Special PUSD board meeting will reset teacher contact talks
Stalled contract talks between the Poway Unified School District and its teachers union will technically start all over again following a special school board meeting set for noon on Tuesday at the district office.
The special meeting — the timing of which is being strongly protested by one school board member — was made necessary following the Feb. 25 filing of an unfair labor charge against the district by the Poway School Employees Association, a group that represents many of the district’s non-teaching workers. The association alleged in its claim to the Public Employment Relations Board that “the district failed to provide the public with notice of, or an opportunity to be heard regarding the district (or PFT’s) initial proposals for these negotiations” before starting contract negotiations last fall as part of the district’s ongoing “Interest-Based Solving model” The “sunshine” disclosure is required under state law.
Talks between the district and PFT were suspended on March 4 due to the PSEA complaint.
According to a PFT-prepared timeline, the last time an initial contract proposal was “sunshined” was in March 2006. That’s because the PFT believed that a “bi-lateral agreement” adopted at the time “was a living contract to allow us to continually negotiate.”
“We now understand the law and do not dispute that we did not follow the law when we did not sunshine ...” the PFT’s printed time line states.
The special meeting will be held in the community room at the district office, 15250 Avenue of Science in Carmel Mountain Ranch. Following a public hearing on the board’s initial proposal to the PFT there will be a closed session with the district’s labor negotiators.
The one-page proposal simply says. in part, that the district “will work with the federation using the fiscal Interest-Based Solving model to begin negotiations of a proposal regarding wage.”
Board member Charles Sellers said Thursday he opposes a noon school board meeting.
“I just want to go on record as saying that it is completely disingenuous to hold a public hearing at a special meeting during the work day when we all know good and well that there are many people who will want to comment on this issue,” Sellers said. “By doing so, they will not be allowed to speak about this very important and highly publicized topic at our next regular meeting because it will not be on the agenda.
“This is definitely not the transparency that our stakeholders both expect and deserve. As such, I am extremely disappointed in our conduct as a public agency board.”
