Once again, the Washington Teachers’ Union (WTU) and D.C. Public Schools (DCPS) have yet to finalize a new contract, due to what union members describe as delay tactics by central office leadership and D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser (D).
Public school teachers say that, without a new contract, they will more than likely not see a cost-of-living salary increase for however long it takes to finalize the contract. The situation proves even more harrowing for those with more than 20 years, whose retirement income will stagnate.
Michael Donaldson, a Spanish teacher at Deal Middle School in Northwest, said this situation reaffirms the stark reality of teaching amid DCPS’ budget crunch.
“DCPS increased the cost of each teacher but we’re not seeing those benefits on an expired contract,” Donaldson said in reference to what central office leaders explained to principals earlier this year about the “lack of buying power” in the Fiscal Year 2025 budget.
Last summer, Donaldson and other WTU collective bargaining team members submitted a Memorandum of Agreement to DCPS to jumpstart a contract negotiation process that the D.C. Council implored WTU and DCPS to finish before the start of the current budget season.
However, DCPS would not acknowledge receipt of the MOA or move forward with negotiations for 72 days.
Bowser would later go on to present her Fiscal Year 2025 budget proposal to the D.C. Council without a finalized teachers’ contract. Donaldson told The Informer that the salaries calculated in that document are based on an outdated contract that doesn’t reflect the current cost of living in the District.
Donaldson expressed his fear that the lack of a contract would exacerbate tensions at schools where positions are getting cut and teachers are anticipating overcrowded classrooms and the lack of wraparound student support.
“When DCPS came up with how much a teacher costs, they estimated based on what they think it might cost,” Donaldson said. “We’re working off of numbers that are inaccurate because they are not based on a current contract. That’s maddening and it doesn’t help for stability for our local school budget to not know the actual cost of a teacher.”
It’s All About the Money
On May 6, contract negotiations worsened during Teacher Appreciation Week when WTU’s collective bargaining team received notification from DCPS, at the last minute, about a canceled collective bargaining meeting.
A day later, DCPS filed a Public Employee Relations Board (PERB) complaint alleging that WTU violated confidentiality by speaking to the media and at least one D.C. council member about contract negotiations.
On Monday, Bowser declined to speak on the PERB complaint and teacher contract negotiations in great detail, opting only to tell The Informer that both sides have reached an impasse around matters of teacher compensation.
“We have to have fair bargaining,” Bowser said. “One union can’t bargain all the dollars away.”
Meanwhile, DCPS Chancellor Lewis D. Ferebee remains engaged in an ongoing fight with the D.C. Council over central office dollars.
On Monday, he sent a letter to council members in response to the $25 million that D.C. Council Chairman Phil Mendelson took out of DCPS central office to offset the loss that District schools experienced under Bowser’s budget proposal.
In the letter, Ferebee demanded that council members reject Mendelson’s proposal out of deference to the cuts that DCPS already made to central office and what he described as an urgent threat to services that benefit students and their families. Though he empathized with those concerned about cuts to teacher positions, Ferebee remained firm about his notion that DCPS must go through a period of post-pandemic “right sizing.”
“Districts across the country are experiencing the sunsetting of COVID recovery federal dollars and feeling the increased costs of new labor contracts and higher benefit costs,” Ferebee said in the letter. “For all these reasons, now is the time to ensure a sustainable staffing level which will be significantly higher than pre-pandemic.”
WTU Alleges Infringement on Communication
In the aftermath of DCPS’ PERB complaint, WTU members rallied in demand of a finalized contract. Rallies took place after school hours at Coolidge High School and Roosevelt High School in Northwest and Eastern High School in Northeast during Teacher Appreciation Week.
Staff members who participated in those acts of civil disobedience represented Dorothy Height Elementary School, MacFarland Middle School, Whittier Elementary School, Roosevelt High School, Coolidge High School, and Ida B. Wells Middle School in Northwest and Eliot-Hine Middle School and Eastern High School in Northeast.
Elected officials who supported WTU throughout much of last week included D.C. Councilmembers Robert White (D-At large) and Trayon White (D-Ward 8), and State Board of Education Representatives Eboni-Rose Thompson (Ward 7) and Frazier O’Leary (Ward 4).
On Friday, May 10, O’Leary and D.C. Jobs With Justice Executive Director Elizabeth Falcon counted among those who listened as WTU President Jacqueline Pogue Lyons explained the union’s qualms with District officials on the steps of Roosevelt High School.
For several minutes, Pogue Lyons took teachers down memory lane, recounting instances when DCPS scheduled collective bargaining meetings early in the morning, just hours before teachers had to report to school.
D.C. Council Chairman Phil Mendelson (D) and Julia Hudson, chief of staff for At-large D.C. Councilmember Anita Bonds (D), attended that Feb. 29 meeting at the American Federation of Teachers headquarters in Northwest.
In its PERB complaint, DCPS alleges that WTU engaged in “ex-parte communication” with council members about compensation, which DCPS says falls outside of the council’s observer status in contract negotiations. Pogue Lyons would later question Bowser’s concern about confidentiality and the mayor’s overall sincerity about quickly finalizing a contract.
Without DCPS’ cooperation, Pogue Lyons said, WTU’s collective bargaining team has had no choice but to involve the D.C. Council.
“If Mayor Bowser can tell us we can’t talk to council members, who else is she going to say we can’t talk to?” Pogue Lyons asked teachers on May 10 during the rally. “It’s a delaying tactic that shows you don’t care. It took three-and-a-half years for the last contract but [teachers] are not making more than their colleagues [in other school systems] are making. You deserve even more. We’re getting the best and brightest but we’re not keeping them.”
