California Senator Tony Mendoza

The California Joint Legislative Audit Committee voted Wednesday to audit Alliance College-Ready Public Schools over the charter management organization’s use of funds in its unionization conflict with the LA teachers union, UTLA.

Alliance operates 27 independent charter schools in LA Unified. The organization’s management has for more than a year been resisting an attempt by UTLA to unionize its teachers.

The audit was requested by state Sen. Tony Mendoza, who wrote in a letter to the committee that he wants to determine if the public funds Alliance receives were used to “advance student achievement and improve the quality of educational programs” and were not used to resist unionization, which Alliance would have to use privately raised funds for.”

“Alliance schools are publicly funded,” Mendoza said in a statement. “The purpose of those funds is to educate children inside the classroom – not to intimidate teachers and parents.”

The audit also will look into matters beyond Alliance’s finances, including if information about Alliance parents, students and alumni was shared in conflict with confidentiality laws.

An Alliance press release characterizing the audit as politically motivated pointed out that Mendoza does not have any Alliance schools in his district and also is a former board member of UTLA. Mendoza represents District 32 in the eastern area of Los Angeles County.

UTLA President Alex Caputo-Pearl

The California Public Employment Relations Board (PERB) will be seeking an injunction in Los Angeles County Superior Court to stop what it says is illegal interference by officials at Alliance College-Ready Public Schools against a unionization effort by some of its teachers.

The LA teachers union, UTLA, is currently attempting to unionize the teachers at the charter school organization, which has 27 schools in the Los Angeles area and employs around 700 teachers who are currently not represented by any union.

Alliance leaders have been vigorously fighting the unionization efforts, and UTLA claimed those attempts went too far and violated state laws. PERB agreed, and in August filed a formal complaint in state court.

“It’s been pretty shocking what is happening at the Alliance schools,” UTLA President Alex Caputo-Pearl said in a statement. “Alliance has played hardball and used illegal tactics inappropriate for any workplace and totally unacceptable in publicly funded charter schools. We are pleased the labor board acted swiftly and decisively. It was the right thing to do.”

A hearing has been set for Nov. 2 before an administrative law judge regarding the complaint. PERB’s intent to file an injunction was outlined in a letter to a lawyer representing UTLA.

“Evidence reviewed by state authorities shows that Alliance’s managers had interrogated school employees about their pro-union sympathies, unfairly forced a highly-regarded physics teacher out of his job, and routinely conducted unlawful surveillance of educators,” a press release from UTLA said.

Catherine Suitor, a spokesperson for Alliance, said PERB was basing its ruling on misleading and false information from UTLA.

Suitor said UTLA’s effort to get a majority of Alliance teachers to support unionization is “stalling” because they have not garnered enough support, and the interference accusations is “sort of a last ditch legal effort on their part” to keep drawing the process out to buy more time. In a letter to its staff sent after UTLA asked for injunctive relief, Alliance claimed 80 percent of its teachers have expressed no interest in joining UTLA.

The administration of Alliance has all along made no secret of the fact that it opposes its teachers’ joining UTLA but has said its efforts have simply been an information campaign to educate its teachers and parents about UTLA.

“We refute the charges that they have said. We have all throughout this from day one, ever since they announced the campaign, we have sought legal counsel on not only the letter of the law, but the intent of the law,” Suitor said.

Suitor also suggested the PERB board was biased in favor of unions.

“Three of five members are former attorneys or leaders with labor unions, including two who worked with CTA,” Suitor said in an email, referring to the California Teachers Association, to which UTLA is affiliated.

Catherine Suitor, Chief Development & Communications Officer of Alliance, said in a statement to LA School Report the charter group looks forward to arguing its case before the state Public Employees Relations Board on Aug. 21 in response to charges by LA Unified’s teachers union.

“We respect the rights of our teachers to organize a union, and we also respect the rights of those teachers who do not want a union – and we repeatedly state that fact,” Suitor wrote. “Our teachers have freely expressed their opinions on the issue. We have received legal counsel on everything we’ve done as it is relates to the unionization efforts as our goal is to be fully transparent and within the letter of the law.”

The union’s accusations are detailed in two complaints (here and here) to PERB.

“We absolutely disagree with UTLA’s assertion of anything different, and we will defend our position with PERB,” Suitor added. “ On the contrary, we’ve heard from a number of teachers that they feel harassed by UTLA’s communications tactics to strong arm them to join a union that they have no interest in being a part of.”

Alliance is the largest charter group operating in LA Unified, with 27 schools serving 12,000 low-income students.

