Beverly Hills Teachers Union Files Charge Against School District

BEVERLY HILLS, CA — The Beverly Hills Education Association, the union representing the city’s teachers, is pursuing legal action against the Beverly Hills Unified School District. In an Unfair Practice Charge filed Wednesday with the California Public Employment Relations Board, the BHEA argued that the district violated their agreement by reopening campuses to elementary school students before COVID-19 case rates had fallen to agreed-upon levels.

The union has also requested an injunction that would reverse the BHUSD’s “unilateral changes to the parties’ agreements” and prevent the district’s plans for in-person learning to resume on March 4 for grades TK-2 and March 8 for grades 3-5.

“The District repudiated the parties’ negotiated agreements; unilaterally changed matters within the scope of bargaining; and failed to fulfill its obligation to meet and confer in good faith with the Association,” the charge reads. According to the union, the district violated an addendum to their Memorandum of Understanding stipulating that grades TK-2 would return to in-person learning once the Adjusted Case Rate of COVID-19 transmission in L.A. County falls below 10, and grades 3-5 would return when the county’s Adjusted Case Rate has been below 7 for at least 28 days.

“Beverly Hills educators want to be back in our classrooms with our students as soon as it is safe. In December, the Beverly Hills Education Association and the District agreed that grades TK-2 would not move to in-person instruction until Los Angeles County COVID-19 Adjusted Case Rates were below 10. The parties also negotiated protective procedures that – assuming the Adjusted Case Rates were below 10 – would help keep students and staff safe,” the union said in a statement. “The District is now repudiating that agreement and directing teachers to return to work while Adjusted Case Rates are higher than the parties had earlier agreed to. This is in clear violation of the District’s own contract, and it places BHUSD employees, students, their families, and our community at greater risk.”

In their injunction request, the union also said that it would have tried to negotiate more stringent vaccination and safety standards had it known the district would call them back on campus for higher case rate numbers. The union said it preferred requiring staff be vaccinated, as other districts have done, but settled for agreed-upon case levels. Still, teachers will become eligible to receive vaccines on March 1, shortly before they’re scheduled to return to campus.

The BHUSD, which has until 5 p.m. Friday to mount a formal defense to the charge, has countered in both public statements by Superintendent Dr. Michael Bregy and in letters to the union that the original MOU stated that in-person learning would resume “as soon as is feasible consistent with applicable state and local directives issued in response to this pandemic.”

According to the district, this means that these directives trump an “unenforceable” addendum to the MOU signed in December that was based on now outdated requirements. Earlier this month, Los Angeles County permitted students in TK-6 to return to in-person instruction once the county’s Adjusted Case Rate was 25 per 100 for five consecutive days, as long as districts have submitted an approved school safety plan or received a waiver. Beverly Hills has done both. The current LA County adjusted case rate is also 12.3, and continues to fall.

Bregy also cited a section of the MOU requiring a “reasonable notice to the Association prior to the transition to a different instructional model,” and said that the district gave the union ten days notice before implementing the change - the minimum amount required by the agreement. Bregy also cited children’s “Constitutional right” to be in school.

The district also says that it is offering accommodations to teachers who can demonstrate some kind of mental or physical impairment that will limit their job performance. Teachers will need to provide documentation of their condition, and meet with Assistant Superintendent Dr. Matthew Horvath to work out accommodations.

“We are disheartened by this news,” Bregy said of the union’s charge. “At issue is the fundamental Constitutional right of students to a public education in the State of California (including Article IX, Section 1 of the California Constitution). In-person instruction has now been authorized and the District has an obligation to the public to protect the Constitutional rights of students.”

Bregy also assured parents that this charge will not affect the planned return of students to campus for a hybrid model of learning, writing simply in a statement that “We look forward to welcoming our Elementary Students on March 4 for TK-2 and March 8 for 3-5.”

However, should a judge grant an injunction before March 4, teachers will not have to come in. But that’s a lengthy process to go through before next Thursday. The general counsel of the Public Employees Relations Board Felix De La Torre told Patch he is reviewing the union’s complaint and petition for injunction, and will send a recommendation to the full Board. If the Board grants the request, De La Torre’s office will file with the Los Angeles County Superior Court seeking a hearing to obtain an injunction against the district, and then a judge will issue a decision.

De La Torre said he is trying to make all this happen by next Wednesday. “The Board has no deadline to issue its decision, but generally times its decisions in a way that provides my office sufficient time to appear in court before the event takes place,” he told Patch. “In this case, PERB would need to be in court no later than March 3 to enjoin the in-person instruction scheduled for March 4.”

If a decision is not reached, it is unclear exactly what will happen. The union declined to comment whether or not teachers would show up, and it is also up to legal experts whether or not this would constitute a public employee strike, which is legal in California unless the strike creates a “substantial and imminent threat to the health or safety for the public.”

“As whether the teachers are obligated to return to campus if an injunction is not issued, or whether a refusal to return is considered a strike, I cannot comment as those questions involve legal opinions that I cannot provide in my capacity as a neutral,” De La Torre told Patch.

The decision to file a charge was formally announced at during the comments section of Tuesday’s school board meeting, when board member Tristen Walker Schuman read the announcement signed by BHEA Vice President Ethan Smith and the BHEA Executive Board: “ We the members of BHEA are writing to express our utmost disappointment with your unilateral contract violation. Despite your often expressed statements that we are all in this together, you have refused to abide by our agreed upon contract. This is a betrayal of our partnership. We are moving forward with legal action against your reckless decision. Teachers and staff have put forth immeasurable effort to provide a robust education to our students during distance learning. Your action, however, has the potential to cause our students, members, and their families irreparable harm. BHEA will continue to join the negotiations process to craft agreements that are best for all parties. We expect you to fulfill your duties as well. We look forward to a mutually agreed upon return to campus.”

During its previous meeting, the board voted 5-0 to approve the district’s revised reopening schedule.

Public comments at the meeting were mostly in favor of reopening and critical of the BHEA, though a few teachers wrote in to defend their position. In negotiating a new agreement, the district sent out a survey asking whether elementary school parents preferred to prioritize staying with their child’s current teacher, whether that means virtual or in-person learning (Option A); returning to in-person learning no matter which teacher their child ends up with (Option B); or staying with the virtual learning model, regardless of the teacher (Option C).

At Horace Mann Elementary School, Option A received 150 votes, Option B received 279 votes, while Option C received only 65 votes. At Hawthorne Elementary, the results were more mixed: Option A got 235 votes, Option B got 224, and Option C got 100.

“As I’m considering taking my children out of BHUSD and registering them for private school I was pondering a statement [school board member] Noah Margo made about putting our teachers at risk. We can all agree our teachers’ safety is important, but as a teacher myself my life and the lives of all health workers are just as important,” wrote Allen Naim, one of several to make this point. “The lives of grocery store workers, police officers, firemen, and all the other essential workers is as important, yet we have all been working the past year for you and your families, While the BHUSD teachers union is playing politics with our children’s education, the rest of the nation is getting back to school.”

“It seems the issue is that the teachers’ contracts are being breached by the reopening plan, and now we have no schedule for this week, regardless of what we choose. This is ridiculous. Why would a reopening date be published without the employees being on board? Now our kids are suffering because the district was not buttoned up about the plan. It seems like this should be standard to make sure employees are okay with the plan before delivering the product to the customer,” wrote parent Leanne Robertson.

The court of public opinion weighed in: now the issue rests with actual courts.