After hitting the picket line on Monday over an impasse in contract negotiations, members of the Charlotte Education Association met with school district administrators for a mediation session on Tuesday, October 7.
Teachers in the Eaton County community have been working under an expired contract since July. In September, administrators for Charlotte Public Schools requested to begin mediation proceedings in an attempt to resolve negotiations that have stretched since the beginning of this year.
Becky Carter, co-president of the Charlotte Education Association, said that the two sides have reached an agreement on salaries, insurance, and calendar. The sticking point, Carter said, is a disagreement over the process for grievance resolution.
The union wants the ability to resolve disputes over teacher evaluation and discipline through independent binding arbitration. Currently, Carter said, those disputes are limited to a non-binding mediation process, where administrators “have the final say.”
Arbitration is the final step in the district's grievance resolution process, occurring if the dispute remains unresolved after meetings with the principal, superintendent, and a mediator. Expenses for the arbitrator are split between the two sides, with each paying for their own legal representation and witnesses.
The district’s latest proposal would restrict arbitration over discipline to cases in which a teacher is facing a suspension of at least seven days without pay. The proposal would only allow for arbitration over an evaluation if a teacher receives two consecutive ratings of “needing support,” a situation in which state law requires arbitration to be available.
District administrators did not respond to a request for comment.
In an online statement, Charlotte Board of Education President Mark Byers wrote that “there should be reasonable limitations on the final step of arbitration due to the time and expense.”
Carter said that teachers shouldn't have to lose pay in order to seek arbitration and that the district should either allow for arbitration for any evaluation below “effective” or codify the evaluation process in the contract.
“It's not like we are going to go to arbitration for every single situation,” Carter said. “We just want there to be accountability on both sides … so that one side doesn't have an imbalance of power by always having the final say.”
The union’s push for new grievance procedures was made possible by a 2023 law signed by Governor Gretchen Whitmer, which gave teachers’ unions the power to negotiate procedures for discipline, evaluation, and placement. A previous law passed by Republicans in 2011 had made those categories off limits.
The two sides seem to have reached an agreement on most other contract issues. In the statement, Byers wrote that the “District has accepted the CEA’s most recent financial offer,” which he said would lead to increased benefits and the “largest pay raise in several years."
Carter said the agreement on salaries was “not even close to average market value in comparison to peer districts,” but that “we feel like we got as far as we were going to be able to get.”
Carter said the union’s membership supports the push for more access to independent arbitration.
“They feel like we've given and given and given over the years and they have asked me to continue fighting,” Carter said. “This is what is right and fair for teachers and it's going to have a lasting impact into the future."
Carter said Tuesday night’s mediation meeting led to “significant progress” and that the teams will meet again on Monday, October 12.
