February 19, 2016
State legislation would strip teachers of the right to bargain on the school year calendar, a move that unions oppose but one group says could provide more flexibility for districts to pursue changes such as year-round school.
The proposal's sponsor, Rep. Daniela Garcia, R-Holland, said the adjustment would ensure that schools can meet state-mandated changes to the calendar year.
This school year, for instance, all districts must provide 175 days of instruction, a number that will rise to 180 days next year. That requirement, though, doesn't apply to districts where a collective bargaining agreement designating a different number of instructional days was in place as of June 2014.
"I felt it was necessary to provide some flexibility so that our school districts could actually meet the mandates that we're putting into law," Garcia said.
The legislation is opposed by the Michigan Education Association (MEA), the state's largest teachers union. MEA spokesman David Crim said teachers are on "the front lines" of education and are best suited to judge whether changes in a school's calendar would benefit students.
"Teachers who are on the front lines have a sense of, in terms of calendar, what best fits the students' needs," he said. Later, he added, "When (teachers) don't have the input, then the students' voices and what's best for the students, their voice is left out as well."
Garcia said teachers would still have a voice on the school calendar if the legislation is approved.
"Superintendents and school boards engage in conversations with their teachers and educators in their district all the time," she said. "Just because (the school calendar year) is being pulled from the collective bargaining table doesn't mean that those discussions are going to end."
She added, "In all of the teachers that I've spoken with on this particular legislation, they have not been able to say why schedule and calendar need to be part of the collective bargaining process because they can't answer how it benefits children."
According to the National Education Association (NEA), four states – Connecticut, Indiana, Kansas and Maryland – "explicitly" prohibit bargaining on school year and calendar.
Wisconsin prohibits bargaining on all topics except total base wages, according to the NEA, while the Alaska Supreme Court has "found the school year calendar to be non-negotiable."
Great Lakes Education Project, a pro-charter schools group, supports Garcia's legislation. Gary Naeyaert, the group's executive director, said unions have held the "school calendar hostage to contract demands that are unrelated to the school calendar."
Garcia's legislation would enable school administrators to "set the calendar without being held up," he said.
Naeyaert also said the legislation could also make it easier for schools to move to a year-round calendar, also known as the balanced calendar.
Unions "are hostile to change and they are hostile to what our kids really need, which is a longer school day and a longer school year," Naeyaert said.
Under a balanced calendar, students are still required to be in school for the number of days mandated by state law, currently 175.
What's different is school days are spread more evenly across the year, leading to more frequent breaks but a shortening of the traditional summer break. The National Association for Year-Round Education says such a calendar can "stem learning loss and allow educators the opportunity to get the most out of the 180 days that most states mandate for instruction."
In Michigan, schools are required to start after Labor Day unless they receive a state waiver. This school year, 100 districts and charter schools received a waiver from the Michigan Department of Education (MDE) to start school before Labor Day.
The majority of those schools are on a balanced calendar, meaning they have no longer than six weeks off in the summer, as opposed to the traditional summer break which can be as long as 12 weeks, said Brian Ciloski, an analyst at MDE.
Crim said the MEA doesn't oppose a year-round calendar, pointing out that the administrators and teachers have come together at the bargaining table to create such a school year.
"We just think that it makes sense to have a teacher's perspective," he said.
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