PERALTA TEACHER
Peralta Federation of Teachers, CFT, AFL-CIO – Democracy
in Education
Part-Time Policy to go before
Peralta Board soon
Tentative Agreement would offer protection to
long-term part-timers
By Cynthia
Mahabir, Rick Greenspan, Mark Greenside – The PFT is pleased to
be bringing the faculty a new Part-Time Faculty Preferred Rehiring Tentative Agreement. It’s been a long time in the making. Six of ten Bay Area Districts already have
such a policy and if the Board approves the Agreement between the PFT and PCCD,
Peralta will have one too. Here’s the
story:
In 2001, AB 1245 was passed by the state
legislature. In 2002, it was entered into the Education Code (Section 87482.9).
It states, "The issue of earning and retaining annual appointment rights
by any person employed as temporary or part-time faculty shall be a mandatory subject of negotiations with
respect to the collective bargaining process relating to any new or successor
contract between community college districts and temporary or part-time faculty
occurring on or after
On
-- Continued on Page 2 --
From the President
PFT, District lead the way in protecting retiree
medical benefits
OPEB bond sale finalized in New York
By Michael Mills –- The third floor at Lehman Brothers was awash with
traders, each with eyes glued on computer screens, hands on keyboards and
phones affixed to ears. High finance in
action, although one appeared to be buying a coat from L.L. Bean.
It
was
What
are these bonds and why was there a need for them? Do the voters have to approve the bonds? What is going to happen to the money from the
sale? Was the PFT involved in the bond
transaction? Is this a good thing for
the PFT?
The
bonds are known as “Other Post-Employment Benefit” or OPEB bonds. The proceeds from their sale can ONLY be used
to finance our unfunded liability, i.e. the future cost of medical benefits for
all eligible current and retired employees.
The bond purpose cannot be subverted by subsequent changes in
administration.
Peralta,
like most school districts and municipalities, have
unfunded
liabilities (ULs).
While Peralta’s UL is high,
-- Continued on Page 7 --
The
PERALTA TEACHER February,
2006 ◦ Page 2
Part-Time Faculty Agreement a long time
in the making
Cont’d from Page 1
…most recent news on this topic). In September 2004, the
faculty overwhelmingly ratified the current 2004-07 contract
with the issue of rehire rights for part-time faculty listed as a re-opener for
2004-05. In March of 2005, the PFT re-opened on this issue. The Tentative
Agreement we have reached with the District is the end result of the process
that began in 2001.
While PFT was negotiating, routine reports of these
efforts were publicly disseminated to the faculty in the Peralta Teacher, in
Negotiations Updates, at PFT membership meetings, at PFT Executive Council
meetings as well as through the minutes of Executive Council meetings, all of
which were intended to keep faculty informed. To reach an agreement, Chancellor
Harris and a State Mediator had to get involved. What follows is a summary of
what happened and what the Agreement means.
The PFT’s goal was a simple,
workable part-time faculty rehire system. Here’s what we proposed:
senior part-timers in a department at a college would gain entry into a
"preferred rehire pool," provided they had excellent evaluations.
Departments in each college would keep a list of its part-timers and would
offer assignments to part-timers who were in the pool before those assignments
were offered to those outside the pool. If an exception needed to be made, the
hiring pool priority could be overridden. Such an 'exception' already exists
for summer-school assignments, and the PFT suggested that the same model be
used in this case. Note that there is no
cross-over: Laney, for example, is not required to hire Merritt's
part-timers even if Merritt's part-timers have seniority in the District.
Much of the negotiations centered upon the issue
of evaluation. The Chancellor and the Board wanted an evaluation form for
instructors that justified entry into the preferred pool. The current
evaluation form is open-ended and relies on the evaluator's personal
observations. The Chancellor wanted an
evaluation form that included a check-list to clearly indicate whether the
part-timer met all the basics of quality classroom teaching and excelled in at
least one specific area of instruction. In addition, the Chancellor wanted five
'levels' of rating rather than the four now in use.
