BSD Pledges to Use Labor Management for Student Improvement

Headline updated 9 a.m.

In a time when officials in states like Wisconsin and Ohio are trying to strip public workers, like teachers, of collective bargaining rights, Barnstable School District is embracing labor relations as a tool to improve student achievement.

Barnstable School District applied and was invited to attend a "high profile conference" in Denver, Co. by Department of Education and paid for by the the Ford Foundation.

Barnstable was one of 150 schools in attendance, out of 15,000 districts in the country.

The entire notion of the conference titled "Advancing Student Achievement Through Labor-Management Collaboration" was "improving student achievement as a first goal of the union," said Superintendent Patricia Grenier. 

The theme, something school committee chair Patrick Murphy and Grenier said Barnstable School District has progressed toward embracing throughout the last five years, is "near and dear to our philosophy on leadership," they said during a meeting on Tuesday night.

Unlike other districts in attendance, both said there is a unity in Barnstable where the president of the teacher's union, superintendent and committee work together - all three people had to attend the conference to accept the invitation. At the conference, Barnstable pledged to use labor management as a way to improve student achievement. 

So far, Grenier said Barnstable's culture is 60 percent to 70 percent (of the staff) on board with the thinking highlighted at the conference. She said she hopes integrating new language into teacher contracts and working with the union will help gain buy-in from the remaining staff. 

Some of the things this pledge might mean in new language in contracts, more, different or new professional development, standard best practices and better teacher evaluations with a possibility of performance based incentives that aren't contingent just on test scores.

Grenier said with this pledge, "everyone is going to win."

At the conference, Grenier said, "[she saw] a measure of unity I haven't quite frankly seen in my 35 years in education."

Murphy and Grenier said they felt "ahead of the curve," were impressed at the conference and were excited to be part of the innovative thinking that the union focus should be on student achievement- something they've been championing in Barnstable.