NORWICH – As Norwich prepares to usher in the start of yet another school year, changes will no doubt be in store for the organizations which represent the district’s teachers and support staff.
At a meeting of the Norwich City School District Board of Education last week, it was announced that both the Norwich Educators Organization and the Norwich Educational Support Staff Association will begin the coming year with new presidents at their respective helms.
For the NEO, the change was prompted by the news that Dr. Bruce Race, who headed the union throughout the last round of contract negotiations, was leaving Norwich for a position in another district. High School Librarian Erika Kwasnik, who worked under Race as the organization’s first vice president, stepped up to fill the vacancy.
“I’m excited about moving the union forward in a positive direction,” said Kwasnik, a nine and a half year veteran of the district.
One of her goals, she explained, is to improve the public image of the NEO, which she believes has become tarnished of late. Kwasnik said her plan is to both highlight the contributions teachers are already making to the community, as well as undertaking new initiatives which she hopes will communicate how much Norwich teachers truly care about kids, the district and the community as a whole.
“There are a lot of us that are committed to making Norwich better,” she said.
Kwasnik is also intent on improving the lines of communication between the NEO and the district, and building a more productive, less adversarial relationship between the two. She has already started working in this direction by establishing regular meetings between herself and the district’s superintendent, Gerard O’Sullivan.
The superintendent will also continue to meet with the union’s leaders at the beginning of their executive board meetings, a practice which Kwasnik said was put into place during the last school year. O’Sullivan’s presence at these meetings, she explained, allows the district administrator to “communicate directly with the executive board and building representatives about building specific issues.” This gives both sides the opportunity to discuss and resolve issues before they reach the grievance stage.
While the union by-laws allow for the ascension of the first vice president to fill a vacant presidency, there is still the matter of the now vacant second in command slot. According to Kwasnik, the NEO will need to hold an election to fill her old position. Depending on the number of nominees, this could be done as early as Sept. 23, when the NEO holds its first general meeting of its membership. If there are several nominations, however, a formal election would need to be held. In either case, the union’s new president hopes to have the vacancy filled by early October, in time for the organization’s first executive board meeting.
“We don’t want that position to stay open too long,” reported Kwasnik, as whoever fills the spot also serves as chair of the union’s grievance committee.
The NEO has already had one victory under Kwasnik’s leadership. At the Aug. 19 meeting of the board of education, the school board approved an amendment to the payroll calendar which will allow the district’s 10-month employees to split their first paycheck over the first and third weeks of September, rather than waiting until the third week to receive a check.
According to Kwasnik, this wait would have caused a significant financial strain on those employees who haven’t received a pay check during the summer months. A similar allowance had been made in the district in 2004, and several other area school systems will be doing the same this year, she said.
Kwasnik was not the only union head to lobby for the change. Her efforts were assisted by Network Specialist Mike Girgenti, who defeated Trish Pepe earlier this year to take over as president of NESSA.
In the short time he has held the union’s top spot, “Mike has really done a lot,” Kwasnik reported. Not only has he been working toward strengthening the support staff union, she said, but he has also “extended a hand” to the NEO with the hopes that the two organizations will be able to work more closely together in the future.
With the help of his technologically savvy coworkers in the Technology and Information Services department, the new support staff union head has already launched a new website, www.nessany.org, designed to keep the organization’s membership better informed.