Enough Already!
By Jill S. Levy

The Council of School Supervisors and Administrators (CSA) members–public school principals, assistant principals, supervisors and day care directors–have been patient, professional and persistent in trying to get their respective employers–the City of New York and Mayor Bloomberg–to come to the table with serious proposals and negotiate a contract. Now, both Department of Education members and Early Childhood Center members are angry. And with reason. Their contract expired in March 2001.

Four months have passed since the United Federation of Teachers’(UFT) contract, which expired before ours, was negotiated. One would have thought that good management, bargaining in good faith, would have come immediately to the table with a serious desire to talk with school leaders. So, we waited patiently and professionally, the way our members would expect us to behave.

It would have been futile to bargain with the previous city and Board of Education administrations. Those leaders were lame ducks, who showed little or no interest in their school and day care leaders. We would have wasted precious time and energy. So we waited for the new Chancellor to be appointed and a new governance structure to be implemented.

We expect this administration to make good on its public statements in support of school leaders who overwhelmingly bear the weight of responsibility for the success of schools. Words without action are hollow indeed.

While we have engaged in a few preliminary collective bargaining meetings, subcommittee meetings, formal and informal discussions, a number of us now earn less than the people we supervise; some do not know whether their salaries for this year will be based on 10 months or 12 months.

On top of this, we are dealing with the new UFT contract and its implications for our members, including provisions like the extended day that profoundly affect our jobs. And for all CSA members, the workload ceaselessly piles up as Department of Education bureaucrats clear their computer desk-tops of e-paper and forward it to principals in a flow that would put Niagara Falls to shame.

Unlike the Department of Education contract talks, it would be difficult to say that the day care contract talks have stalled because the city hasn’t even begun serious bargaining as of this writing. Even though Mayor Bloomberg has taken on the responsibility of our educational system and has told the public to hold him accountable for educating our children, he has absolved himself of responsibility for the City’s day care/early childhood directors, who are among the lowest paid professionals with some of the largest responsibilities in our city.

It is unfortunate that this administration does not seem to understand the importance of early education for our most fragile and needy children; without such early intervention, they require intensive and expensive educational interventions upon entering our public schools.

The true sign of management’s regard and validation of its employees is through the collective bargaining process where the needs of both sides are respectfully discussed, passionately argued and ultimately resolved in a mutually agreed upon contract that goes to membership for ratification. What message are we getting?#

Jill Levy is the President of the Council of School Supervisors and Administrators.