What’s Happened & What’s Next: SMSD-NEA teacher contract negotiations

Contract negotiations between the Shawnee Mission School District and the National Education Association-Shawnee Mission have carried on since spring 2019, with a primary emphasis on increased teacher compensation. 

The process has resulted in a number of efforts for teachers and NEA-SM supporters to voice their disapproval of the district’s handling of the situation. An equal number of efforts from the district have been brought forth to explain the fiscal impossibility of the NEA-SM’s proposals and the workings of its budget. 

Negotiations, which ran their course five times unsuccessfully with two mediations last summer, carried into last September with the growing knowledge that a fact finder — a chosen individual within the KS Department of Labor in charge of analyzing the situation and recommending a course of action — would be called upon to resolve the stagnant talks. 

The district filed for a fact finder on Sept. 27, initiating a waiting period for the scheduling of a fact finding hearing — which involves the fact finder sitting before presentations with evidence from both sides and asking questions to develop an opinion on the situation. 

During the waiting period, dozens of speeches from teachers, students and others with support for the NEA-SM’s side of the negotiation — which focuses on substantially increasing teacher pay across the board — were given during the public comment portion of district board meetings. Ongoing work was conducted by the SMSD to find solutions in keeping with primary priorities: to follow symbiotically with the approved Strategic Plan, to increase teacher compensation and to come to a deficit-free solution among them. 

The fact finding hearing took place Jan. 9, serving as an opportunity for Henry Cox, the fact finder assigned by the KS Department of Labor, to field comments from both parties and aid in the development of a fact finding report. 

The night saw opening remarks from SMSD Superintendent Dr. Mike Fulton, then proceeded to approximately 45-minute remarks from lawyer Greg Goheen on behalf of the district and remarks from NEA-SM representatives on their perspective. After the presentations, conversation-formatted questions were asked by Cox to both parties. 

The SMSD’s priorities outlined the emphasis on avoiding deficit spending, while the NEA-SM cited assessments that the district had up to $30 million payable for increased teacher compensation. The assessment does not match district budget assessments, which show the NEA-SM’s proposals to cost $12 million — which would, according to the SMSD’s online budget page, require cuts that are out of question in such a short period of time. 

“We’re trying really hard to take care of our teachers, but we have to do it in a financially sustainable way,” Smith said in an interview with The Harbinger in October. “This year we’ve got an additional $9.6 million. Next year, I believe the amount we expect to get is under $3 million…whatever we do this year is what we do from now on. So, we can’t do something that we can’t sustain over time.”

The items on the agenda for the 2019-2020 negotiations include increased teacher salary, teacher planning time adjustments and late resignations — but a substantial portion of the dispute has resided in items not on the table for negotiation at the time. 

Despite being left out of the negotiation process, the reduction of six class periods to five per school day for teachers was a primary issue brought forth by teachers over the last nine months. 

But the SMSD cited its Strategic Plan as a vehicle to eventually reduce class sizes by smoothly transitioning over the next several years to avoid a deficit — the reduction itself effective by August 2021. NEA-SM supporters and district teachers saw this as “too late” in their speeches at board meetings, and the class period reduction question moved to the forefront regardless. 

“To explain to teachers that the district will begin to study how to move the workload from six to five with a Strategic Plan in the fall of 2021 feels disrespectful,” SM North teacher Erin Rivers said at a November board meeting. “Pay attention to your foundation, SMSD. Reduce our class sizes. Lighten our workload.”

With the fact finding hearing and several unsuccessful negotiations now complete, there are a handful of steps left to resolve the longstanding situation, and other potential courses of action for issues like class period reduction to occur after the current negotiations. Here’s what’s next in the SMSD-NEA contract negotiation process.

State-assigned fact finder Henry Cox is expected to release an official fact finding report later this week detailing a recommendation of siding with either the SMSD or the NEA-SM. 

The report’s contents will be negotiated again between the SMSD and the NEA-SM at meetings set to proceed in the coming weeks — and, if no deal is made, the district Board of Education will proceed to vote on which contract terms to enact. 

Further steps depend on the vote’s outcome. In the event that negotiations result in another stalemate, and the Board votes in support of the SMSD’s perspective, teachers who have “worked for the district for more than one year” will be given three options, according to the district website: “accepting the contract for the 2019-2020 school year, working under the terms of the 2018-2019 contract, or resigning without penalty.” 

Once the contract negotiations are officially resolved, the questions raised tangentially — such as class period reductions and reduced class sizes — will be open for discussion and resolution.