Unknown at this time if district will appeal ruling.
On Monday, April 28, the Newton Teachers Association (NTA) announced that an arbitrator had ruled in its favor regarding its grievances against Newton Public Schools (NPS) relating to the reduction in Kindergarten aides following the 2022-2023 school year. The NTA, then and now, maintains that the Unit A and Unit C Memorandum of Agreements (MOA) reached with NPS in Year 2019, following NPS’ decision to expand Kindergarten from half-day to full-day, stipulate the placement of full-time teacher’s aides in Kindergarten classrooms with 14 or more students. (See Article 19, Section 2 of the linked Unit A MOA.)
While the recent arbitration denied the NTA’s grievance related to back pay of Kindergarten aides, it granted the NTA’s demand for full-time aides to be restored to all Kindergarten classes. This decision came in the form of a cease-and-desist order for NPS to discontinue its current practice of not having full-time aides in every Kindergarten class, effective the beginning of the 2024-2025 school year.
Budgetary Reasons, Not Educational Policies
Key to the arbitrator’s decision, according to his ruling, was the notion that although by Massachusetts law school districts retain ultimate authority over “educational policies,” the reason NPS gave last year for reducing Kindergarten aides was budgetary rather than related to educational policy — specifically the March 2023 operational override failing to pass. The current school year’s (FY 2024) budget was passed in May 2023 following intense debate over staff reductions, including Kindergarten aides. Therefore the district was not able to successfully argue that it had the statutory right to eliminate Unit C Kindergarten aides, which were bargained for as a working condition for Unit A teachers in 2019.
The 2019 MOA language regarding Kindergarten aides was not amended in the recent February 2024 Memorandum of Understanding following the teachers strike, and the funding for those aides is not in the FY 2025 budget that was approved by the School Committee earlier this month. Fig City News estimates approximately $700,000 annually of incremental cost may be needed to comply with the arbitrator’s cease-and-desist ruling.
NTA Comment
In response to Fig City News questions regarding the effects of this ruling, NTA President Michael Zilles referred Fig City News to this NTA e-bulletin from the April 2023 NPS budgeting season, which questions whether or not NPS full-day Kindergarten was ever truly “fully funded,” and he conveyed his expectation that the City allocate additional funding. He further cited this 2018 presentation from former NPS Superintendent David Fleishman, which on its final page indicates the addition of 43 Kindergarten aides to NPS staff (including 30 new hires) to facilitate the change from half-day to full-day Kindergarten. Page 14 of the FY 2020 NPS budget shows a net drop in Special Education Aides, corresponding to the “redeployment” referenced in Mr. Fleishman’s presentation.
Mr. Zilles told Fig City News:
The school committee agreed to add this provision to the contract in 2019. During negotiations for the current contract, the school committee did not propose eliminating this provision from the contract, as they were under advisement from their legal counsel, Liz Valerio, that it was not a legally binding contract provision. The arbitrator ruled that it is. As such, it will remain in the contract going forward unless both parties agree to remove it.
The committee has 30 days to appeal the decision. Their violation of the contract has accomplished little except to undermine our trust in their willingness to honor their agreements. I hope the school committee, under Chris Brezski’s leadership, makes a decision to forgo an appeal that would only serve to undermine efforts to restore trust between district leadership and the NTA,
Mike Zilles, NTA President
NPS Response
At the time of this publication, Fig City News has not received requested responses from NPS regarding its views on how this arbitration ruling may affect its planning for next year, and whether NPS will attempt to appeal or negotiate to modify the effects of the ruling. NPS Communications Director Julie McDonough informed Fig City News that the School Committee would be convening in Executive Session on the evening of Tuesday, April 30, to discuss the issue.