Negotiation is a process of give and take. The
PFT agreed to the new five-level rating scale and two new forms for part-time
evaluation: one for classroom evaluations of part-time teaching faculty and one
for administrative evaluations of part-time faculty. Except for the
introduction of the five-level rating scale, all other evaluation forms were
left as-is. Note: the evaluation
includes two faculty evaluations, student evaluations, and an administrative
evaluation, which (at the discretion of the administration) could include a
classroom observation (which is new). The part-timer being evaluated has the
right to challenge a faculty evaluator, as is the case now. If a challenge is
made, another faculty member is selected for the evaluation and that person may
not be challenged [See Appendix A of the contract to compare requirements of
initial part-time rehire pool evaluation in the Tentative Agreement and the
current evaluation system. Also look at the chart in this article for a quick,
easy comparison.] As you can see, the new evaluation is much more rigorous than the previous
one.
We also spent many sessions discussing exactly
how much 'seniority' would be required to gain entry into the preferred hiring
pool. PFT wanted three semesters out of the last six because the lower the
entry requirement, the greater the
diversity of the group. The District wanted 10 consecutive semesters. A
compromise was reached when the Board proposed that the PFT delete a current
contract provision that gives qualified part-timers 5% "bonus" points
when they are interviewed for full-time jobs. In return, the Board agreed to
six-of-the-last-10 semesters. The PFT Exec approved and, with all the pieces in
place, the PFT and the District signed a Tentative Agreement in November 2005.
It is important to note that the new article on
a part-time preference pool does not
change the number of part-time evaluations required by the Education Code
and the accreditation process. It does not
change contract faculty
workload,
which currently requires three evaluations per year. The Education Code
specifies that all faculty, part-time and full-time, shall be evaluated every three years.
Our current part-time evaluation policy spells out how the process works. While
the part-time rehire article makes a few minor modifications in the evaluation
policy, the overall contract faculty workload—in terms of complying with the
number of evaluations required by policy, by law, and by accreditation— remains
unchanged.
One
of the PFT's chief concerns is faculty diversity. In addition to the 6 out of
10 semesters (in contrast to the District’s request for 10 out of 10 semesters)
length-of-service criterion, the Tentative Agreement contains two other
significant provisions that can enhance faculty diversity. One is the Faculty
Diversity Internship Program, which the PFT initiated, fought for, and
supported. The Tentative Agreement
allows minority interns to be placed
Page 3 ◦
February, 2006
The PERALTA
TEACHER
into the preferred hiring
pool even if they do not meet the 6 out of 10 semester requirement (as long as
they meet the minimum qualifications).
Second, the Tentative Agreement allows Deans to bypass a teacher in the
preferred pool and hire anyone else they wish so long as they provide a written
reason to the person not selected. The
person bypassed remains in the pool for a possible future assignment. Bill
Love, former Director of Affirmative Action for the District, and Chriss Foster, current Coordinator of
the Faculty Diversity Internship Program for Peralta, both support this
proposal because of the protection it provides to part-time faculty of color,
and because it does not negatively impact diversity.
