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Teachers at Green Dot New York Charter School are getting a raise, a bonus, and a little less job security.

These are some of the modifications that are set to appear in a two-year renewal of Green Dot’s landmark contract with the United Federation of Teachers. Green Dot offered its teachers a 28-page “thin contract” a year after the school opened in 2008, leaving out many of the work rules and policies – including tenure and seniority-based layoffs – that are found in the bulky union deal with the Department of Education.

That contract expired in August and Green Dot and union officials have spent the last few months hammering out a new version. It was tentatively approved by board members on Sept. 26, but details of the contract had not been shared with teachers until this week.

In a statement issued today, the chief negotiators, Leo Casey, a UFT vice president, and Gideon Stein, who serves on the school’s Board of Trustees, shared details of the contract.

Under the new terms, the staff will receive a 3 percent raise each of the next two years, amounting to what will be 20 percent above the current salaries in the Department of Education. Last year’s teachers will also receive a $2000 bonus because of the school’s high performance. The school’s first students are now seniors so graduation data isn’t available, but 95 percent of students have passed the Regents exams they have taken, according to the Green Dot web site.

“The teachers and other staff are being paid more in recognition of being part of a very successful school,” Stein said.

In one concession, teachers will no longer be able to use an independent grievance process in their first year. Instead, they can be fired any time during their first year for any reason. Once the first year is complete, any grievance would return to being handled by an independent arbiter. (more…)

Disgruntled teachers at Opportunity Charter School won their bid to unionize last week after a state agency approved the United Federation of Teachers to represent them.

A ruling by the Public Employment Relations Board dated Aug. 26 officially certified the union to serve as “exclusive negotiating agent” for Opportunity’s teachers, paving the way for the UFT to assume all collective bargaining rights on behalf of its employees.

With the ruling, the UFT now represents 13 New York City charter schools.

The decision comes nearly four months after teachers held a secret “card check,” during which a majority of teachers signed authorization cards stating that they wished to be represented by a union. Administrators refused to recognize the results within 30 days, setting up the official hearing process through PERB, which began in June.

In reviewing the union vote cards, PERB threw out nearly a third of votes that belonged to teachers who were no longer employed at Opportunity, according to a UFT official. That includes more than a dozen teachers who were abruptly fired at the end of the school year. (more…)

Earlier this year, a small group of determined teachers at Opportunity Charter School marched into Leonard Goldberg’s office and confronted their boss.

They carried a letter that detailed their complaints with Goldberg’s response to their recent bid to unionize. Not only had Goldberg refused to recognize the staff’s vote to join the United Federation of Teachers, they said, he had begun waging an anti-union email campaign.

Goldberg, the school’s CEO, declined the letter and ordered them to leave, according to a teacher present at the meeting.

“He was screaming and yelling,” said the teacher. “He said ‘You’re not welcome in here,’ and threw us out of the office.”

By the end of the school year, that teacher and 13 of her pro-union colleagues – as well as one who opposed the union – were notified that their contracts would not be renewed. Five, including the teacher who described the Goldberg meeting, were members of the organizing committee that steered the union vote.

The school says it is a coincidence, but former teachers and union organizers believe the firings were calculated retaliation. They say Goldberg’s behavior in his office and his emails are just examples of his antagonistic attitude toward his teachers’ attempt to unionize.

“Opportunity Charter School has taken a negative stance since day one of the staff forming a union,” said UFT charter school representative Miles Trager, who met personally with Goldberg. “The firings further confirm their intention of quelling teacher voice at the school. ” (more…)

KIPP New York City's logo, from its web site.

Middle school teachers at a KIPP charter school in Brooklyn asked the state this week to let them split from the city teachers union, more than a year after teachers at the same school voted to unionize. The union plans to fight the decision, saying that a group of teachers remain committed to becoming United Federation of Teachers members.

Sixteen staff members signed the petition to break from the UFT. The petition was spearheaded by a guidance counselor named Dameon Clay, his attorney said. Staff who signed the petition include classroom teachers as well as social workers, the dean of teaching and learning, an operations manager, and the office manager.

I couldn’t reach any of the teachers for comment, but Lyle Zuckerman, the attorney representing Clay, said the decision was a judgment about how the teachers could best help themselves and their students. “I think they’ve come to the conclusion that their goals and the educational mission of the school is just going to best be served by them having a direct relationship with the school’s administration,” Zuckerman said.

When they first voted to unionize, teachers at KIPP AMP said they wanted to “create a more sustainable culture so that we can better serve our students and reduce teacher turnover.” At least three teachers who had formed the initial organizing committee at the school are now signing the petition to break from the union. One is Kashi Nelson, a classroom teacher who also sends her daughter to KIPP AMP and who explained her reversal to Alexander Russo last year. (more…)

Frustrated by two years of contract negotiations, the city’s teachers union is pressuring a unionized Queens charter school to make a deal.

United Federation of Teachers president Michael Mulgrew and other union officials held a news conference in front of Merrick Academy-Queens Public Charter School today to protest the school’s contract with a for-profit educational management organization. According to the UFT, over the last four years Merrick Academy’s board has paid over $8 million to Victory Schools, a figure that Mulgrew said was “astronomical.”

At the center of the UFT’s rally today is its ongoing contract talks with the school. Union officials said the school’s board has been dragging its feet on negotiations.

In 2007, an overwhelming majority of teachers at Merrick Academy voted to make the UFT their exclusive bargaining agent, but since then the UFT and school’s board have yet to reach a contract agreement. (more…)