Summary of CBA Violations for Elementary Specialists

Over the past couple of months, the Specialist Advocacy Council has been gathering information about possible violations of the Collective Bargaining Agreement between TEA and Tacoma Public Schools, in order to prevent them from happening in the future. What we found is soberingly egregious: of the 20 different sections which directly pertain to Elementary Specialists, there is only one (planning happening during the student day) which was not violated during the 2019-2020 school year for at least one specialist.

For several sections, the percentage of violations is staggering: 96.6% of specialists were not compensated for teaching overloaded classes (Section 50B); 50% of specialists had duties which were not shared equitably with the rest of their certificated staff; of the specialists who co-taught classes - e.g. one classroom seeing two different music teachers every week - 0% had common planning time (Section 51). 5-minute passing time, which was new in the CBA this year, had significant violations as well: 28.6% of specialists did not have their 5-minute passing between classes, and 50% did not have their passing between a class and their duty-free lunch (Section 47A).

The district was better about providing planning, but there were still violations: 8.9% of specialists did not receive their full 250 minutes of planning per week; 12.5% did not receive their daily 30 minutes of continuous, uninterrupted planning, another 14.3% did not have their remaining planning minutes in blocks of at least 20 minutes, and 21.3% of librarians did not have their full 270 weekly minutes of shelving time (Sections 47A and 63E).

Of those specialists who traveled between schools during the school day, 50% were not compensated for their mileage (Section 25) and 27.8% did not have adequate travel time (Section 47C). Although it is not a violation of the CBA, it is interesting to note that the percentage of specialists who will be teaching in multiple schools has more than doubled - from 32.1% in the 2019-20 school year to 69.6% for the 2020-21 school year.

If you encounter any violations during the 2020-21 school year, please do not “take one for the team!” If you are in any way unsure whether or not a situation may be a violation, or if you are uncomfortable bringing violations up to your principal, please don’t hesitate to contact the Advocacy Council for support at tacomaspecialists@gmail.com. When we and the union do not hold the district accountable for their violations, we lose what small protections we have gained.

We are encouraged to hear from district administrators who are working toward resolving the issues we are facing.

"When we are able to return to a typical 5 day a week, full face to face model, we will revisit the Spring 2020 allocations/schedules and every effort will be made to reduce sharing/traveling, within the FTE allocations provided. A representative team of specialists will be asked to provide feedback for this work."

TEA reports that

We, the Advocacy Team, are eager to support and provide feedback for this process whenever it is begun. We are ready and waiting to get started.

According to emails obtained through public document requests, district administration is aware that specialist staffing is not sufficient to cover planning time for classroom teachers. Principals have been asked to be creative.

If this has happened at your school, please let us know so that we can more effectively address these contract violations, improve conditions for students and staff, and help administrators to understand that breaking the contract for some to honor it for others is not appropriate. Neither is taking instructional time from students and work time from building administrators to cover silent reading or extra recess.

We are all familiar with the phrase, “Out of sight, out of mind”. The Specialist Advocacy Council has identified specialist concerns regarding safety, quality, and equity. TEA’s job is to advocate for Tacoma teachers during contract bargaining and throughout the year.

We are currently 'out of sight' regarding specialist representation on TEA. The formula for representation on TEA’s Representative Assembly(RA) is 1 rep. per 10 teaching staff. Given the formula, there should be 75 reps for elementary schools on TEA/RA. To the best of our knowledge only one specialist (1.3% of total reps) is on TEA/RA. Specialists make-up 12% of the total number of elementary school teachers, therefore we should have 9 reps on TEA/RA. That number would put us in plain sight and strengthen our voice so our concerns are heard and addressed. It is our job to educate TEA and fellow representatives as to the concerns we have as specialists and how it impacts our students’ academic, social, and emotional growth. If we remain out of sight, we will be out of TEA’s mind, and how will that benefit us?

  If you meet any of the high-risk situations based on the state guidance, you will need to share that with the District immediately.  These situations include age, personal health conditions, caring for someone in your home who is high-risk, and providing primary dependent care for minor children.  If you have not yet completed the survey, search your work email for “TPS Reopening Survey 2020-2021” from Steven Deaderick.  If you have already completed it but realize you need make a change to your responses, email Steven Deaderick at sdeader@tacoma.k12.wa.us to request the survey be resent to you.  

Staffing levels are inequitable within buildings and across the district.

Click below to see how your school and schools across the district will be impacted. Current as of 7/23