Labor Update: Unfair Labor Practices and the Michigan Employment Relations Commission Process

But first--one important PSA--the Ann Arbor schools updated their web site this weekend. It was long planned because the web site has been rather hard to navigate and I hope this improves things. But also, I've been made aware that many of my blog links have been lost. This includes recent links I put up about negotiations. Boo. I am sorry, and I hope to recover some of them.

Now, back to negotiations:

1. The Ann Arbor Education Association (teachers' union) filed an unfair labor practices charge against the school district. Per their press release:

The AAEA is filing three charges against the district: 

1. The superintendent interfered and coerced AAEA members by communicating with them directly concerning the contract dispute.
2. The superintendent interfered with the administration of the AAEA by directly communicating with AAEA members concerning her interpretation of the actions taken by AAEA leadership.
3. The District repudiated the AAEA contract by maintaining that some sections are unenforceable or invalid, additionally claiming that the contract will expire June 30, 2015, and refusing to bargain over the International Baccalaureate Programme.

2. The school district responded by filing an unfair labor practice charge against the AAEA. I haven't seen the charges.

3. I asked a friend who is a labor lawyer what happens, generally speaking, with these unfair labor practices that go to the Michigan Employment Relations Commission. My friend wrote:

Generally, the case will be assigned to an administrative law judge. The respondent [the district, for the AAEA's charge, and vice versa] could file a motion to dismiss the charge. The ALJ, if he or she doesn't grant the motion would then hold a hearing. The hearing could last several days. The parties would present testimony and exhibits, which would be subject to cross examination. In addition the ALJ may ask questions. In lieu of closing statements, parties typically file a post hearing brief and submit them several weeks after the hearing. It could take months, and sometimes up to a year to get a ruling from the ALJ. That is, briefly, the process.  

So then I asked: So in the meantime does that halt the termination of contract timeline? Assuming that is one of the charges being contested... 

I don't believe the filing of a ULP can halt the proceedings in any way. Either party could file for a preliminary injunction, to maintain the status quo until the ULP is heard and decided. It is a pretty high standard. Whether a preliminary injunction should be issued is determined by a four-factor analysis: 1. harm to the public interest if an injunction issues; 2. whether harm to the applicant in the absence of a stay outweighs the harm to the opposing party if a stay is granted; 3. the strength of the applicant’s demonstration that the applicant is likely to prevail on the merits; and 4. demonstration that the applicant will suffer irreparable injury if a preliminary injunction is not granted.

4. So as things stand now, the district will implement as if the contract has terminated on June 30th. That means wages will stay the same as now (which is part of what the district has been after--they were scheduled to rise July 1). I guess (not sure about this) if the district loses, they would be responsible for paying the teachers back. I guess that's a risk they are willing to take. Since my labor lawyer friend says these things move kind of slowly, that could potentially be months of back pay...

5. See these signs? These are in support of Ann Arbor teachers and the union. They are not just for teachers! You can get one too.

UPDATE 6/1/2015: Get the signs at the Michigan Education Credit Union, 4141 Jackson Rd.


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Discovering (and Remembering) My First Grade Teacher, Mrs. Delfosse

My first grade teacher, Doris Delfosse, died recently. My mom sent me her obituary. (Thanks Mom!)

There were some things in it that I knew about her.

I knew that she was a devoted and well-loved first grade teacher.
I didn't know that she taught for over 35 years.
I didn't know that she was the president of the Rye Teachers Association.

I have a vague memory of doing grave rubbings with her.
I didn't know she did that as part of a big Thanksgiving-focused unit. Every year.

We lived in one of the first towns settled on the east coast (1660).
It has the Square House, which at one point was the local inn, and "George Washington and Lafayette slept there!"
I didn't know that Doris Delfosse was a member of the Daughters of the American Revolution, or that she volunteered to share American history and early American homemaking skills at the Square House.

And I really didn't know that Mrs. Delfosse, herself, created an important part of American history, and opened the door for women who came after her.

Here's why reading obituaries can be so enlightening. From the obituary:

Doris Delfosse... 

"was the first working woman 'allowed' to adopt a child in the state of California in 1966, after proving to the adoption agency and courts that a woman could indeed work and raise a family."

That's right. Doris Delfosse loved teaching--and children--so much, that she went to court to force the system to allow her to adopt, because she wanted to keep working. She didn't want to be a stay-at-home mom, she wanted to be a teacher and a mom.

[This reminds me a bit of a case that is coming shortly to the Supreme Court--the case of April DeBoer and Jayne Rowse--expanding the idea of who is a "fit" parent.]


Here's something I remember about Mrs. Delfosse's class. If we got in line to go somewhere (perhaps a special, like art or gym) and then we had to wait for some reason, she kept us occupied by having us imagine that our tongue was a person with jobs to do, like sweeping the ceiling and the floor of our mouths (with our tongue). Nowadays they are called "oral motor exercises," and I imagine that she learned them while working with kids with speech delays--but we just thought they were fun.

Here's to you, Mrs. Delfosse--thanks for your devotion to kids.

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Love, Michigan (=)

It's a New Day in Michigan. Read Judge Bernard Friedman's excellent ruling here.

My friends' daughter holds her moms' wedding rings
during their ceremony today (Saturday, 3/22/2014). The hands, of course,
are every Michigander's symbol of Michigan.

