It’s All About Serving Our Students
The following speech was given by BFT President Barry Fike at the April 6, 2005 Board of Education meeting:
Members of the Board,
We come before you tonight to speak about our students. The thousands of students who inspire us and this entire community with their rich, wonderful diversity, their talents, their interests, their perseverance, and their dedication. The thousands of students we serve with our hearts and souls, to the best of our professional abilities, each and every day. It’s all about serving our students.
Look behind me. Who do you see standing before you tonight? - at the end of a long day of teaching and staff meetings - some of us who still haven’t been home to see our own families - losing out on the valuable evening time when teachers decompress and reenergize for the next day? You see a brilliant first year teacher, a veteran special ed teacher, a teacher who today taught a quiet student to write a powerful essay. You see a trusted substitute teacher, a charismatic science teacher, a teacher who today taught a recent immigrant student vital English skills. You see a nurturing preschool teacher, a highly trained reading teacher, a teacher who today provided individual attention to a student in emotional crisis. I have identified but a few of us here tonight. And with all of us, it’s all about serving our students.
The Berkeley PTA Council has emphasized that the focus in any contract dispute should be on the students. Teachers couldn’t agree more. What’s best for the students of Berkeley? - that is indeed the question here. Which of the proposals currently in dispute - those around a cost of living raise for teachers, how to pay for rising health benefits premiums, and controlling class sizes - best meet Berkeley students’ needs in both the short term and the long term? With these critical questions in mind, we are announcing a BFT Informational Forum for Parents and Guardians scheduled two weeks from tonight, April 20 at 7pm at the Longfellow Middle School auditorium. We invite all Berkeley parents interested in learning about and discussing teachers’ perspectives on these key questions to attend.
There is room for compromise in this crisis. The BFT Negotiations Team can convince our rank and file members to end the pain of Work to Rule that the entire community is bearing if we can report to them of significant progress at the table or, better yet, a tentative agreement. But for us to get there, the Board must somehow find a way to demonstrate to us and to the community that teachers are a priority when it comes to spending increased revenue, that teachers in Berkeley are valued, that teachers in Berkeley are respected. We think there is hope and here’s why:
As you know, the mediator has now asked both the Union and District negotiations teams to focus on next year’s increased revenue and expenditure projections in an effort to break the current logjam in negotiations. BFT has requested that this focus include purely unrestricted moneys and we look forward to receiving those numbers soon. In the meantime, our mutual efforts to determine overall unrestricted and restricted increases is bearing fruit. Taking the results from our recent late night negotiations session with you, BFT has further analyzed District budget documents. We find that, not including Measure B, the District is on tap to receive at least $3 million dollars in new revenue next year. Of course, some of that $3 million will be used for customary expenditures such as increased health benefits premiums, unforeseen audit adjustments, utilities, and insurance. However after we deduct all of the increased expenditures identified by the District at the negotiations table, the District will still have roughly $2 million in new dollars. That’s $2 million new dollars that can and should be used as cost of living increases for all of the employees, classified and certificated, who serve our students so well. BFT looks forward to a follow-up budget meeting with BUSD next week so that we can head into our next mediation session with firm agreement on these numbers. Therein lies the hope.
Financial times are tough and BFT’s proposals continue to reflect this reality. BFT is fighting the governor’s attacks on education alongside of Union brothers and sisters throughout the State and we applaud the Superintendent and Board members who are doing the same through their own organizations. However we most certainly do not applaud efforts by District officials to confuse the Berkeley community and, even worse, pit teachers against our classified brothers and sisters. When District officials consistently depict this dispute as caused by cuts in State funding, they purposefully try to divide and mislead.
The fact is that Berkeley Unified is not expecting a cut in revenue next year but rather an INCREASE of over 4% in ongoing, unrestricted revenue. How the Board of Education chooses to spend this 4% increase is the central focus of our contract dispute. We believe the Board should prioritize spending as many of these new dollars as possible on its own stated mission goals; high quality teachers and corresponding high student achievement. It’s all about serving our students.
You will note that I am primarily addressing the School Board Directors this evening. The Superintendent is a strong leader and able spokesperson but BFT is really negotiating with you, the elected trustees of this school district. You are the ones who set the parameters and bottom lines for the negotiations team members you hire, including the Superintendent. In fact, one of the primary reasons you have been elected by this community is to determine priorities and establish them through the contract agreements you reach with your employees. Your current contract agreements with top central administrators such as the Superintendent currently place their compensation levels well above average in relation to other districts, but we are not complaining about that. We only remark on it because it illustrates the modesty of BFT’s proposals and the fact that you, the Board, are empowered to set these spending priorities. Berkeley teachers are not asking that we also reach an upper echelon ranking (though we of course wouldn’t mind). We only want to hold on to the average ranking we fought hard to reach over these last several years. Furthermore, we have offered to take a 0% cost of living increase this current school year (04-05) - while most other surrounding school districts are giving 2% to their teachers - don’t they have the same Governor as us? Not only that, we have also offered to take a 0% cost of living increase next school year (05-06) should Berkeley Unified’s expected State revenue increase fall through. How much more reasonable can we get?
So put down that draconian contract proposal you are holding over your head and threatening to impose on us (or should I say bash us over the head with) and start getting reasonable back. We of course don’t want to strike but if you leave us with no other choice we will certainly have to. Step back and focus with us on next year’s expected increased revenues and commit to spending them in ways that you think are best for our students. And with that focus in mind, don’t forget that the most influential factor affecting student achievement is teacher quality. If Berkeley Unified is truly serious about maintaining high student achievement, we must also get truly serious about maintaining our ability to recruit and retain quality teachers. Thank You.