Emanuel Expands Push for Longer School Day

As Chicago Public School students began the new school year Tuesday, Mayor Rahm Emanuel continued his push to implement a longer school day this year, offering hundreds of thousands of dollars to any elementary school willing to break with the Chicago Teachers Union and add extra time.

At a back-to-school event at STEM Magnet Academy, Emanuel and CPS CEO Jean-Claude Brizard offered up to $150,000 in discretionary funds and a roughly 2 percent raise for teachers at schools who elect to lengthen their day as part of a newly-created “Longer School Day Pioneers Program.”

On Friday, STEM was one of three schools where teachers’ voted to waive part of their contract and lengthen the school day by 90 minutes in exchange for that incentive package. Two other elementary schools—Genevieve Melody Elementary and Skinner North Elementary—also voted to lengthen their day, and there could be more to come, district officials said.

“There’s other schools calling and we’re going to see which schools want to do it,” Emanuel said. “We’re going to have it school by school until all our children finally get the length of day and length of year that they deserve.”

To join the program, a simple majority of teachers at a school must vote to waive portions of the existing union contract that deal with length of day and salary. Last month, the union rejected the district’s offer to give elementary school teachers a 2 percent raise in exchange for adding 90-minutes to the school day.

CPS recently closed a projected $712 million deficit by cutting programs, positions and increasing property taxes. It would cost about $70 million If all of the district’s 450-plus elementary schools moved to a longer day. A district spokeswoman insisted CPS will find funding for extended day incentives.

“Any school that wants to do this, we will support them,” said Becky Carroll. “We’ll find a way to pay for it.”

The union accused CPS of bribery and coercion in a letter to the district’s labor relations office late Friday.

“This method is an intentional act to divide the union and diminish the legitimate authority of the union to collectively bargain on behalf of its entire membership,” the letter said.

CTU Vice President Jesse Sharkey said the roughly 60 teachers at the three schools that approved a longer day do not represent the overall sentiment of CPS teachers. By targeting individual schools and dangling a large sum of money in front of them, the district is simply trying to find “poster children for teachers who don’t support their own union,” he said.

District officials maintain that the principal and teachers at the three schools came to them seeking a longer school day.

STEM principal Maria McManus said her staff had been discussing a longer day since August 1, when staff received their schedules. “The teachers asked for it,” she said.

After staff members expressed the desire for a longer day, McManus said she met with Jennifer Cheatham, the district’s Chief Instruction Officer, to see if it was possible to implement a longer school day. A few days later, McManus received the “Principal’s Guide to Conducting a Waiver Vote on a Longer School Day” from the district’s central office, with the word “confidential” watermarked across each page.

This is STEM’s first year of operation and it did not yet have a union delegate. Last Friday morning, staff elected Luke Albrecht to the post and by Friday afternoon, 13 of the school’s 17 teachers voted in favor of a waiver that would allow STEM to have a longer school day.

A STEM staff member who participated in Friday’s meeting said a CTU representative came to the school to speak to the staff about the waiver vote. The staff member said the representative seemed to be using “scare tactics”, at one point telling teachers he would put on his “mean hat.”

“He made it seem like it was more about the rights and compensation and less about the importance of the extra time,” she said. “He didn’t really hear our voice.”

The union confirmed that it has had numerous conversations with teachers at the three schools that voted for the longer day but it declined to offer details.

McManus said STEM teachers were not aware of the district’s $150,000 bonus offer before they took their vote. Still, teachers at other schools are now calling her teachers “sellouts,” she said.

The use of a waiver vote to amend sections of the union contract is not uncommon. Staff at some schools have used them to implement recess by moving the teachers’ lunch to the middle of the school day rather than the end. Yet they remain contentious for the union.

“Waivers were intended to address the fact that individual schools have unique circumstances,” Sharkey said. “They were never intended to be a chance for the district to implement something system wide when the union says no. That was never the intention of the waiver process”

The current union contract expires on June 30, 2012. The union and the district have been negotiating over salaries since the Board of Education voted in June to deny teachers a previously-negotiated 4 percent raise, citing a $712 million deficit.

Negotiations broke down roughly two weeks ago. Sharkey said CTU president Karen Lewis has reached out to Brizard and is waiting for a response. The current discussion over lengthening the school day “belongs in the contract negotiations,” Sharkey said. “It doesn’t belong in the realm of dueling press releases.”

But Emanuel has shown no signs of backing off. With television cameras in tow, Emanuel visited all three of the schools that voted for a longer school day Friday. During his appearance at STEM, he urged parents to push for waivers at their children’s schools. “I hope parents continue to say, ‘How can my school do what STEM did?’” Emanuel said.

Many STEM parents were in favor of a longer school day. Sadika Langston, whose son is in first grade at the new school, said she was thrilled when the news broke over the weekend.

“Since when does CPS do things fast?” she said.