Union tension prompts move

By Megan Tench, Globe Staff, 11/28/2002

Bowing to pressure from the Boston Teachers Union, the Boston Foundation agreed yesterday to extend the deadline for schools wishing to apply for thousands of dollars in grants to study converting their campuses into pilot schools.

Last week, union officials lambasted principals for seeking information about the planning grants without fully explaining the move to teachers. Union members approved a moratorium on supporting the grants - a move that frustrated foundation members, who were ready to give $15,000 to schools to explore switching to pilot status.

“There are a lot of faculty members that are already conflicted over this,” said Paul Grogan, president of the Boston Foundation, the city’s largest charitable foundation. “They don’t want to go against the union, so we decided to remove this as an issue for them. We don’t want to poke a stick in the union’s eye and at the same time we want to maximize the number of proposals.”

The foundation moved the application deadline from Dec. 5 to Dec. 20 to give the union time to distribute information to members about pilot school conversion. “This is an important decision for the faculty of a school,” said Ed Doherty, union president. “They should have all the information and discuss it before making such a decision.”

The controversy began after principals, parents, and even some teachers from 30 schools - nearly a quarter of Boston’s campuses - showed up at a Nov. 7 meeting held by the Boston Foundation to explain the grants.

Union officials responded by urging its members not to submit proposals for the grant until the union could explain how pilot schools affect teachers. “We wanted to spell out the rights of teachers, the advantages and disadvantages, of converting to pilot school status,” said Doherty.

Boston currently has 13 pilot schools, including elementary, middle, and high schools. Created in 1994 with the union’s backing as an alternative to charter schools - and as a way to attract more families into the public school system - pilot schools have more budget and curriculum flexibility than other public schools. Teachers in pilot schools, however, lose certain collective bargaining rights. For example, they have fewer opportunities to challenge a decision to fire them and can face longer work days and school years, Doherty said.

He said the union is set to send out information to its members the week of Dec. 9 explaining the effect of pilot schools. The moratorium would then be lifted and members could apply for the grant money, he said.

District leaders and teachers must approve any requests to have a campus converted into a pilot school. Leaders of the Boston Foundation said yesterday that they hope the compromise will clear the way for faculty to be able to explore pilot schools.

The foundation doesn’t “want to be adversarial or antagonistic about this,” Grogan said.

This story ran on page B2 of the Boston Globe on 11/28/2002.
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