As you may know, the District last week announced a new policy proposal to ban any suspensions or expulsions for children in early grades. We responded with an open letter expressing our disappointment in the District?s decision to not include teachers in the conversation, despite it being an explicit requirement of our contract.
Last night, the District apologized for that and promised to include us in the future. This turned out to be untrue, as well. During the conversation, a member of our bargaining team asked the Deputy Superintendent whether or not there was a draft proposal of the language for this new policy. She said that there was not. This is not true. The fact is there is draft language, and has been for some time, that was shared with administrators across the District in a PowerPoint presentation which you can read here. The draft language is on Slide 8.
We don?t know why the District denied this, or why they chose not to include teachers in the conversation, but we do know that both of these actions are an insult to the professionalism of our teachers. If they won?t share this information, we will!