Mediator sides with Laurel teachers union

• Public Employee Relations Board rules in favor of Laurel teachers
• District officials said changes to work rules were needed because of its financial struggles
• Teachers agreed to not seek raises until 2016-7 and to have fewer personal days

A state arbitrator has sided with a Laurel teachers’ union in a dispute over work rules.

“I think teachers are happy that this was ruled in our favor. But it’s bittersweet, because there’s no money attached to the new contract,” said Laurel Education Association president Susan Darnell. “The sweeping changes the district wanted weren’t justified, and we’re glad the mediator recognized that.”

The decision by the state Public Employee Relations Board halts a push by officials to change the district’s collective bargaining agreement.

“We were trying to move in line with state expectations and with other districts,” said Superintendent John Ewald. “We are happy to have a final document to be working from and look forward to moving forward with our teachers.”

Faced with a tight budget, district leaders have said they won’t be able to grant teachers a raise from local money through the 2016-2017 school year. Though it had originally sought raises after two years, the union agreed not to seek such raises during that time, though its members demanded salary negotiations reopen no later than January 2016.

But the sides could not agree on the changes to work rules district officials sought.

Those changes included: removing limits of five hours or four periods of uninterrupted teaching each day; shrinking planning periods by five minutes; cutting personal days from five to three; removing requirements that teachers get comp time for working hours not part of a regular work day; and turning 3½ days of preparing for school to professional training.

The district also wanted to eliminate the practice allowing teachers to voluntarily switch classrooms during the school year and give school leaders power to reassign teachers within schools.

Teachers have been working under a contract that expired in 2010. The union and district negotiated unsuccessfully for months over a new agreement, including three sessions with outside mediators.

That led the two sides to present their final offers to the relations board, which would choose one proposal that would become the district’s new contract. The board selected the union’s offer.

The union also agreed to 5½ hours of continuous teaching time instead of five and cutting personal days to four instead of five.

“We understood all along that the district was in bad financial shape and were willing to make sacrifices,” Darnell said. “But the work rules were the biggest problem.”

The employee board’s ruling acknowledges the district’s financial situation. But it said there was not enough evidence that the union’s terms would cost the district too much or are behind the structural financial problems it is facing.

Darnell said she hopes the decision puts an end to a sometimes tense relationship. At one point, Laurel teachers began working the hours explicitly required by contract as a form of protest.

“I think this created a lot of hard feelings,” Yarnell said. “Now we need to put this behind us and move on.”

Contact Matthew Albright at malbright@delawareonline.com, (302) 324-2428 or on Twitter @TNJ_malbright.