NORWICH – The Norwich City School Board had every intention of discussing the proposal to have board members act as observers in contract negotiations between the district and the Norwich Educators Association, but they did not intend to vote on the subject at last week’s meeting.
The item appeared on the agenda for the Oct. 7 meeting as a discussion topic and members of the board were prepared.
Perry Owen presented a list of proposed guidelines for the process that had been assembled with the input of the other six members of the board. The intention was to hand these guidelines over to the policy committee at Tuesday’s meeting.
Board President Bob Patterson reported he attended a New York State School Board Association seminar and had identified four other districts in the state with established written policies. He had even requested copies of those policies for Norwich to use in drawing up their own.
But board members Sally Chirlin and Priscilla Johnson had other ideas. Rather than follow the steps they had agreed to during the Sept. 19 meeting, they decided to push for a vote to allow observation to take place with little or no established guidelines, beginning with the next scheduled negotiation session.
Chirlin made the motion, but struggled to find phrasing. She went so far as to ask Patterson and District Clerk Margaret Boice to word it for her. It was put into the record that she made a motion “to begin observation of negotiations with a minimum of two people and maximum of three, beginning with the next negotiation session.”
Board members Owen, Kathy Coates and Patterson were outspoken against allowing board observers without a written policy in place.
While Owen said he was not opposed to the idea of developing a policy to govern board members as observers, he did not support the idea of approving Chirlin’s suggestion.
Rather than “drifting into policy,” Owen advocated for the board to wait to formalize a policy until they had received the documents requested from other districts in order to “tap every resource we possibly can.”
Coates expressed her belief that it could “frustrate bargaining” and “undermine the administration” if the board did step into negotiations currently underway.
“It’s premature to have a motion on the floor,” said Coates. “I believe that if we are going to have dialog regarding this option, we should sit down and develop a policy that ... may be implemented in the next contract negotiation, not this current set of negotiations.”
She also questioned whether or not board observers were necessary if the board trusted the administration and suggested that if board members were interested in changing the course of the negotiations, this was not the way.
“We set parameters as a board for our administration to sit down with the union. If we do not approve of the parameters that we have set, then we change the parameters,” Coates said.
“This is a very serious issue, negotiations,” said Patterson, citing legislation and codes of conduct that govern such proceedings.
Johnson protested Patterson’s argument that the presence of a board member would affect the negotiation process. “The intent here is not to negotiate,” she said.
“There is no such thing as just being an observer,” countered Patterson. “You would be there as a representative of the board, you would be sent there by the board.”
To objections that attending negotiations without clear guidelines could compromise those negotiations, Chirlin cited a “neighboring district” where she said there was very little structure proscribed for their board’s observation of the proceedings.
“I don’t see how it can do any harm,” Chirlin said.
After the lengthy debate, Coates made a motion, which was seconded by Owen, to move the question. This compelled the board to end discussion and vote on Chirlin’s proposal.
Chirlin’s motion was defeated 3-4. Chirlin, Johnson and Tim Brown voted for; Patterson, Owen, Coates and Joe Stagliano against.
A unanimous decision was then made to forward the proposal on to the policy committee.
“I think we need a lot more discussion,” said Stagliano.
In the public comment that followed the debate, Dr. Bruce Race, president of the NEO, stated that the teachers union had no objection to board members sitting in on the negotiation proceedings as observers. He said the union’s perception is that since it is a public school district, the negotiations could be public.
Race asked the superintendent if he would “object or feel undermined” if the board decided to observe the negotiation process.
“The board is going to develop a policy and I’ll abide by that policy,” replied O’Sullivan.