Enhanced student achievement based upon high standards and expectations must be the driving force behind every activity of New York City public schools. To accomplish this, we must reinvent schools so that decision making is shared by those closest to students, including parents, teachers, administrators and other stakeholders. Layers of bureaucratic impediments must be peeled away so that flexibility, creativity, entrepreneurship, trust and risk-taking become the new reality of our schools. The factory model schools of the 1900s must make way for the child-centered schools of this century.
To this end, the Union and the Board mutually agree to join together with other partners in the redesign and improvement of our schools, including closing those that have failed and supporting their restructuring. We must challenge ourselves each day to improve student learning, based upon academic rigor, newfound flexibility, meaningful assessments and true accountability. Roles and responsibilities of parents, staff and other partners must be defined. The standards to which we hold our students must never be lower than those we hold for our own children. To accomplish this, we must focus on both the depth and breadth of each proposed instructional and operational change, each designed to support the children and their teachers, whom we expect to meet these rigorous standards.
Change must be service-oriented, supportive and sufficiently flexible so that each school’s educational vision can become a reality. It must be practical, possible, efficient and timely. Respect for each other and for every student must be unconditional if we are to accomplish what we must.
To reach these goals, we commit to working together along with other stakeholders to develop specific recommendations in areas requiring immediate attention. These will include, but not be limited to:
- School Based Budgeting;
- Early Intervention and Prevention of Inappropriate Referrals to Special Education;
- Professional Development;
- Parent Outreach and Support; and
- Workload Standards.
This commitment is our pledge to the children of the City of New York, not just to a promise but to a reality of educational excellence.
AGREEMENT MADE AND ENTERED INTO on the 1st day of May, 2014 by and between THE BOARD OF EDUCATION OF THE CITY SCHOOL DISTRICT OF THE CITY OF NEW YORK (hereinafter referred to as the “Board”) and LABORATORY SPECIALISTS AND TECHNICIANS CHAPTER, UNITED FEDERATION OF TEACHERS, LOCAL 2, AMERICAN FEDERATION OF TEACHERS, AFL-CIO (hereinafter referred to as the “Union”, “UFT” or the “Chapter”):
WHEREAS, the Board has voluntarily endorsed the practices and procedures of collective bargaining as a peaceful, fair and orderly way of conducting its relations with its employees insofar as such practices and procedures are appropriate to the special functions and obligations of the Board, are permitted by law and are consonant with the paramount interests of the school children, the school system and the public; and
WHEREAS, in a special referendum conducted among the professional educational personnel, over seventy percent of those who participated favored collective bargaining as a way of conducting their relations with the Board; and
WHEREAS, the Board, on March 8, 1962, adopted a Statement of Policies and Practices with Respect to Representation of Pedagogical and Civil Service Employees for Purposes of Collective Bargaining with the Board of Education (hereinafter referred to as the “Statement of Policies”); and
WHEREAS, pursuant to the Statement of Policies, the Chapter filed a request to be certified as the exclusive bargaining representative of all employees employed by the Board of Education in the titles of Laboratory Specialist and Laboratory Technician and more than fifty percent of the employees in such titles authorized the check-off of dues in behalf of the Chapter, and the Superintendent determined the unit to be appropriate, and the Board issued a Certificate of Exclusive Bargaining Status on August 26, 1964; and
WHEREAS, the Union has shown by satisfactory evidence that it represents a majority of those employed as per session laboratory specialists; and
WHEREAS, other-than-occasional per diem substitutes were accreted to the bargaining unit pursuant to a determination by the Public Employment Relations Board; and
WHEREAS, an agreement heretofore entered into by and between the parties was effective from October 13, 2007 through October 31, 2009; and
WHEREAS, the parties entered into a Memorandum of Agreement on May 1, 2014, effective from November 1, 2009 through November 30, 2018 (the “May 1st MOA”); and
WHEREAS, designated representatives of the Board have met with representatives of the Union and fully considered and discussed with them, on behalf of the employees in the bargaining unit, changes in salary schedules, improvement in working conditions, and machinery for the presentation and adjustment of certain types of complaints, it is agreed as follows: