Secondary Class Size Victory!

May 1, 2013 UPDATE:

The list of semester 2 grievants is available HERE.

You can read the full settlement HERE.

If you believe you are party to the grievance settlement and yet are not on the above list please review the settlement criteria to verify that it has been met and, once verified, contact the SDUSD Labor Relations department (Labor.Relations@sandi.net) with the appropriate documentation providing evidence that you had a secondary academic class (excluding music, P.E. and business education) with more than 36 students after March 1, 2013 (second semester).

REMINDER: SDUSD must receive the documentation by June 15, 2013 for second semester.

Together we are stronger!

UPDATE:

The list of semester 1 grievants is available HERE.

You can read the full settlement HERE.

If you believe you are party to the grievance settlement and yet are not on the above list please review the settlement criteria to verify that it has been met and, once verified, contact the SDUSD Labor Relations department (Labor.Relations@sandi.net) with the appropriate documentation providing evidence that you had a secondary academic class (excluding music, P.E. and business education) with more than 36 students after October 31, 2012 (first semester).

SDUSD must receive the documentation by May 30, 2013 (for first semester).

Together we are stronger!

SDEA Members Achieve Secondary Class Size Grievance Victory

SDEA and SDUSD have reached a grievance settlement that clearly reaffirms a secondary teacher’s right to a class size cap of 36 students (with the exceptions of music, P.E. and business education). SDEA members and ARs met last night to review the terms of the agreement which is now final and official. Represented at the meeting were Hoover, University City, Scripps Ranch, Mission Bay, Henry, Morse, La Jolla and Point Loma High Schools.

This past fall, teachers’ new secondary class size protections which limit classes to 36 students were to go into effect. The union contract’s “hard cap” of 36 students is an improvement upon the previous standard, which was an average of 36 students across all teaching periods. As you know very well, this allowed some classes to be as large as 45 while still averaging 36 across all periods. We were all looking forward to our class sizes stabilizing, but the wrench in the machine was that SDUSD would not honor our right to have a “hard cap” of 36 on class size. We didn’t take no for an answer, though.

Members sprang into action, holding group grievance meetings with principals and speaking out at SDEA accountability sessions with school board members. SDEA leaders also filed an unfair labor practice charge with a state agency to bring legal pressure. Our collective strength and persistence paid off.

SDEA leaders reached an agreement with SDUSD on a settlement to the secondary class size grievance that:

• Reaffirms our right to a class size “hard cap” of 36,
• Acknowledges that teachers’ “hard cap” class size right was violated and that future violations can be arbitrated, and
• As a remedy, pays a stipend to teachers with class sizes in excess of 36 that is between $400 and $2,000.

The grievance settlement includes a process for providing evidence of a class size violation for anyone that believes they should be included in the settlement yet are not on the list.

You can read the full settlement HERE. 

The list of semester 1 grievants is available HERE. 

“We care deeply about the quality of our students’ education. The evidence is clear that, the larger the class size, the more our students’ learning is compromised. Our grievance and our organizing reminded the Board of this fact. Resolving this secondary class size grievance shows that, when we stand together, we can move the Board to listen to our collective voice, but it doesn’t work without us.”

Pat Thomas – La Jolla HS Math Teacher and AR

(Scripps Ranch HS AR Julia Knoff and SRHS members after their secondary class size grievance meeting.)

Together we are stronger!