William Morales, a teacher at Alliance Susan and Eric Smidt Technology High School, said in the statement, “There has been a lopsided discussion about unionization at Alliance schools. We have received a doubled amount of information from the union to our work emails and mailboxes, leafleting at our schools and during our professional development, in comparison to Alliance’s outreach.”

Morales added, “However, we’ve had conversations pro and against unionization across the entire staff email list. I think it’s healthy to hear and discuss all sides – with equity – so we can make an educated choice.”

The union’s accusations are detailed in two complaints (here and here) that were submitted to state Public Employee Relations Board. Alliance is the largest charter group operating in LA Unified, with 27 schools serving 12,000 low-income students.

The unionization efforts at Alliance schools, which began earlier this year, have touched off the latest proxy war in LA Unified between the union and charter schools, which typically hire non-union teachers. While the faculty at some charter schools within the district have joined ranks with UTLA, many others have not. Alliance teachers are split, with many eager to join UTLA and many others who still prefer to remain independent.

In their complaints filed with the PERB, UTLA provides a chronology of how the Alliance officials have responded to the unionization efforts. Alliance officials did not respond to repeated requests for comment.

In one instance included in the complaints, an after-school union meeting on March 18 was canceled at Alliance Susan & Eric Smidt Technology High School by the principal Lori Rhodes after a UTLA representative, Jessica Foster, who was meeting with school teachers, was told she was not allowed on campus and was escorted off the property.

On March 26, UTLA organizers Glenn Goldstein and Jessica Yeh were refused entry to a scheduled teachers meeting on the campus of Alliance Renee & Meyer Luskin Academy High School in Inglewood by principal Chalio Medrano.

The complaint says the schools did not give UTLA the right to represent the teachers, in violation of state law.

And, on April 7, UTLA argued that Alliance Area Superintendent Ena Lavan removed teacher Elana Goldbaum from a professional development meeting and told to stop handing out union-related flyers.

In a second complaint, the Smidt Technology principal is accused of questioning a teacher, Michelle Buckowski, about the UTLA meeting and told that it was “an uneducated position” and “that she should focus on her upcoming formal performance evaluation.”

The complaint also quotes from email messages and letters from Alliance officials warning against unionization. One document cited said, “The union can say or promise anything to get you to sign. The union can even lie or mislead you.”

Under the new plan, which begins next year, both sides agreed to an interim three-tier final evaluation system, with three ratings: “exceeds standards,” “meets standards” and “below standards.”

The new system replaces a two-tier final evaluation system that rated teachers as “meeting standards” or “below standards.”

The district and the union also agreed to form a joint task force to re-write the Teacher Growth and Development Cycle, a series of protocols that form the basis of the final evaluation rankings, by 2016-17.

Those procedures came under fire during Superintendent John Deasy‘s tenure when UTLA argued that Deasy was trying to lay the groundwork for merit-based pay when he added a new ranking of “highly effective” to other evaluation metrics. The union took the issue to the state labor board, PERB, and a judge ruled in its favor.

That decision ultimately forced the district to eliminate the added ranking and revert to the previous system. But it still left teachers and their supervisors — school principals — frustrated and confused. Principals especially complained that the system had become too burdensome with a backlog of paperwork, leaving little time to conduct multiple class observations and to provide meaningful feedback.

Which is why, Alex Caputo-Pearl, president of UTLA, told reporters this week that the changes to the evaluation system are among many of the “immediate and concrete improvements” in the new agreement.

In theory, the purpose of teacher evaluations is two-fold: to identify struggling teachers in need of additional professional development and mentoring and to discover gifted teachers who can serve as mentors to share best practices.

In LA Unified’s case, the new evaluation agreement eases any threat of losing $171 million in federal funding through a waiver to the old No Child Left Behind program. The government insisted on a three-tiered evaluation system to qualify for the money.

In recent years, amid the school reform debate, evaluations have also become a tool in the equation used to fire “ineffective teachers.” A poor rating coupled with low student scores on standardized tests is often the foundation for defining a bad teacher. Around the country it’s often at the core of contentious contract negotiations and legal battles between teachers unions and school district officials, politicians and lobbyists. It was also a recurring theme in last year’s landmark education trial, Vergara v. California.

In that case, plaintiffs successfully argued that teacher layoffs should be based on teacher effectiveness judged by performance evaluations, not on “last-in, first-out” hiring policies that give teachers with seniority preference over newer teachers, regardless of their performance ratings as has been the case in LA Unified due to the existing bargaining contract with UTLA. Vergara is now under appeal.

