At last night's board of education meeting, the consensus should be that Columbia's collective bargaining sessions between the board and the teachers union should be held in the open.
In Joplin, there is no collective bargaining and will not be until one of the teacher unions, either the MNEA or MSTA has over 50 percent of the teachers signed up. And as long as you have that kind of situation, an administration can run roughshod over teachers and staff.
Last year's sessions at Columbia were held behind closed doors which did not sit well with MSTA, but neither MNEA, which represents the teachers in the negotiations, nor the board had any problems with opening the discussions to the public:
At a school board meeting last night, board members seemed to agree they would like to see those meetings open this year.
"My thoughts are: We should have open sessions simply because I think it would be more transparent … and provide information to all parties involved," board member Jim Whitt said. "I think that's a good thing."
His sentiments were echoed by several other board members.
Before the board conversation, Kari Schuster, president of the Columbia Missouri State Teachers Association, shared with the board that CMSTA would like to see the meetings opened.
"My plea to you, on behalf of those not belonging to CMNEA, is to have open meetings … and to disclose information in a timely manner," she said. Schuster said the past bargaining cycle "was a disappointment," pointing to a lack of communication.
In an interview last week, CMNEA President Susan McClintic said the group "doesn't have any problem with whether it's open or closed."
2 comments:
Interesting post on Columbia opening their negotiations - yet another pathetic attempt by MSTA to overcome losing a representation election by teachers. (Columbia teachers elected CMNEA as their rep last year.) Imagine a losing school board candidate insisting on sitting on the board of education anyway - because they really, really wanted to get elected.
One correction - it does not take 50% membership for a representative to be determined for collective bargaining. An election is the way representatives are chosen, regardless of membership percentage.
RSmith
Thanks for the correction. Hopefully sometime in the near future, Joplin will join the school districts being able to participate in collective bargaining.
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