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Illinois School Board Journal - ARCHIVES
January-February, 2003
ASK THE STAFF:
Should the school board share authority with the union?
This edition of "Ask the Staff" is provided by Jerry Glaub, IASB deputy executive director for publications, in consultation with Melinda Selbee, IASB general counsel.
Question: Our teachers union has asked the school board to approve contract language committing the board to consult with the teachers on all decisions. What are the pros and cons of this proposal?
Answer: There are no pros from the standpoint of the school board or the community it represents. There are, however, numerous cons.
A school board is a creation of the state and is delegated authority to govern the school district on behalf of the people of Illinois and the local community. Contract language of the sort proposed here would have the board sharing that authority with the union and, in fact, giving the union veto power over board decisions.
Even if the intent of the proposal is to provide teachers with "input" before a school board makes a policy decision, such a contractual guarantee provides a basis for a court challenge any time a board decision offends the union.
So ask yourself whether the teachers union -- or any other special interest group -- should sit as an equal with the community in setting policy for the school district. Some might call such a measure, "removing the public from public education."
One can even question the legality of such contract provisions. Attorney Brian Braun, author of Illinois School Law Survey, points out that:
Braun poses the rhetorical question: Would an apartment owner agree to contract language providing that "the owner agrees to share ownership of the building with the renter?"
None of this changes the fact that most school boards want to encourage teacher participation in educational decision making. And rightfully so. A school is a product of the people who work there. The best chance any organization has for success is to bring out the very best its employees have to offer.
It's understandably hard for a school board to say, "No, we do not want to share decision making with our teachers." But the school board must zealously protect its responsibility to represent the entire community, and not just some of it.
Here are some thoughts for a school board to consider:
First, be careful not to confuse collaborative decision making with collaborative bargaining. Many school districts feature non-traditional approaches to collective bargaining with apparently satisfactory results. But the result is a contract. Collaborative decision making, on the other hand, is a style of management which, if cast in the concrete of a union contract, can pretty much eliminate management style of any kind. (For more information on collaborative bargaining, see Chapter 5, Alternative Bargaining Styles, in Collective Bargaining and the Illinois School Board Member, published by IASB. The chapter was reprinted in its entirety in the January-February 2002 issue of The Illinois School Board Journal.)
Second, although the teachers union has a statutory right to negotiate "wages, hours and other terms and conditions of employment," it has no such claim on matters of public policy. The school board is elected to represent the public in establishing the purpose and goals of the district and empowering the superintendent and staff to pursue those ends. The superintendent can reasonably be expected to involve staff in developing administrative procedures and to delegate appropriate authority for making day-to-day decisions (and to hold people responsible for use of that authority).
But the staff's job should never be confused with the board's job.
The situation becomes unfortunately confused when a school board insists on injecting itself into staff decisions. That is, when the board is making staff decisions, teachers may be expected to demand a voice in decisions that should be made by the staff in the first place. A board confronted with such a proposal from the teachers union might want to examine how it defines its role in relation to the community and the staff. (See IASB's Foundational Principles of Effective Governance.)
Third, a union contract is no place for good intentions. That is not the function of the contract, which is a legal document subject to highly legalistic standards. School boards must be wary of expressing their human relations beliefs in a labor relations document. In a dispute over contract interpretation, board beliefs can become union weapons.
Finally, and perhaps most important, decision making in any organization is far too complex to be reduced to such catch-phrases as "shared decision making" or "collaboration." An organization is best served when each and every decision is made by the individual or group who (a) is in the best position to make the decision intelligently and who (b) can be held accountable for the decision. However, putting such language in a contract truly confuses labor relations with human relations and ends with means.
A school board should be concerned about the use of its delegated authority. That is, the authority to make specified decisions needs to be thoughtfully delegated to the appropriate persons or staff levels and needs to be accompanied by accountability for those decisions. Moreover, some decisions probably need to be made by groups in order to generate "ownership" on the part of those who must make the decision successful. It's also reasonable to want your key decision makers to keep themselves informed through frequent communication with other staff.
These processes, however, are dependent upon the environment created by the board and superintendent. Contractual arrangements that move power from the board to the union simply make such an environment more difficult to sustain.
Granting the union a contractual right to "share" in board decisions or "consult" on board decisions could prove to be the most counterproductive action a school board could take.