Protestors support LRSD teachers' strike: UPDATE

Hundreds of Little Rock School District teachers and other personnel are on strike today, picketing at schools and protesting the Department of Education's decertification of the teachers union and refusal to relinquish full control of the LRSD. While the number provided by the LRSD administration today that only 116 teachers and 20 classified (nonadministrative) personnel were "no show, no call" television, twitter videos and visits in person byArkansas Timesstaff suggest that total is shy of the numbers actually on strike.

A significant number of teachers 491 out of 1,800, almost one in three called in sick. Calling in sick to join a picket line would be considered an ethical violation of district rules, however.

UPDATE:Students stayed home in droves today from the LRSD, with an attendance of only 10,149 out of 23,337 students only 43 percent in attendance. Only one in four high school students attended: 1,475 out of 5,903.

Sixty-one Central High School teachers signed a letter yesterday announcing their intent to strike, and they were joined by dozens of students and other supporters early this morning. They were led in chants byAlyce Zottoli,an economics teacher at Central High:"I don't know but what I been told, public ed's been bought and sold! I don't know but it's been said, Waltons run the Board of Ed!"

Leron McAdoo, an art teacher at Central High, said he saw a couple of substitute teachers approach the picket line and pick up signs to join the protestors. McAdoo said he understands that protestors' actions today are part of "one battle in a continuing fight."

"I don't know if it will change the [outcome of the] meeting today, but I do know that we're fighting toward justice," McAdoo said. "That arc toward justice that King talked about, that's what we're moving toward. So I'm going to continue fighting in that direction. Anybody that's going in the other direction, God be with them."

Teresa Knapp Gordon, president of the Little Rock Education Association, briefly addressed the students, parents, teachers and supporters gathered at Central.

"I love that you all are out here this morning," Gordon said through a megaphone. "I know it's cold. I know some of y'all don't like cold. I see you students, you guys are beautiful. Let's go, fight, win."

Gordon also told reporters that while she doesn't know how today's protests will affect the outcome of the board meeting, "we know that this is the first battle of a long fight."

"I think it says a lot that we're united, and we're standing together with the community, and the parents, and the students," Gordon said. "We're ready to fight this 'til the end."

Gordon said that the LREA will likely make a decision later today about whether to continue the strike, but "all options are still on the table," and such a decision will "depend on what our members want to do."

"We have been very selective about our actions," Gordon said. "We know that we control our power; nobody else controls our power. They can't force us to stay out, they can't force us to go in. So we'll make that decision as a membership and decide where to go from here."

McAdoo, Zottoli and other teachers continued leading protestors in chants, including one targeting Governor Hutchinson's role in the actions of the Board of Education.

"How do you spell wrong?" McAdoo asked. "A-S-A!," protestors responded.

Dozens of picketers are in front of the state Department of Education, as well. They were instructed to remove their protest signs from sticks by security officers: Typical of how we do things in Arkansas, guns are legal on state property; sticks are not.

Unending honks and thumbs up, including blasts from Little Rock police, sanitation workers, city buses and school buses, were sounded in support for the dozens of Cloverdale Middle School picketers standing at Geyer Springs and Hinkson Road. One car slowed down and handed donuts out the window; another pulled in with more donuts and peppermint candy canes. One car that slowed and honked bore a state Senate license plate with the number 2: State Sen. Joyce Elliott's car.

School buses were mostly empty. "Parents want their kids to be safe,"Lakeitha Austin,who teaches career and tech education to eighth-graders at Cloverdale and is LREA secretary, said. She said "there's no way" the district could provide adequate substitutes.

"This is the area where most the schools that have the Ds and Fs [on ACT Aspire tests, the trigger for the ed department takeover] and this is the area they're going to try to privatize under different leadership," Austin said, referring to the Education Department's support of charter schools. Of the more than 500 students who attend Cloverdale, 75 percent are on free and reduced lunch.

Austin noted the support the LREA has gotten from outside Arkansas: the Milwaukee teacher union's "Overpass Light Brigade" tweeted an image of hundreds of teachers holding a lighted "Little Rock Strike" sign. Teachers in Anaheim are wearing red in support of Little Rock teachers, and Austin said that the LREA has received a donation from actress Susan Sarandon.

