ISTA Advocates For Collective Bargaining Before End Of Session

Teachers unions are pushing to collectively bargain bonuses for teachers included in Senate Bill 566. (Photo Credit: Rachel Morello/StateImpact Indiana)

Legislation coming out of this year’s General Assembly could change a lot for the day to day operations of schools, with the funding formula changing and a variety of structural changes proposed for the State Board of Education, and one thing teachers are keeping a close eye on: their collective bargaining rights for new bonuses.

In Senate Bill 566, a comprehensive education bill, one section addresses giving teachers with master’s degrees bonuses.

The current bill says a teacher is eligible for these bonuses if he or she “has earned a master’s degree from an accredited postsecondary educational institution in a content area directly related to the subject matter of a dual credit course; or another course taught by the teacher.”

It’s legislation that rewards teachers for continuing their education, according to Rep. Tim Brown, R-Crawfordsville, and makes them role models as lifelong learners to their students.

Indiana State Teachers Association President Teresa Meredith says while her organization is pleased to see the legislature rewarding qualified teachers, limiting the bonuses to these parameters leaves out a whole group of teachers.

“We thought it should be a little bit broader because for example, in elementary classrooms if you have a master’s degree you might not have a content area, you might have a master’s in education.”

And according to the legislation, the degree must be related to a specific subject area. Meredith and other members of the ISTA are working with legislators to broaden that criteria to any education related degree.

Brown says he and others on the conference committee are working to change that language to address concerns raised by ISTA.

“The bill does not prohibit elementary teachers,” Brown says. “We hope we’ll clarify the language as we move toward a conference committee report.”

The legislation doesn’t allow the teachers and schools receiving this bonus pay to negotiate it like base salaries, which is a huge problem for Meredith, who says any sort of compensation for teachers should be subject to collective bargaining.

Another reason Meredith says teachers should be able to bargain with these bonuses is to make sure the money is awarded to teachers fairly, and not in a subjective manner from administrators.

“We really want a way to be able to bargain it so we can set parameters and that everyone knows what the rules are,” she says. “Everybody knows what you have to do to qualify or to get whatever it is that’s being offered.”

Brown says the reason the legislation currently prohibits collective bargaining on these bonuses is to give the local administrators and school boards the control to reward teachers that perform well and receive additional education.

SB566 is still being worked on in conference committee, and will be finalized by the end of the session Wednesday.