As the teacher representative on the Ridgecrest Charter School Board, I was recently asked to facilitate a meeting with the teachers regarding an increase in medical insurance costs. The administrative staff felt that they had reached an impasse and asked me to intervene. They indicated that some of the staff had become hostile and resistant to compromise and they were uncertain on how to proceed at this point. This was definitely outside of my comfort zone. I am NOT good with numbers. I have a hard time keeping lots of details in mind at a given time. I didn’t really have much information about the available plans, costs, and other variables in play. What I am good at, however, is delegating to the right people and giving them the support they need to do their job. I am good at bringing together people under the umbrella of collaboration and community building. I have the ability to refocus a conversation back on the topic when it inevitably wanders off while helping people feel their opinions matter. That skill probably comes from many years of experience facilitating student discussions in a variety of venues, both synchronous and asynchronous.
This is a difficult discussion under the best of circumstances, and even more so given the current climate of declining state funding, local educator layoffs, and the overall economic climate. As a board, we could easily set the constraints and tell the teachers that their benefit costs would be rising, like it or not. However, I prefer to facilitate a conversation with those most effected by the issue. I made a pledge to the teachers to create an open and honest conversation, giving them all the data I had access to, and letting them know that their voice would be heard.
I put some thought into how I wanted to invite the teachers to the table, and then set about gathering information from a variety of sources. I asked the school accounting firm to provide me with solid data. I asked the school secretary to call other comparable charter schools to see how they were handling their benefit budgets. I discussed money saving options with the business manager to see where it was possible to scale back and what effect that would have on the bottom line. I thought about how I wanted to start the meeting and what goals I wanted to achieve. Because of a rescheduled doctor’s appointment in Lancaster, I wasn’t sure I’d be able to make it to the meeting before 4pm, which was a little late, but there was nothing I could do about that. When I had that all mostly in place, I sent out the following email to the staff:
I apologize for the time. I will do my best to be there by 3:30, although it might be closer to 4. I had a doctor appointment in Lancaster get rescheduled and they didn’t give me much wiggle room. I should be able to leave there by 2:15 at the latest and I will come straight to the school. If you need to get kids and bring them to the meeting that is ok. I’ll bring along some munchies and do my best to keep the meeting to an hour.
This is an important meeting. Believe me when I say that I have enough meetings in my life and wouldn’t want to add another one if I didn’t think it was worth the time. My goal is to facilitate a positive conversation that will generate some unique ideas for how to deal with the budget situation that is impacting all of us. The result of this conversation will have a direct influence on what we as a board have to decide. We have seen first-hand what happens when an administration does not take into account the collective wisdom of the group in coming up with creative solutions… many of our colleagues locally and across the state have their jobs threatened because of that. A number of SSUSD teachers have told me that no one even asked them about their ideas on how to deal with the budget. Are you kidding? You have one of the most highly educated work-forces in the state and no one thought to bring them to the table and see if they had any ideas? In my mind, that was just dumb. I want Ridgecrest Charter School to be different. This meeting is about asking YOU what YOU think and seeing if we can brainstorm some ideas for moving forward. I want to let our board know that you do care about this school and that you do have a stake in how things turn out… but unless you come, your voice won’t be heard. I always tell my students around election time “If you don’t vote, you can’t complain”. What you have to say IS important.
In preparation for this meeting, I’d like to ask you to think about a couple of things:
- What are the most important issues to you concerning benefits, salary and working conditions? What issues are you willing to compromise on?
- Are there non-monetary benefits that are important to you? (faculty development, flex Friday afternoons, classroom management workshops, field trips, mentoring, etc). Can you think of some that would be useful that aren’t already a part of what we do here?
- In what areas outside of your classroom can you make a contribution to the school?
- What are some places that you see “wiggle” room when it comes to staffing, work load, student services, and other areas involving the school?
- What is your vision for this school? Think beyond your classroom… what would you like to see this school become?
- What have you seen at other schools as far as innovative and interesting solutions to tough problems?
