Elementary Day Schedule Memorandum of Agreement

Click on the image above to sign up for the General Membership Meeting.

Dear members,

On Tuesday, June 16th, at 7:00 pm., the NTA will host a virtual General Membership Meeting; Ryan Normandin sent out an email with instructions with registering for that meeting earlier today. Here, once again, is the link to sign up for the meeting.

One agenda item will be the presentation of a Memorandum of Agreement regarding proposed changes to next year's elementary schedule. The MOA can be found here. After the meeting, elementary Unit A members will have the opportunity to vote electronically on whether to ratify that agreement. 

The proposed schedule was the result of contributions from many players, but one in particular needs a shout out: Elizabeth Ross DelPorto. She stepped into the very large shoes of Chris Walsh as the co-chair of the Elementary Schedule Joint Labor Management Group and, along with Assistant Superintendent for Elementary Education Ayesha Farag, collaboratively led the team in developing a schedule that increases elementary teachers weekly preparation time to 225 minutes per week--reaching a milestone (though not an endpoint)--that the NTA has pursued for decades.

Thank you Elizabeth! As you yourself put it in when we last met as a committee, you can now say you have filled at least one of "Chris's shoes," and are making progress towards filling the other. I would put the matter differently: It is you (your "shoes") that now sets the bar for anyone who were to co-chair this committee in the future. 

These schedule changes did not come without compromises or challenges. A subcommittee of the NTA Negotiations Team, comprising primarily members of the "Labor" side of the Joint Labor Management Group, negotiated an MOA that both contractually codifies the additional preparation time for elementary teachers, and, to the extent possible, supports all educators through some difficult changes in this transition.

The MOA, again, can be found here. While I know that this agreement only directly impacts elementary educators, I invite all NTA members to give it a read. It provides valuable insight into the structure of the elementary school day, and, in doing so, the working conditions of elementary educators and the learning conditions of the students they teach.

I invite all of you all to join us next Tuesday at the NTAs General Membership Meeting. In addition to presenting the elementary schedule Memorandum of Agreement, we will share some of what we have learned from bargaining focus groups and the bargaining platform these insights inform.

In solidarity, 

Mike Zilles, President

Newton Teachers Association