Last-in, first-out was a policy Deasy hoped to overturn. But his unilateral directive to make student data account for up to 30 percent of a teacher’s evaluation met furious backlash from teachers and was quickly rescinded.

“That’s the opposite of the way you want to build a better teacher work-force,” LA Unified board member Steve Zimmer told LA School Report. “Unless the agenda is to create a punitive system turning people against each other in the name of competition.”

Zimmer says he anticipates the new task force will collaborate with the current administration. “We’re not looking to rehash or re-wage old battles,” Zimmer said. But he conceded, “I see no scenario in which we wouldn’t use student outcome data in some way in teacher evaluations.”

“But I expect it’s going to be a system that’s about people, not algorithms,” he added.

The district agreed and said it would join the union with “reluctant willingness” in asking the state Public Employment Relations Board to affirm that the talks are deadlocked.

The declaration starts a detailed legal process defined by state law, designed to give the sides the best chance to resolve differences. It could take about a month before they exhaust the steps along the way, leading to an agreement or a strike.

The sides have made little progress on a dozen issues, including a pay raise for teachers, who haven’t had one in more than seven years. After 18 bargaining sessions, it became apparent today that the gulfs on salaries and everything else are too wide to close without outside help.

If the PERB affirms that the talks are deadlocked, a mediator would be assigned to help the sides find common ground and bring them to an agreement. Negotiations can continue during the mediation process, but if it proves unsuccessful, the process would continue with a fact-finding panel — a representative from each side and a state-appointed neutral as chairman — to recommend terms of a settlement.

If no agreement is achieved, the sides could resume negotiations, the district could impose its best and final offer and, rejecting it, the union could strike.

“After 18 bargaining sessions since July, LAUSD has yet to present legitimate counterproposals on key elements of our Schools LA Students Deserve campaign,” the union said in a statement, listing class sizes, due process for housed teachers, support for restorative justice programs and elimination of teacher evaluations among the issues on which progress has been elusive.

In an email to board members, LA Unified’s chief negotiator, Vivian Ekchian, said, “We expressed our own disappointment with the lack of progress and expressed our reluctant willingness to join in on the request to PERB.”

In a statement from the district, Superintendent Ramon Cortines said, “I’ve been disappointed and frustrated by the lack of progress toward an agreement. It’s my hope that the appointment of a mediator will lead to an expeditious settlement that ultimately supports our students and the District at large.”

The union characterized the gaps between as “significant.” As one example, the union is demanding an 8.5 percent one-year increase for teachers while the district’s latest offer is 5 percent, which it described as “fair and generous.” The union rejected that offer last week.

The union insists the district can afford to meet its demands, pointing to $59 million in unspent Common Core funding that must be spent by June 30 and an 8 percent increase in state money to the district through Governor Jerry Brown’s budget proposal.

The district calculates the cost of meeting the teachers’ demand at more than $800 million, saying that would either bankrupt the district or, by cutting elsewhere, cause layoffs and the elimination of programs.

The union has accused the district of “refusing to bargain in good faith” on that and other issues despite, as the union asserts in its statement, LA Unified ranking last among 47 school districts in LA County in maximum teacher salary. The union also cited recent district data that showed about 3,000 classes have over 45 students per teacher.

Only resolution of all issues would lead to an agreement, the union said, insisting in the statement, “UTLA will not accept a piecemeal agreement that addresses only one or two issues, which fails to improve student learning conditions and educator working conditions.  We will continue our aggressive organizing campaign through every stage of this process.”

The union filed the action in June with the Public Employee Relations Board (or PERB), objecting to the new teacher evaluation system set up by Superintendent John Deasy, which will, in part, use student test scores. (Of course, there may not be any test scores this year, but that’s a different story.) If the two sides don’t reach a settlement, the case will move to a hearing before an administrative law judge.

The teachers union filed two other unfair labor practice charges in September, over teachers that were separated from their classrooms at Crenshaw High School and City of Angels Independent Study School.

Previous posts: UTLA Files Action Against District Over Teacher Evaluations*; Teachers Union Files Two More Unfair Labor Practice Charges*; District Urges Board to Dismiss Union’s Unfair Practice Charge

UTLA President Warren Fletcher

The teachers union has filed two unfair labor practice charges with the Public Employment Relations Board (or PERB) against the Los Angeles Unified School District over 12 teachers who have been removed from two different schools – one at City of Angels and 11 at Crenshaw High. UTLA president Warren Fletcher said at a press conference today that the teachers were reassigned because of their advocacy work on behalf of the union.

“Teachers were exiled from their school for their advocacy,” Fletcher said. “We cannot stand idly by. We need to make sure that advocacy is celebrated, not punished.

