Board of Education members denied a grievance filed by the Newtown Federation of Teachers (NFT) in a unanimous vote during their Tuesday, March 4 meeting, which filled nearly every chair in the room.

NFT President Trent Harrison and Vice President John Sullivan spoke to the BOE about their grievance at the meeting, with Harrison providing a timeline to their current issue: the supervision of students upon their arrival at school.

As it stands, the bell schedule for the elementary schools is from 9:05 am-3:37 pm, while at Reed it is from 9:05 am-3:32 pm. Harrison said that the union concedes 10 minutes before that for educators to be in their classrooms to greet their students.

Currently, Harrison said that elementary teachers have to be in their classroom at 8:45 am instead of 8:55 am since that is when buses are letting students go. After students are let go from their buses, Harrison said that students head straight to their classrooms, creating an extra 10 minutes between 8:45-8:55 am where teachers have to supervise the students.

Harrison said that the buses are held at the Reed school for those 10 minutes, so students stay on the buses and are released at 8:55 am.

The extra 10 minutes elementary teachers have to supervise their students, Harrison said, cut into time that is dedicated to professional responsibilities.

Grievance Background

The root of the grievance stems back to 2017, when the school district transitioned from a three-tier to a two-tier bus system at the start of the school year.

Harrison said that a committee was established — which he was a member of — to look at the school start times and bus routes. The committee recommended a proposal to then Superintendent Joseph Erardi Jr to be sent to the BOE for approval.

However, Harrison said that Erardi made a change to that proposal and the recommendation without informing the committee or the NFT. It was later approved under the name Amended Plan B by BOE members in a 6-1 vote at their June 7, 2017, meeting.

The NFT Executive Board then voted to grieve the new start time, busing, and more. Then NFT president Tom Kuroski met with Interim Superintendent Dr Lorrie Rodrigue, and they decided to come up with a Transportation Task Force to investigate the situation. A new proposal brought forward by the NFT and Rodrigue were voted down by the BOE 4-3 at an April 10, 2018 meeting.

Harrison said that no solutions were offered by the BOE back then on how to fix the problem, with the union feeling that the decision sent an intended negative message to elementary and Reed Intermediate School teachers who were forced to work with a professionally compromised schedule for a year.

He said the decision forced the NFT to resubmit a class action grievance against the BOE on behalf of K-6 teachers and resulted in a memorandum of understanding (MOU) that was signed by Kuroski and Rodrigue. The MOU went through on June 30, 2020, but Harrison said the climate and culture between the BOE and NFT “took a major step back” because of these decisions involving bus transportation and its effect on the K-6 teachers’ work day.

Harrison then noted benefits provided to K-6 teachers after those decisions, such as all K-6 teachers being entitled to one additional personal day in both the 2018-19 and 2019-20 contract years. He also noted how, should a K-6 teacher volunteer to cover lunch or recess in an emergency, the teacher would be paid as set forth in the contract.

The agreement, he said, was that teachers would not do recess duty and would do the 10 minutes in the morning that was the deal. Harrison said that everything was fine until 2023, when the district faced fiscal limitations. This led then Superintendent Christopher Mellilo to pull the recess paraeducators from the budget.

Harrison said the NFT had to grieve the additional 10 minutes before the breaking of the agreement, and an MOU was signed that granted an extra personal day to K-6 teachers for the 2024-25 school year. He said that the BOE further agreed to notify the NFT by January 1 of this year about the issue. However, after Uberti took over the position of superintendent, Harrison said the NFT was notified that there would “be no such efforts.”

The NFT then grieved article 36.2 of the contract that the teachers are not compensated for their extra time outside of the work day. This grievance was denied by Superintendent Uberti on February 3, which led to Harrison and Sullivan speaking at the meeting.

Sullivan said that the extra 10 minutes of time each morning now slotted to student supervision adds up to 4.64 days a year.

Harrison said that they have been patient and worked with previous administrations to try to amicably resolve this issue.

“It is the teachers’ time to prepare for professional undertaking, not supervision of students,” Harrison said. “It’s about equity and professional respect. The teachers go above and beyond every day, educating, caring for, and keeping the children in the classroom safe.”

He thanked the BOE members for their consideration in this matter, and said that they are open to any questions they have.

Further Discussion

Superintendent of Schools Anne Uberti took the floor, acknowledging the elementary teachers in the district and thanking them for their hard work and dedication to the students.

She then stressed that this is a contractual issue, noting that the emails and minute notes Harrison referred to throughout the meeting resulted in an MOU dated May 24, 2018 that later expired on June 30, 2020. Uberti continued by saying that there’s been no change in contract language concerning the issue despite the years since it was first raised and two contract negotiations since the agreement was entered into.

“Every effort has been made on the part of our elementary principals, as well as prior superintendents in collaboration with classroom teachers ... to offset the additional 10 minutes,” Uberti said.

She noted other concessions made to offset the aforementioned 10 minutes, such as not requiring elementary teachers to attend Tuesday meetings that are required at other schools as outlined in the contract.

With that, the evidentiary portion of the hearing concluded. BOE members recessed into a non-meeting to deliberate for 40 minutes, after which they came back into public session and voted to deny the grievance.

The paraprofessional positions eliminated in 2023 that made it possible for teachers to not do recess duty, Uberti said, “is simply no longer feasible.”

She added, “I believe that we have exhausted every reasonable avenue to find additional time for our elementary classroom teachers.”

Uberti said that she didn’t believe the extra 10 minutes of supervision is a violation of the contract, noting there are other examples of teachers doing duties during the 60-minute additional work time required of teachers, by contract, to fulfill their work day.

BOE member Brian Leonardi asked for the time frame associated with defining the term school day versus work day. As defined in the contract, Harrison said that teachers’ typical schedules will begin “not more than one half hour before the start of class or homeroom period and end not more than one hour per day after the close of classes, not to exceed one hour.”

Harrison said that the middle and high school principals have set the school day for teachers, making it so teachers have to be in at 7:45 am and can later leave at 2:40 pm. However, he said that the same hasn’t been done for the elementary teachers.

Leonardi then asked for confirmation if school days are considered 6 hours and 32 minutes, while work days are considered 7 hours and 32 minutes. Work days are an extra hour longer because of the additional half hour on the front and back end of the time frame Harrison said are dedicated to professional responsibilities.

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Reporter Jenna Visca can be reached at jenna@thebee.com.