The North Royalton Board of Education unanimously approved a contract at their November 16 meeting with the North Royalton Education Association (NREA), extending and updating their current thee-year contract. The contract is set to expire at the end of the current school year, on July 31, 2021. Also, at that meeting, the Board approved an updated Memorandum of Understanding with the union, relating to COVID-19 re-opening plans.
The NREA is the union that represents the district’s teachers. The new contract, for the 2021-22 school year, will begin on August 1, 2021. The new agreement will provide for an increase in the base salary schedule from 2% to 2.5%. The new contract expires on July 31, 2022.
“As we worked with our teachers to safely bring students back to school, we also began discussions in regards to the expiring agreement,” said North Royalton School Superintendent Greg Gurka. “I appreciate the collaborative spirit of the association to approve this contract and keep our labor relations strong and our students well-educated during this pandemic.”
At the November 16 Board meeting, Gurka said, “I appreciate the Board of Education’s support Thursday with a resolution to support that plan and have me implement that plan.” Gurka was referring to the Board of Education Work Session, which took place on Thursday, November 12. “So, as we talked about Thursday, on the agenda tonight is a resolution to approve an amended Memo with the teachers’ union.” He went on to explain the changes. “ When we developed our original plan, we met with both the teachers’ union and the classified union to deal with items related to COVID in the workplace. So, our current MOU (Memorandum of Understanding) that we have referenced our original re-opening plan, as well as state and federal acts, such as the FFCRA (Families First Coronavirus Response Act: Employee Paid Leave Rights). So, as we were working to revise our re-opening plan, determining how to bring students back to school in a safe manner that protects their safety and the safety of our certified and classified staff, we needed to work with our teachers to revise that MOU. So, we have worked with them and the plan that I laid out to you on Thursday is now updated in this revised MOU with the North Royalton Teachers’ Association. As we talked with them, we also had discussions about the negotiated agreement that will expire at the end of this school year. With the pandemic not releasing its hold on us anytime soon, there’s talk about a vaccine that could be available. I don’t know when it will be available for the masses, but when that happens, then we’ll, most assuredly, look at plans to see, do they need to change so we can bring more students back to school, if we’ve all gotten this vaccine. But we’ll deal with that at that time. But, we figured that with COVID upon us and spending a lot of time dealing with COVID issues, there were a lot more pressing things to deal with on a daily basis than trying to do contract negotiations. And, as we spoke about Thursday, we have been very fortunate with these past many years to have a very collaborative relationship with both of our unions and our negotiation sessions have produced agreements that have language that allows us to work together to meet the needs of the students. Because of this, we have not had grievances or labor disputes in a long time, which is something we can all be proud of. So, as I said, we were working and the conversations came about – can we roll over this contract for a year and not do negotiations at this time. We all agreed that it would be a wise thing to do, so therefore, as I said on Thursday, we have reached an agreement with the NREA to approve a contract extension for the 2021-22 school year, so the current contract is as-is until July 31. This will be for next school year; we’re rolling over that contract with a base increase of 2.5%.”
Board President, John Kelly commented on the resolution, stating, “I just want to comment and thank all the members of the Administration on the negotiating team and certainly the teachers and union leadership and the other members of the union negotiating team for sitting down and talking through this at this difficult time. They are difficult issues on both sides of the argument and I think it’s very good to be an example to other people of what happens when reasonable people can sit down, even if they disagree on some things, and come to a solution that, in our case, does what’s best for kids. And that’s an important relationship to keep and I know I speak for the whole Board when we say how much we value that and hope that continues going forward.”
In a letter to the community, Gurka wrote that, “the Board of Education voted to endorse the revised reopening plan to bring students back to school in either a hybrid model or all-in model beginning on November 30, 2020, based on conditions in our area. The plan our District developed this past summer relied solely on the State Health Advisory System and determined our instructional model based on the specific colors. Level 3 (red) and Level 4 (purple) were fully remote, with Level 2 (orange) being all-in for K-8 and blended at the high school and then Level 1 (yellow) allowing for an all-in person instruction K-12. As I have communicated with the community over the past several weeks, we all share the ultimate goal to safely bring students back into our school buildings five days a week. We have adjusted our Reopening Plan to reflect the conditions in our city, county and region and not be completely tied to the colored level system of the State Health Advisory System.”
He went on to say that “Our new plan will still use the State Health Advisory System as a guide to make decisions, but will not be the sole factor in all cases. When the county is Level 4 (purple), North Royalton City Schools will continue to move to a remote learning phase for all students. Learning decisions for students with disabilities will be made on an individual basis during the remote phase. While under the purple designation, extracurricular activities that cannot be done virtually and athletics will be paused. Once the purple designation is lifted, activities may resume. Level 3 (red) no longer will mean that the District will be in a total remote setting. We will use local zip code data, staff and student absenteeism rates, substitute availability and other area measures to determine if the District will be in a remote setting or if students will be in person for instruction. If area data allows for it, while the county is under Level 3 (red), we will have students in K-4 come to school five days a week for in-person instruction. This is due to the fact that we can isolate and cohort these students in their classrooms. At the same time, students in grades 5-12 will return to school in a blended setting with students with the last name A-K attending on Tuesday and Thursday and L-Z attending Wednesday and Friday. For grades 5-8, we will switch the blended learning delivery model to have middle school students log into the classes and follow the regular middle school bell schedule each day. Mondays will be a remote learning day, but unlike high school will be a synchronous learning day in which all students will log in and follow their regular bell schedule. As before, students at the high school level will log into their classrooms on the days they are not in attendance. For grades 9-12, Monday will continue to be an asynchronous learning day. If the State Health Advisory System for our county drops to Level 2 (orange) or Level 1 (yellow), we will look at local data to determine if and when we bring all students K-12 back to school for five day in person instruction.”
By GLORIA PLEVA KACIK
Contributing Writer