Kathryn Daniel, the striking librarian at David O. Dodd Elementary School, said the walkout was necessary. "We have tried everything else. They [the State Board] have not listened, they have not made changes, and things have gotten worse." In the four years the LRSD has been under state control, the number of "failing" schools has risen.

CHILSONKATHARYN DANIEL: Striking is the only thing left for teachers seeking fair treatment. According to a state legislator, she's a "thug."

With the decertification of the LREA, Daniel said, "We are losing our voice." She said she's been told by friends in other districts that the personnel policy committee that would take the place of the union in disputes "was not at all the same. You can say whatever you want, but they ignore you. They're not obligated to negotiate."

Daniel said the LREA came to the aid of her and other teachers at Baseline Elementary several years ago when they were suffering under a "bully principal." She said teachers were crying at work "almost daily" because of the actions of principal who was eventually fired and the union gave them support and made sure they were treated fairly. "I had someone protecting me."

Daniel said the administration notified teachers in an email that they could not use a personal day to attend the State Board meeting and reminded them that should they picket after calling in sick they would be in violation of district policy. They have not been informed they'll be fired if they strike, but she assumed it was a possibility. She planned to strike nevertheless, "because it is that important."

"My whole family is on my insurance. This is not something I do lightly. It's a big risk," but the only option left to the union to reach what have been deaf ears.

Meanwhile, Republican state Sen. Bob Ballinger is calling the teachers and their supporters "thugs" and "bullies who don't care about children" on Twitter. Go back to Berryville, Bob, and stay there, under your rock.

2nd article:

Little Rock School District teachers, staffers on strike; schools open

Little Rock School District teachers and support staff members, including nearly 1,800 Little Rock Education Association employee union members, will be on strike and on picket lines today -- a day in which schools in the state's second-largest system will be open as usual to students and nonstriking workers.

It will be the district's first teacher strike in 32 years, and the first strike in which all campuses in the state-controlled Little Rock district will remain open to students.

Today's job action follows a flurry of activity Wednesday.

That included a Pulaski County Circuit Court hearing, statements to employees from the superintendent and state education commissioner, an assembly of picket signs by the soon-to-be strikers and parents scrambling to decide where their children will spend today.

Teresa Knaap Gordon, president of the employee association, announced Monday the plan for today's one-day work stoppage, which comes on the same day as the monthly 10 a.m. meeting of the Arkansas Board of Education.

The Education Board last month stripped the association, effective Oct. 31, of its collective bargaining rights at the same meeting in which it approved a plan calling for the reestablishment in November 2020 of a Little Rock School Board. However, that board would be limited in its authority as long as the district is classified by the state as a system in "Level 5 -- in need of intensive support" because of poor academic achievement at some campuses.

The Education Board is to discuss today a draft memorandum of understanding that would spell out the School Board limits.

Gordon said Wednesday, as she said earlier this week, that the employees she represents want the state to release the 23,000-student district from five years of state authority.

"I would like for them to return local control to our district or at least put forth a plan that returns full local control to a board that has full decision-making authority," Gordon said, adding that as it stands now the state has "no intention" of releasing the system as long as it is at Level 5 of the state's accountability system. "That's arbitrary," she said, "because they get to decide if we are in Level 5."

Also Wednesday:

Arkansas Education Secretary Johnny Key issued a statement expressing the state's appreciation of Little Rock educators' expertise -- as evidenced by raises awarded them earlier in the school year -- and encouraging them "to show their commitment to their students by arriving to school [today] ready to teach." He also assured parents that schools will be open today and "learning will occur."

Pulaski County Circuit Judge Wendell Griffen in an emergency hearing directed the Little Rock district leaders to make publicly available its "Work Stoppage Responsibilities Plan," after Ross Noland, a Little Rock attorney and school system parent, requested but was denied information on how the district would adequately staff and otherwise safely operate its schools during the strike.

Little Rock Superintendent Mike Poore sent a letter -- attached to district policies on teacher absences and responses to frequently asked questions -- in which he noted that the strike comes at a time when public input is still being taken in regard to the state's draft memorandum, and he urged that employees not intimidate or shame one another for the strike choices they make.

A total of 61 Central High School faculty members issued their own strongly worded letter saying they will "never allow our city to once again be torn apart by the segregationist policies of those who hold political power" and calling for the reinstatement of the Little Rock School Board that was removed in 2015, return of collective bargaining and a raise for support staff members.

