Teacher contract negotiations

The excitement and optimism of the first day of school Monday was a welcome distraction from the Clark County School District’s labor problems.

The union that represents the district’s teachers has declared an impasse in negotiations, and the union that represents support employees also hasn’t agreed to a deal.

Together, the bargaining groups cover about 29,000 employees, the vast majority of the school district’s work force. They’re being asked to cover almost $52 million of the district’s $56 million budget hole. Administrators, professional-technical workers and police already have struck deals to erase about $3.5 million from the shortfall.

Support staff have been asked to give up all pay raises and increase their pension contributions. The school district wants teachers to agree to terms similar to those covering administrators and police: the elimination of raises based on experience and graduate school credits; the assumption of half of the increase in the district’s pension contributions; the replacement of the teachers’ self-governed health trust with a cheaper, for-profit health insurance provider; and making teacher seniority a less-significant consideration in layoffs.

That last demand has been a problem for the teachers union. The administrators union already has agreed to make job performance the primary consideration in layoffs. Administrators who have twice been deemed unsatisfactory would be laid off first. Next to go would be anyone suspended five days or more within the past two years. After that, those with the fewest years on the job would get pink slips.

It’s common sense for the school district to keep its top performers, especially considering Gov. Brian Sandoval signed into law this year a requirement that seniority cannot be the only factor in educator layoffs. But that law allows unions to negotiate with school districts to determine the other criteria for layoffs. That stipulation allows the union to demand that seniority remain the prime criterion — just not the only one.

The union wants a judge to decide teacher concessions through arbitration. Teachers union leaders and loyalists attended Thursday’s School Board meeting to press their demands. The School Board, meanwhile, has made it clear that about 500 teachers will be laid off within a month if an agreement isn’t reached with the union.

This is an important test for the School Board, which has long done the bidding of the union. New Superintendent Dwight Jones supports eliminating seniority as a factor in teacher layoffs so promising young teachers are not sacrificed to protect ineffective, older ones counting down the days until retirement. And the public might be surprised to know how many teachers favor such a change as well — the hyperventilation of their union notwithstanding.

The board can’t buckle on this issue. Ending “last in, first out” is critical to improving public education.