Jeff Pott, a teacher and UTLA’s chapter chair at City of Angels Independent Study School in Downtown LA, an alternative school for at-risk youth, claims he was targeted by the newly appointed principal of the school in 2012.

“I was removed specifically for my union activity,” he said.

Pott made a number of claims about the principal, including that he targeted gay teachers and “compelled two of them to leave,” and that he tried to force one teacher to accuse another of sexual abuse. Pott filed several greivances with the principal on behalf of his fellow teachers.

“I was compelled to be in conflict with this principal,” said Pott, who was displaced from the school after 12 years and reassigned to a substitute teacher position.

Superintendent John Deasy said the district doesn’t comment on personnel decisions, which are subject to school board review but only in closed-door sessions. When asked if the district removes teachers because of union activity, he replied, “Absolutely not.”

The other PERB charge involves 12 teachers at the beleaguered Crenshaw High, which was reconstituted into three magnet schools by the district because of its low test scores and graduation rates.

“Crenshaw had serious problems for years,” said Deasy.

Teachers were invited to reapply for their jobs; 33 of them were rejected, while 29 were invited back, although some of those chose not to. Among the 33 were 12 teachers who claim they were singled out for their activities within the union.

“This was a union bust,” said Meredith Smith, one of the displaced teachers. “It was an attempt to bring in younger teachers that they can control and bully. This is by design.”

Alex Caputo-Pearl, at the podium, Warren Fletcher standing behind him

Deasy said that the school district didn’t weigh in on re-hiring decisions at Crenshaw and that they were made by the principals and a board that included parents, students and teachers.

One of the 12 displaced teachers was Alex Caputo-Pearl, who taught history at Crenshaw for 13 years, and is now running against Fletcher for the UTLA presidency. One issue Caputo-Pearl has raised in his candidacy is what he sees as Fletcher’s failure to fight the reconstitution of Crenshaw High.

UTLA filed an unfair labor practice charge against LAUSD in June over the district’s new teacher evaluation system.

*An earlier version of this story misstated the number of teachers removed because of an erroneous remark at the press conference. It is 12, not 13.

Previous posts: UTLA Files Action Against District Over Teacher Evaluations*; Three-in-One Approach Gives Crenshaw a New Look for Success; UTLA Factions Lining Up to Oust Fletcher as President; Crenshaw Teacher Activist Packs Up His Boxes; Crenshaw Reconstituted

Deasy, left, Fletcher, right

LA Unified is urging the Public Employment Relations Board to dismiss the teacher’s union’s unfair labor practice charge, filed in June. The nine-page district response, dated August 15 and posted today by the LA Daily News, outlines a series of reasons that the district says shows that the charges are without merit.

The issue at hand is over the new teacher evaluations, which are being implemented for the first time and use a far more numerous and nuanced set of metrics than in years past, including, crucially, student test scores.

The LA teachers union has been vehemently opposed to the use of such scores in years past, but reluctantly agreed to them last year after a judge ordered that new evaluations be created based, in part, on student achievement.

For a brief moment, it looked as if an historic compromise was reached. But it soon fell apart, and now the dispute appears to be headed to court, albeit the quasi-judicical body known as PERB.

The union’s complaint is three-fold: that the district is seeking to change teacher evaluations from a two-level rating (“Meets Standards” and “Below Standard Performance”) to a four-level rating; that the district is seeking to create a new “lead teacher” position with higher pay; and that the district is implementing a new evaluation system, along with new training requirements, that the union hasn’t agreed to.

In its response, the district contends that the four levels are simply to provide the teacher feedback throughout the year and are not meant for the “overall,” year-end evaluation, which could eventually lead to a teacher’s dismissal if the evaluation is “Below Standard” multiple years in a row. The district response also says that any change would be subject to negotiations with the union.

The district also claims that the LAUSD-UTLA agreement gives it the right to add a “salary differential” (i.e., more pay) if the teacher is given “extra assignments and extra duties.”

Curiously, no mention is made of test scores, which are supposed to count for 30 percent of the new evaluations and would seem to be the epicenter of UTLA’s concerns.

It’s never been entirely clear why the accord reached between UTLA President Warren Fletcher and LAUSD Superintendent John Deasy fell apart so quickly. Fletcher recently told the Daily News that “The ink was barely dry, and the district said it was making a bunch of changes.”

Previous posts: UTLA Files Action Against District Over Teacher Evaluations*;  Teacher Evaluations Still a Work in Progress;  Revamp Teacher Evaluation Plan, Says LA Times