STRIKE SCHEDULE

Striking employees -- who have invited parents, students and community members to join with them -- will picket at the 41 campuses from 7 a.m. to 9:30 a.m. today.

The strikers will move to the Arch Ford Education Building on the state Capitol Mall for a rally from 11 a.m. to noon, at which time they will march to the front steps of the Capitol building for another rally. Speakers at that rally will include Gordon, Arkansas Education Association President Carol Fleming and state Sen. Joyce Elliott D-Little Rock.

Other speakers will be Anika Whitfield, leader of Grassroots Arkansas; George Sheridan, National Education Association executive committee member; and former Little Rock School Board member the Rev. C.E. McAdoo.

Gordon and a few dozen others worked Tuesday and Wednesday evenings to assemble signs that state "Don't Segregate Our Schools #OneLRSD," and "One strike for my students #OneLRSD."

The union president, who is on leave from her job as a librarian media specialist at Jefferson Elementary, said the state "keeps changing the target" for release of the district and "expecting us to meet it."

"It's frustrating," she said.

Gordon said there have been conversations between her and Poore about district matters but not on the issues leading to the strike.

"He doesn't have the power to make the changes that need to be made," she said. "The state board, the commissioner and the governor have that power."

Any conversations with them?

"Nope," she responded.

EMERGENCY HEARING

Noland had submitted requests this week to the school district for information about the district's plans for adequately staffing and otherwise safely operating the district in anticipation of the strike.

After the district had denied much of his request, citing a state statute -- Arkansas Code Annotated 6-15-1304 -- that exempts school safety and emergency plans from public disclosure, Nolan on Tuesday sought an "emergency in-camera review" of the document by a judge.

Griffen held that hearing Wednesday. Little Rock school system attorneys Chris Heller and Khayyam Eddings provided Griffen with a copy of the plan, which the judge reviewed before questioning Randy Rutherford, the district's executive director of secondary education, about it.

In response to some of Griffen's questions, Rutherford said the plan contains names of Little Rock district administrators and Arkansas Department of Education staff members who could serve as substitutes at the schools, but that information is changeable.

Griffen questioned whether the work and job assignments described in the district's work stoppage plan differ from the ordinary functions of a school or "minding the education store."

The plan does not address placement of security personnel in a building or anything other than routine teaching functions, Griffen said. He then asked whether the work stoppage plan was an actual emergency or school safety plan as envisioned by the statute that allows exemptions from public disclosure.

The fact that the work stoppage plan was prepared in response to the extraordinary situation of a work stoppage does not make it an emergency or an unsafe situation, Griffen said. Extraordinary means it's just not routine, he said, declaring that the plan -- with some redactions -- was disclosable to the public.

Those redactions would apply to any planned responses to threats of harm to health and safety.

Noland said Wednesday night after reviewing the work stoppage plan that it does provide more information than was previously available to parents, but not all the information that he had hoped for. Missing, he said, are details regarding the vetting of the most recently hired substitute teachers and the potential for disciplining or dismissal of teachers who do strike.

"There are some informative charts and assignments for central office staff and what schools they will be going to," he noted. "There is information showing that [the Little Rock district has] access to the substitute teacher pool for the entirety of Pulaski County."

Noland, whose child will not go to school today because of Noland's lack of comfort with the staffing and his support for teachers, said he will follow up with the district about his requests about the background checks on substitutes hired at a late October job fair.

"This is a win for public disclosure and for school district parents being able to understand what is going on with their teachers and their schools," Noland said. "The Arkansas Freedom of Information Act is an important tool, and exemptions to it should only be asserted when they are absolutely applicable."

In his letter to employees, Poore on Wednesday acknowledged that employees would be grappling with a decision to go to work today -- especially when many members did not realize a strike vote had occurred, he wrote.

"As a result of this job action being thrust upon us, we must rely on District policy, the staff handbook ... and common decency.

"One thing that I hope we can all agree on is that we have all worked hard to create a caring, inclusive learning and work environment," Poore wrote.

"Actions to intimidate should not be tolerated by any of us. Shaming any individual for the choice he or she makes is offensive and does not align with our school district culture."

Poore attached questions and answers about the strike and its impact, including notice that striking individuals will not be paid for the days not worked and the strike days will not be made up at the end of the year. The district is suspending all vacations, as well as personal and professional leave during a strike.

