The principal and three other employees at a popular southeast San Diego charter school are likely to stay now that the San Diego Unified School Board has voted unanimously to let them keep their benefits.
The vote came Tuesday, after lobbying by leaders, parents and other supporters of the school, Gompers Preparatory Academy. Some supporters had feared the four founding employees would leave Gompers if they were to lose their benefits.
But critics say those benefits the founding employees get from San Diego Unified are more generous than what Gompers gives its employees, and that Gompers should improve benefits for all of its employees.
The controversy has become part of an ongoing, years-long conflict between Gompers’ leadership and the Gompers’ teachers union.
In 2005, Gompers Preparatory Academy converted from a district school to a charter school, which is a public school run independently of a school district.
Under a unique arrangement, San Diego Unified loaned some of its employees, including Gompers’ current Principal Vincent Riveroll, to Gompers.
Although on-loan to Gompers, the four remained employed by San Diego Unified and received health and retirement benefits that San Diego Unified offers — which are more generous than what Gompers offers its employees.
Last fall San Diego Unified staff proposed ending this on-loan arrangement because charter schools and their employees are meant to be independent of the district.
Gompers is the only charter school authorized by San Diego Unified that has such an arrangement.
Ending the on-loan arrangement would have forced the four employees to stay with the district and be re-assigned to another school to keep their benefits, or stay with Gompers and lose the more generous benefits.
Gompers leaders perceived the district’s recommendation to end the on-loan status as an “attack” on the school, which is “a shining star among struggling schools in southeastern San Diego,” Gompers Chairman Cecil Steppe wrote in an October letter to the Gompers community.
The San Diego Unified School Board voted unanimously at its meeting Tuesday to extend the on-loan status to the four employees for as long as they work at Gompers.
“We’re only talking about four employees,” said Trustee Sharon Whitehurst-Payne. “It just keeps churning and churning and churning, and I just think that people need to spend their energy in another direction.”
San Diego Unified Trustee Michael McQuary said at Tuesday’s meeting he thinks the on-loan arrangement shows preferential treatment for the four employees over the other Gompers employees.
“My position is not about a criticism of Gompers,” he said. “It is about a concern that this ... creates a condition in which four employees have benefits that probably more employees at Gompers would like to have ... and why we as a board would agree to making a special arrangement for these four employees.”
Other trustees said it was okay to make an exception for these Gompers employees, but on-loan agreements should not happen again in the future.
“Let’s make an exception for four people that have made a phenomenal impact on the lives of thousands of children in San Diego,” Trustee Kevin Beiser said.
For months, Gompers’ leaders have been at odds with a majority of Gompers teachers, who formed a union two years ago.
The union blames the school for being unwilling to continue negotiations on a potential contract. The union has filed two unfair labor practice charges against Gompers and alleged that the school has bargained in bad faith and retaliated against an employee who supported the union.
The California Public Employment Relations Board recently ruled in favor of one of the union’s complaints, and another is pending.
“Gompers teachers have been bargaining for the same job protections and union rights that are afforded district staff and employees with on loan agreements,” the Gompers Teachers Association said in a statement. “Teachers find it ironic that the school has been unwilling to bargain many of the same rights and protections for those who are employees of the school.”
San Diego Unified Board President Richard Barrera said he wanted to know why Gompers couldn’t just provide the same benefits the district provides to the four employees. Gompers reimburses the district for the cost of the on-loan employees’ salaries and benefits.
Gompers officials said that because their school is much smaller than the district, they can’t afford to provide the same benefits as the district does.
While all San Diego Unified board trustees voted to extend the on-loan status of the Gompers employees, multiple trustees said they expect Gompers’ board to provide to all its employees similar rights and benefits that the San Diego Unified board is providing to the four employees.
Barrera also warned Gompers that it needs to bargain lawfully with the teachers union.
“I also hope that the Gompers board has heard loudly and clearly that, as this board moves forward to honor the ability of four of your employees to continue ... with full union representation and union-negotiated benefits, that we are not unaware of the fact that you have been found by the Public Employee Relations Board to have committed labor practices in your own negotiations with your own employees,” Barrera said.
In an email Wednesday, Gompers Chairman Steppe did not respond to district trustees’ concerns about benefits and union rights for Gompers employees as a whole but said the four on-loan employees “rightly deserve to keep” their benefits.
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Four San Diego charter school employees keep benefits, likely to stay at Gompers school - The San Diego Union-Tribune
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