Holland Education Association Bargaining Announcement
Good afternoon and thank you for coming, my name is Rick Slachta and I’m here today as a representative of Holland teachers and the Holland Education Association. I have a brief prepared statement and then I will be happy to take your questions.
No one can believe that the recent public debate over the negotiations between the Holland teachers and the Holland school board has been healthy for our community and our community’s future.
Holland teachers have said repeatedly that we would have preferred that the Board use the bargaining process it employed successfully for over a decade to resolve our differences. That process kept bargaining at the bargaining table and out of the public forum. Unfortunately, that has not happened.
As a result of this public forum we have talked with and listened to a broad cross section of the Holland community over the past several weeks. From those discussions we have concluded that if our community and our school system are going to continue to survive and thrive, important and profound changes are called for.
The Board’s repeated public announcements about their bargaining positions have prompted the community to request information from teachers, asking how the bargaining conflict can be resolved. Specifically, the question has been how we, as a community, can address the challenges facing Holland Public Schools.
The community has spoken and we have listened.
Holland teachers believe now is the time to provide leadership and address the communities concerns. The Holland community and Holland teachers share a common concern about the future of Holland Public Schools. That is why we are proposing a broad based public initiative we believe will both take the future of Holland Public Schools in a positive direction and resolve our bargaining crisis.
But we do not believe it can stop there. We all recognize the financial challenges facing Holland Public Schools. To meet those challenges we are asking the school board to join us in an action plan to take control of our shared future.
We agree with statements made at the last school board meeting by school board member Kevin Clark when he stated we must work on the variables that are within our control. We believe that we must begin to do that now!
The Holland Public School teachers asks the Holland Board of Education to enter with us into a “Contract With Our Community” to restore the bonds of trust between the community and the Holland School District and work together to gain control of our shared futures. The contract will provide a detailed agenda to move our school district and our community forward:
First, within the next 60 days a community task force is formed with participation from parents, educators, business leaders and local media to address retention of Holland students in the Holland Public Schools. Together we can reverse this downward spiral of student enrollment. This is variable that we control.
Second, bring together community members, business leaders, educators and local media to coordinate efforts to bring Holland tax dollars to Holland Public Schools through a county wide millage enhancement. Currently this is the only means to generate new revenues for Holland Public Schools. This is a variable that we control.
Third, the School Board and teachers will seek and will act on input from the community regarding strengthening our community school models. This is a variable that we control.
Fourth, the community, local media, the school board and Holland teachers will jointly lobby our area legislators to provide legislation that will adequately fund Holland Public Schools. Input into our democratic process is a variable that we control.
To fulfill our “Contract With Our Community” both the School Board and the Holland teachers must be freed from the energy sapping storm of confrontational bargaining. We must get beyond the bargaining and have a settled contract, not an imposed contract.
Unfortunately, the school board still seems determined to illegally impose or force contract changes on Holland teachers at tomorrow’s bargaining session. The board plans to do this without reaching a mutual agreement. That action will not provide a resolution of the current dispute either for the teachers or for the community. The bargaining will not stop, litigation will begin and the divisions within our community will continue. The education of our children will suffer, our community and businesses will suffer and our public school system will begin to come apart at the seams. That is just too high a price to pay!
To avoid that path of certain destruction and to enable our “Contract With Our Community” to be successful the teachers’ bargaining team will present a proposal to resolve the ongoing bargaining conflict. Holland teachers will drop our demand to maintain the current traditional health insurance plan and will propose a significant change by moving to a new less costly PPO health insurance plan. The Holland teachers would become only the second teacher group in Ottawa County to shift to a PPO. This change represents nearly $1,000.00 per teacher per year in give backs to the Holland Public Schools and calculates to almost a million dollars in savings over the next three years.
We hope the school board will also examine their current position and agree to meet us at this middle ground in order to resolve this conflict.
With labor peace and our shared vision of a thriving high quality Holland School District this “Contract With Our Community” will bring together four powerful forces needed to meet our future challenges: community members and business leaders, the Holland Board of Education, Holland teachers and the Holland media. We urge the Holland Board of Education to join us in this initiative. In our unity lies our strength.
Thank you.