|
|
Current
Policy |
Proposed
New Agreement |
|
Committee Chair (Initial Eval) |
Mutual Agreement of Dean/VP and Dept Chair |
Mutual Agreement of Dean and Dept Chair |
|
Faculty Peer (Initial Eval
only) |
|
Mutual Agreement of Dean and Evaluee |
|
Committee Chair (Subsequent Eval) |
Mutual Agreement of Dean/VP and Evaluee |
Mutual Agreement of Dept Chair and Evaluee |
|
Challenge to committee member(s) |
May challenge any faculty committee member not
appointed solely by Evaluee |
May challenge any faculty committee member not
appointed solely by evaluee |
|
Resolution of challenge |
Current policy is unclear |
Lottery held by Dean; no challenges allowed to
lottery |
|
Can part-timers serve on committee? |
Yes, only with approval of Dean/VP, for staff
development credit |
Yes, only with approval of Dean, for staff
development credit |
|
Rating Scale |
Four levels 1) 2)
Satisfactory 3) Below
Standards 4)
Unsatisfactory |
Five levels
1) Is exemplary 2) Surpasses requirements 3) Meets all requirements 4) Does not consistently meet requirements 5) Does not meet requirements |
|
Administrative Classroom Evaluation? |
Not allowed |
Optional |
|
Administrator vote on Evaluation rating? |
No |
Yes, if administrator does Classroom Eval |
|
Self Evaluation |
Self-Eval form only |
Syllabus, Assignment list, Sample test, and
Evaluation methods in addition to Self Eval form |
|
Student Evaluation |
Yes, one class |
Remains the same |
|
If Eval paperwork isn't completed
on time |
No 'emergency' provisions |
College VP and Senate President empowered to create
a plan to complete evaluation |
Note: the rehire (or
preferred) pool is not fixed or set in stone. There is no permanent pool. To be eligible for initial entry into
the pool, a part-time faculty member must receive an evaluation rating of
'surpasses requirements' or 'is exemplary." To remain in the pool, a
part-time faculty member must receive a “meets all requirements” on subsequent
evaluations (every three years), which is the standard requirement for tenured
and tenure-track faculty. In addition, the faculty member must continue to work
6 out of 10 semesters to qualify for the preferred pool. The pool will change
over time as people leave and new people enter. It is also important to note as
well that no one is grand-fathered into
the pool. Every part-time faculty member must go through the new, improved,
more rigorous evaluation process. Last, 40%
of the part-timers (almost 300) will NOT be covered by the preferred pool,
meaning 40% of the jobs are wide-open for new hires.
This Agreement is not a guarantee of employment. It does not give tenure or "lock-up" all the part-time jobs.
It provides a modicum of security to the most vulnerable faculty. According to
data from the State Chancellor's Office, 41% of Peralta's current pool of
part-time faculty is ethnically diverse—the second best percentage in
The
PERALTA TEACHER
February, 2006 ◦
Page 4
FREQUENTLY EXPRESSED
1. How
does the Tentative Agreement address diversity?
This
Agreement affects diversity in three ways:
The
6 out of 10 semester length of service criterion was PFT’s position because we
want to enhance diversity. As the ethnicity statistics in the attached table
clearly show, the percentage of part-time faculty of color increases when we
compare the 10+ semester criterion (which the District wanted) and the 6 out of
10 semester pool (which the PFT wanted). According to the data, a 10+ semester
pool would contain 34% of faculty of color, but a 6 out of 10 semester pool
would contain 36.5% of faculty of color. More importantly, those about to
qualify for entry into the rehire pool (people with 2-5 semesters of work) are 40%
people of color.
The
Tentative Agreement also allows minority interns from the Faculty Diversity
Internship Program to be placed into the preferred hiring pool even though they
do not meet the 6
out of 10
semester requirement.
The Agreement allows Deans to bypass a teacher in the
preferred
pool and hire anyone else they wish so long as they provide a written reason to
the person not selected. Bill Love,
former Director of Affirmative Action for the District, and Chriss Foster,
current Coordinator of the Faculty Diversity Internship Program for Peralta,
both support it for reasons stated earlier.
2. Is
the new evaluation policy less rigorous than the existing evaluation policy?
The
bar has been raised. To enter the preferred pool a part-timer must be evaluated
as "surpasses requirements" or "exemplary,"
in contrast to the current "meets requirements.”
|
Peralta |
2-5 semesters N=367 |
6
out of 10 semesters N=507 |
10+
semesters N=223 |
Total PTers N=1,069 |
|
Asian
American/ |
10.36% |
10.06% |
10.76% |
10.66% |
|
African American |
24.25% |
20.32% |
17.49% |
22.83% |
|
Filipino |
0.82% |
1.18% |
0.90% |
1.40% |
|
Latino |
4.90% |
4.73% |
4.04% |
4.58% |
|
Native American |
0% |
0.20% |
0.45% |
0.09% |
|
White |
|