Dear Educator, 

Today your PAT Bargaining Team met with representatives from PPS to start the bargaining for workload relief in the COVID-19 pandemic.  You can review the complete PAT proposal here, and watch the recorded session here: Part I, Part II, Part III.   

Our proposal contains two key concepts that we absolutely know the District can accomplish, to the benefit of students and educators as all of us return from Winter Break.

First, we are looking to have all “non-essential” activities stop. That means fewer committee meetings, fewer staff meetings, suspending/postponing many educator-evaluations, and removing busy-work from PLC meetings.  

Secondly, we are looking to restructure elements of the work week so that professional educators can focus on meeting student and family needs: at the  Elementary and Middle School levels, we proposed a weekly early-release; for High Schools, we proposed converting 8-period “skinny days” to become days for Flex-time/office hours and asynchronous learning.  We also proposed converting a few days to professional development days focused on school climate, and additional planning days so that professional educators can adapt curriculum to meet the needs of students.  

By making these adjustments,  we believe we can provide our students with a better experience, create real relief for educators so the staffing crisis stops getting worse, and provide a stable and sustainable plan for the rest of the school year. 

PPS spent much of the day in caucus working on how to respond to the PAT proposal, and your team expects a full counter-proposal from PPS tomorrow.  We bargain again tomorrow from 1 - 6 PM, and we will live-stream the session and post them here.

In Solidarity

Your PAT Bargaining Team,

Steve Lancaster, Angela Bonilla, Emy Markewitz, Charity Powell, Francisca Alvarez, Thea Keith

Portland Association of Teachers
http://www.pdxteachers.org/