Update: Dec. 14, 2023

MPS shared multiple proposals and counterproposals including the following:

• District Proposal One - Transfer, Reassignment, and Recall (see slides 2 and 3): Proposal to move from two rounds of Interview and Select to one round allowing MPS to post job openings externally and begin recruiting one month earlier. MPS would also like to eliminate matching in order to condense the transfer timeline, which would allow the district to fill vacancies sooner. 

• MPS responded to MFT proposals including the following:

  • Due Process Time - Union Proposal One (see slide 4): The district is largely agreeable but would like to focus on special education case managers, 

  • Non-instructional Time - Union Proposal Two (see slide 5): The district respectfully declines to ensure that non-instructional time can be used to create a welcoming school environment, 

  • Meetings - Union Proposal Three (see slide 6): The district respectfully declines as these meetings convened by site administrators allow more collaboration which has a positive impact on academic achievement and reduces teacher turnover.

  • Lost Prep - Union Proposal Four (see slide 7): The district will defer responding to this proposal until all financial proposals have been received.

  • Open Houses & Conference - Union Proposal Five (see slides 8 - 9): The district counters with language changes, acceding to an annual conference cap of eight (8) hours while continuing to maintain the importance of being able to conduct conferences outside of the duty day in order to best provide access to families.

  • Length of school year - Union Proposal Six (see slides 10 - 19): The district counters with reducing the number of duty days from 196 to 192 which would include reducing one day from the beginning of the teacher duty year and three days reduced from the school year. 

  • Proposed Memorandum of Agreement (MOA) - A commitment of work to jointly create a process for full implementation of the Article 15 language (see pages 204 - 224) about underrepresented staff, as well as to address contractual barriers that hinder the equitable distribution of staff, and updating contract language to reflect recent legislative changes. This MOA would also temporarily amend the terms and conditions of employment in advance of reaching agreement on the entirety of the contract, which would allow the district to begin operationalizing some of the proposed changes that will impact the upcoming school year.

MFT shared a proposal for Article 12: Working Conditions that would require an additional board-approved policy that limits workload for special education staff, additional dedicated due process and case management time for special education case managers, further reducing class size caps, and would require all schools forming a class size committee to co-design solutions when contractual limits are exceeded.

Watch the recording of the Dec. 14 session and access the handouts.