Dec. 28—Teachers and administrators will begin meeting in January to develop a new memorandum of understanding.
The process, called collaborative conferencing, brings together teams to discuss issues such as teacher pay and benefits,
“We’re excited to get back to the table and do great things with teachers,” said Director of Schools William Stepp during the Dec. 7 meeting of the Cumberland County Board of Education.
Stepp presented collaborative conferencing teams, required by law to be approved by the board.
The administrative team will include Kim Bray, chief operating officer; Rebecca Farley, chief academic officer; Karri Hobby, K-8 curriculum supervisor; Scott Maddox, 9-12 curriculum supervisor; Kelly Smith, Stone Memorial High School principal; Kara Spicer, Pine View Elementary principal; and Anita Hale, 4th District school board representative.
The teacher committee is made up representatives of the Cumberland County Education Association Julia Timson, David Walker, Becky Smith, Lisa Parker, Gail Reed, April Shelton and Ashton Hayes.
Teachers voted 60.8% to be represented by CCEA.
However, the board had not appointed a special question committee to send the survey to the district’s educators.
The petition from educators asking for collaborative conferencing was presented in October, as required by law. The board took no vote at that meeting to appoint a special question committee.
“My instructions from that meeting was to go ahead and get it started. So that’s what we did,” Stepp told the board during a Nov. 30 special-called meeting.
Stepp and Teresa Boston, chairman of the board, make up the board’s executive committee. They chose to let the survey results stand due to timing. During the Nov. 30 meeting, the board voted to approve the special-question committee and survey results.
Nick Davis, 5th District representative, asked if there had been a need to hold that special-called meeting, which he was unable to attend.
Boston said, “We have a Jan. 1 deadline and you’re fixing to go into the holidays where the teachers would be unavailable.”
Davis asked, “Between last week and this week, what happened, specifically?”
Boston said, “We wanted to get started on it because we were going into the holidays.”
She said she learned the survey had been done when she called to schedule the Nov. 30 special-called meeting.
“You have to do the survey, spend that out in a specific timeframe for the teachers to respond — then you set these two committees because those ballots have to be opened,” Boston said.
“That had already been done, and the board had to approve that, as well.”
Boston said if that survey had not been done, the board would have had to hold that survey quickly.
“Now we have our committees and we are well within our timeframe for Jan. 1,” Boston said.
In collaborative conferencing, the teams can discuss the issues of salaries and wages, grievance procedure, insurance, fringe benefits, working conditions, leave and payroll deductions. A memorandum of understanding is developed based on those conversations and approved for up to three years.
In other business, the board approved using the Tennessee School Boards Association to conduct director and board evaluations this year.
The $1,500 cost includes both gathering the survey information and conducting a work session to work through the results.
Shannon Stout, 9th District representative, said, “I’m suggesting that because it’s very obvious we struggled through the last one and had some issues with that.”
The motion was supported by Robert Safdie, 2nd District representative.
Sheri Nichols, 3rd District representative, said, “It’s a great idea. We need some help.”
Hale asked why the board would pay for the service when they already get the questions from TSBA.
Davis said, “We need them to help facilitate what we’re going to do with that information.”
Boston said attendance at the work session would be voluntary.
Nichols said, “It’s going to build board relationships. We need to do something better that what we’re doing.”
Boston said, “We’ve attempted. We’ve listened. I think we’re all adults, and we all know where our strengths lie and where our weaknesses lie.”
Stout said, “I think they can give us some tools to go through that process together.”
Safdie said, “We did that a long time ago — not in the last eight years. I thought it was a great idea. You have an outsider come in and review stuff and talk frankly about things.”
Boston said it would still be an open meeting of the board.
The motion passed unanimously.
Heather Mullinix is editor of the Crossville Chronicle. She covers schools and education in Cumberland County. She may be reached at hmullinix@crossville-chronicle.com.
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