We need to be very careful when looking at other schools that we compare apples to apples. We are a small, rural, single school district, charter school. When looking at benefits, salary, classroom size, and lots of other variables, it’s not really useful to compare to what the bigger districts and schools are doing. My family moved here from a single school (3 classroom) district of 56 kids grades K-6. Mr. Dave, the bus driver, was also the janitor, fix-it guy, hot lunch picker-upper/distributor, and the guy that kids had to talk to when they got out of hand. Here at Cerro Coso, I have a department of 3 people to do all of the same reports and accreditation stuff that Bakersfield College has to do with their department of 15-20 people. Why do people stay under those conditions? Because they love what they do. They enjoy having a voice in the decision making process (without having to go through 10 levels of administrative foolishness). They believe in the mission and vision of the school. Most important… they know they are making a real difference in the lives of real students and not just warehousing them through to their next destination.
My commitment to all of you is to do my best to bring out all of the available information so that we can have a complete set of data upon which to discuss and make decisions. I can’t promise that we will come up with a perfect solution that everyone will be perfectly happy with, but my hope is that if everyone understands the details, contributes good ideas to the conversation, and has a stake in the outcome, that we can come up with something that is workable and even agreeable. The alternative is that others get to decide for you, and that’s not an option I am particularly ok with. I hope you will attend on Tuesday!
Always feel free to email, instant message, social network, call (384-8771), or ask me to meet with you at the school to talk about concerns and ideas. Thank you
Teachers are always an interesting group to work with. They are quite independent. However, especially at the K12 level, they are not always given due consideration as the highly-educated, creative professionals that they are. I began the session letting them know that I appreciated their participation and that I valued their experience and opinions. I wanted to get them focused on the positive aspects of their situation so had them break into small groups and brainstorm about their vision for this school, what they liked, where they wanted to see things go. We discussed the topics that were brought up, including the ability to have a voice in the process, their academic freedom, and an appreciation for the current leadership of the school. I then tied that into the topic at hand by letting them know that they DID have a say in how health benefits would be determined, that I DID trust in their ability to come up with good solutions, and that I appreciated their time and efforts in coming to the table with their ideas and opinions.
In the conversation that followed, I was able to determine their priorities (reasonable monthly premiums, flexibility in applying the benefit, equitable distribution, and making the agreement part of the teaching contract). In turn, I shared with them the information I had received from the school’s accounting firm about the state of the budget, projected funding, comparisons to how other charter schools operate, and recommended actions. It was important to me that we compare apples to apples (small, single-district charter schools). I had the school secretary share the information she had prepared about what other similar schools were doing for health care, what options we had available, and what some of the plans entailed as far as coverage. We discussed possible areas to save money that could then be redirected to the benefit package fund. The business director was able to comment on the financial impact of those different choices.
The conversation was lively at times, there were certainly strong opinions to be heard, and I frequently had to respectfully refocus back to the topic, but everyone had a chance to discuss their needs and concerns, and everyone felt that they were working with all of the information available. One of the teachers told me that she had never, in her career, been asked what she thought about issues like this before. Others expressed appreciation for what we were trying to do. In the end, we came up with a reasonable solution that I think will be accepted by the board at large. I felt confident that we had achieved the goals of my email to the staff quoted above – a workable agreement was achieved in a way that everyone involved felt included and informed. Hopefully, our efforts will make a difference. Today, I got the following message from the school accountant:
Staff at RCS has shared with me the terrific job you are doing outlining to your employees the financial situation of the school and in particular as it relates to employee total compensation. I do appreciate the extra time you are taking to do this. Many staff have no idea about the fragile fiscal margin on which RCS operates. Providing them opportunities to hear this info in multiple settings is helpful for all. What is particularly difficult in this situation is that, as of now, there is no light that in the near future the US health system, including care and costs, will be ‘fixed.’
Thanks for all you are doing in helping secure health plan options that best meet the needs of staff and school.
Stuff like that means a lot
