INDIAN RIVER COUNTY — Late Tuesday afternoon, Indian River County public school teachers — suddenly and unexpectedly — finally got the step raise promised them in their contract a few years ago. The money, which the contract said would be given to them once it became available, was there last July, but the negotiators for the administration made it contingent upon cutbacks and restrictive language for teachers that they insisted must be in their contract.
Essentially what the administrators’ negotiation team told teachers was: If you want the money promised you without conditions, you must accept conditions which cut back on your planning time and take away all opportunity for future step raises and tie your raises to an evaluation system based on student test score improvement.
Reeling from the breach of contract, the Indian River County teachers’ union filed a grievance on behalf of all teachers which was to be heard Wednesday morning at 10 a.m.
As more than six dozen teachers were making protest signs Tuesday afternoon to hold up at Tuesday night’s school board meeting and writing speeches to deliver during the public comment sector of the meeting and donning red T-shirts in solidarity, word spread that they were getting their step raise.
The sudden honoring of the contract meant that the teachers’ grievance hearing scheduled for Wednesday morning was cancelled. But the teachers — close to 100 of them — went to the school board meeting anyway, with their signs and speeches and in their red T-shirts.
Their signs read: “When will it end?” referring to the cutbacks teachers continually face; “Keep our step!” referring to the attempt to end step raises given to teachers for experience in the system; “Fair evaluations!” referring to problems with the new teacher evaluation system and “Respect teachers!” referring to the administrations’ attempt to tie a promised raise to teachers’ yielding to administrative demands.
One after another, the teachers spoke. Repeatedly, they criticized an April 10th e-mail sent by Schools Superintendent Dr. Fran Adams telling them that what the administration was asking of them in terms of cuts and restrictions was “abundantly fair” — even as the administration held the step raise promised them in the contract hostage to the teachers giving into demands that should have had nothing to do with honoring their contract.
At the meeting, many of the teachers thanked the superintendent and School Board for finally awarding the step increase in pay a few hours before. But they admonished the administration for “all take and no give” in the negotiations and the length of time it took to award the promised step raise and the changes they are demanding in the next contract.
Over and over teachers spoke of how demoralized they are over the administrations‘ adversarial position toward them. Yet when union leader Beth Weatherstone spoke, they seemed anything but demoralized.
Weatherstone talked about how fearful teachers are of speaking up because they worry it will result in administrative retaliation. She said the teachers wanted an agreement that showed compromise on both sides — not just from teachers.
She urged School Board members to attend contract negotiations to hear what each side said and to make fair decisions based upon what they heard.
She told everyone listening: “Our working conditions are students‘ learning environment.”
At the end of her talk of a few minutes, the room erupted with loud applause, many teachers giving her a standing ovation.
School Board Chair Carol Johnson interrupted the applause with this warning: “I can gavel this meeting to a close. We appreciate your respect.”
At the close of the meeting, Johnson thanked teachers for speaking, and Superintendent Adams told them: “There is no one sitting up here who doesn’t value you every single day.”
“The only reason teachers finally got the step raise spelled out in our contract is because they knew they were going to lose,” Weatherstone said after the meeting.