IV. Conclusion 

In attempting to define this case as a challenge to “the will of the people,” Tr. 2/25/14 p. 40, state defendants lost sight of what this case is truly about: people. No court record of this proceeding could ever fully convey the personal sacrifice of these two plaintiffs who seek to ensure that the state may no longer impair the rights of their children and the thousands of others now being raised by same-sex couples. It is the Court’s fervent hope that these children will grow up “to understand the integrity and closeness of their own family and its concord with other families in their community and in their daily lives.” Windsor, 133 S. Ct. at 2694. Today’s decision is a step in that direction, and affirms the enduring principle that regardless of whoever finds favor in the eyes of the most recent majority, the guarantee of equal protection must prevail.

Accordingly, 

IT IS HEREBY DECLARED that Article I, § 25 of the Michigan Constitution and its
implementing statutes are unconstitutional because they violate the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution.

Today, at the Washtenaw County Clerk's Office, Clerk Lawrence Kestenbaum had posted this sign: 

I especially appreciated this part of Judge Friedman's ruling:

Taking the state defendants’ position to its logical conclusion, the empirical evidence at hand should require that only rich, educated, suburban-dwelling, married Asians may marry, to the exclusion of all other heterosexual couples. Obviously the state has not adopted this policy and with good reason. The absurdity of such a requirement is self-evident. Optimal academic outcomes for children cannot logically dictate which groups may marry. 

Congratulations!

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Occasionally Writing for the Ann Arbor Chronicle

I am going to occasionally write a column for the Ann Arbor Chronicle. By occasional, I mean something approximately bimonthly.

Today I have an article in the Chronicle about the ACLU's lawsuit against the Ann Arbor schools, which is an effort to keep the schools from charging tuition for students taking seven hours in a semester.

Can you believe that the district was sued over charging students illegal fees over 40 years ago?! As I think  Yogi Berra said, "It's deja vu all over again!"

Read the whole article here.

*What is funny/interesting from my point of view is that my first article in the Chronicle (which you can read here) became an exhibit in the brief that the ACLU filed!

Standing at the Creation of Public Schools in the United States

This week it's the Jewish holiday of Shavuot, or the Feast of Weeks. In the Jewish tradition, we are all supposed to see ourselves as if we were in the Sinai desert, when the Torah (Five Books of Moses) was given to the Jewish people. That is because the Torah is foundational to Jewish understanding of Jews as a people. When Jews "see" themselves as if they were "present" at Sinai, it's as if a connecting strand stretches back thousands of years. It's not literally true, but it's a powerful image.

I know, you're thinking--but what does that have to do with education in Michigan?

In a recent conversation with Steve Norton of Michigan Parents for Schools, he said (and I'm paraphrasing here) that "some of the anti-public school people try to make it seem as if public schools were an idea hatched by hippies in the 1960s. Some of them believe that public schools are a recent innovation. And nothing could be further from the truth." No, he argues (still paraphrasing here), "public schools are foundational to our understanding of ourselves as a nation. Public schools helped create our nation, and our national identity."

I think that in order to argue for public schools, it's important to understand that public schools have a long, deep history in our country.

So here is a short quiz, and then some pictures of some historic public schools in Washtenaw County, and then the quiz answers. (No peeking until you've tried!) [Update: Quiz closed, but you can find the questions and answers here.]

Sharon District #1 School from 1890 is located just outside Manchester on Pleasant Lake Road. Photo: Ruth Kraut

 I couldn't find out too much about this school, but if you know some of its history you could put it in the comments. The Manchester Area Historical Society records for schools are at the Bentley Library, and District No. 1 was in existence from 1839-1952, according to the catalog. Take a look at the catalog here.

Blaess School in Saline is now located on the campus of the old Saline High School. Photo: Ruth Kraut

About Blaess School:

In 1836, a year before Michigan became a state, Lodi Township (north of Saline, MI) was platted. The present Weber-Blaess one-room school was built in 1867 in Section 17, on Ellsworth Road in Lodi Township. A simple wood structure was built on the same stone foundation as its predecessor, a log school that had burned a year earlier.

Read more here.

Quiz Answers:

1. The first public school in the country was Boston Latin, founded in 1635.

2. In 1827, Massachusetts passed a law making schools free to all children. (And yes, Michigan wasn't even a state then! Just testing you...). And even earlier, pre-Revolution, Massachusetts had the Old Deluder Satan Law which required schools to be established in towns with more than fifty families. By the way, Massachusetts is still a leader in public education in our country, funding public schools at something like twice the amount of funding that Michigan schools get.

3. In the 19th century, most states passed laws forbidding using public funds for parochial schools. (This largely started out because the mostly Protestant U.S. saw a lot of new immigrants who were Catholic moving in. Still--the issue of keeping public funding for public schools has a long, long history.) There is lots of interesting history around the education of African-Americans, Asians (particularly the education of the children of Chinese immigrants in California), and Native Americans (who were forbidden to be taught in their native languages).

4. The 1896 Plessy v. Ferguson case was overturned by the Brown v. the Board of Ed. decision. However, you should read up on these other cases! Engel v. Vitale is about prayer in public schools; Tinker v. Des Moines features Ann Arbor's own Paul Tinkerhess and is a free speech case; and Hendrick Hudson Board of Ed. v. Rowley is an early special education case.

So, in sum--if we think of ourselves as being present at the founding of our nation, then we were surely present at the founding of our public schools. They are foundational to our national heritage. Stand beside them. And guide them. Protect them. And defend them.