An arbitrator has issued a ruling in the dispute between Baltimore schools chief Andres Alonso and the city teachers union over planning time, handing a partial victory to both sides but largely giving Alonso what he wants.
Alonso has pushed for principals at all schools to be able to require teachers to spend 45 minutes of their existing planning time each week collaborating with colleagues. The arbitrator's opinion allows for that at most schools.
But at a small number of elementary schools, the arbitrator ruled that the city school system should give teachers more planning time if the group sessions are mandated.
The school board and the union membership must vote to officially accept the arbitrator's ruling. Both the city school system and the Baltimore Teachers Union have indicated that they will abide by the opinion.
Alonso has pushed for principals to be able to designate one teacher planning period a week as time for staff to work together. Giving principals the authority to require collaborative planning is part of Alonso's overall strategy to empower school leaders in exchange for accountability. He argues that collaboration is a hallmark of successful schools.
The Baltimore Teachers Union does not dispute the value of collaborative planning, but it counters that the system should have to pay its overworked teachers for the extra time if collaborative planning is to be mandated.
The city's elementary teachers are guaranteed three 45-minute planning periods a week; at middle and high schools, five planning periods are afforded.
But during the closed-door mediation proceedings, the teachers union submitted figures showing that about 80 percent of schools already have an extra planning period beyond what's contractually required. And Alonso said that 86 of 106 elementary schools surveyed by the system give teachers four weekly planning periods.
Arbitrator Rolf Valtin, selected by the two sides as a neutral party, ruled that the system should ensure that all elementary schools have four planning periods.
The opinion says no extra time is needed in the majority of elementary schools that already give teachers four planning periods a week, and in all middle and high schools. In schools with only three weekly planning periods, it says, "teachers are being asked to relinquish too much."
The 13-page document - which was also signed by a system representative and a union representative - says that "the City is owed every reasonable effort by all concerned ... to bring about the collaborative-planning program Dr. Alonso seeks to inaugurate."
Alonso and the school board have resisted setting aside more money for planning time because of the system's budget shortfall for next academic year. The proposed budget that Alonso released Tuesday contains $77 million in cuts, but it also redirects $70 million from the central office to schools.
Principals will have far more discretionary money next year, and they can choose to use some of it to add planning time.
Teachers use individual planning time for things like grading papers, planning lessons and calling parents. Collaborative planning can take many forms, including grade-level meetings, meetings among all the teachers who work with an individual student, and discussions about curriculum school safety. It is happening already at several city schools.
The planning time dispute was Alonso's first major public conflict after becoming CEO of the city schools in July, just after the union's contract had expired.
In negotiating a new two-year contract, the system and the union declared an impasse in August because of the planning time issue. Last fall, teachers and their supporters rallied outside schools and system headquarters, calling for Alonso's ouster. Union leaders said they planned to call a vote of no confidence in Alonso, but the vote never happened, indicating that there may not have been enough support.
For his part, Alonso said last fall that the dispute was "almost like defining the terms of engagement." In other words, if he couldn't win this small battle, he'd have more trouble down the line making more drastic reforms.
The union's membership, which includes paraprofessionals as well as teachers, initially saw its negotiated raises on hold because of the dispute. In November, members approved all of the contract except the planning time provision and a minor issue involving health benefits, enabling them to get their money.
The arbitrator's opinion is highly complimentary of Alonso, saying he "emerged from the witness stand as a person who is exceptionally knowledgeable in his field, who is utterly convinced about collaborative planning as a requisite condition of quality teaching, and whose arrival at Baltimore is attributable to devotion to good education rather than to shallow ambitions."
It also says that "the record is clear that Baltimore's school system is in need of substantial improvement," citing declining enrollment, a low graduation rate and a college graduation rate of less than 10 percent.
In response to the decision, Alonso said he is "completely committed to working with teachers and the teachers union to put structures together that ensure that collaboration happens, and it happens in a way that is all about the students at the schools ... I think we're both winners."
Loretta Johnson, union co-president, was less conciliatory, criticizing a press release that the system issued as "really misleading."
"We don't see that as a win for them," she said. "If anything, the union won its point. ... In elementary schools, if they want it they have to pay for it."
sara.neufeld@baltsun.com