The responses to questions also state that only substitute teachers who have completed state-mandated background checks will replace teachers who do not report to work.

The district referred to the union any questions about whether union members will be fined if they don't strike. Gordon said Wednesday that the association does not penalize its members for that.

EDUCATION BOARD AGENDA

The Education Board's agenda calls for addressing matters related to the Little Rock School District at the end of an otherwise lengthy agenda. The Little Rock district-related matters include:

Proposal to add two additional at large members to the district's seven-member Community Advisory Board, which advises Key on personnel and policy decisions he makes in his role as the school board for the state-controlled system.

Review of the process to establish new school board member election zones in the district to conform with the Education Board's decision that there should be nine School Board members in the district instead of the previous seven members of the board.

Consideration of the terms in a draft memorandum of understanding on the operation of the district for as long as it remains in Level 5 -- in need of intensive support.

School attendance zone changes necessary in light of the opening of the new Southwest High School and closure or consolidation of other schools throughout the district starting in the 2020-21 school year.

3rd article:

Board strips Little Rock teachers' union bargaining power

LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (AP) The Arkansas Board of Education on Thursday stripped the collective bargaining power of the Little Rock teachers' union, sparking fears of a strike even as the panel backed off a plan that critics said would be a return to a racially divided system 62 years after the integration of Central High School.

A packed auditorium chanted "shame" at the board as it adjourned after abruptly passing a proposal to no longer recognize the Little Rock Education Association as the district's bargaining agent when the union's contract expires Oct. 31. The move came shortly after the panel voted to return local control of Little Rock's schools to a board that will be elected in November 2020.

The 23,000-student district has been under state control since January 2015, when it was taken over because of low test scores at several schools.

The head of the teachers' union said its membership will likely meet next week to discuss the next moves and didn't rule out the possibility of a strike. Little Rock's schools are out on Friday.

"I'm disappointed with the decisions they made today," Little Rock Education Association President Teresa Knapp Gordon said after the votes. "They demonstrated their incompetence and they showed that they have not listened to the voices of the people who have told them over and over what they want."

The new plan for the district's future control scraps categories the board approved last month, which would have put several predominantly minority schools under "different leadership" than the local board. Critics of thestate's planhave compared it to the1957 crisisover Little Rock Central's integration, arguing that it effectively creates two school districts with several majority-minority schools still under some form of state control. Scores of people gathered Wednesday night at Central High for a vigil urging the state to return the full district to local control.

Many details remain unclear, as with the previous plan. The new proposal calls for a memorandum of understanding on the state's role in the schools.

"I don't think we're going to be able to accomplish the goals that we want, the goals we want to for students, under (the previous) framework," said Chad Pekron, who proposed the new plan. "Therefore, I think the best thing we need to do under the circumstances is return the district to unified, local control under a framework of significant and agreed-upon levels for state support for the schools that really need it.

Local control supporters said the union move undermines the effort to give Little Rock residents a say in their schools.

"Let candidates run on it and let the people have a say," Ali Noland, a parent in the district, said after the vote.

Little Rock Mayor Frank Scott, the city's first popularly elected black mayor, on Monday urged the state to return the district to local control and said any major decisions, including those pertaining to the union, should be left to the board elected next year. Scott proposed putting the district under a board appointed by the city and state from January until the new school board is elected in November 2020.

Little Rock is the only district in the state that has a collective bargaining agreement with a teachers' union, and the association says 70 percent of teachers are members. Gov. Asa Hutchinson had not said whether he supported the push to no longer recognize the union, but the proposal came from a former adviser to the Republican governor. Hutchinson has appointed eight of the board's nine members. Supporters of ending the union's recognition have said more teachers will be represented by the district setting up a personnel policies committee made up of teachers that would officer advice on salaries and other issues.

After the meeting, Hutchinson praised the board for making "tough" decisions.

"I'm confident the action to keep the LRSD unified will unite our efforts and balance the local support with state support," he said in a statement. "This is an opportunity to partner with the district in a way that will continue state support along with the efforts of a locally elected school board, the private sector partners and the city."

The board also voted to reinstate employee protections for teachers in the district it hadwaivedin December.

Gordon said it was unclear whether the union's members could strike or take any other action before the current contract expires. Little Rock Superintendent Michael Poore this week warned teachers that any work stoppage or misuse of sick leave could result in their firing.