During collective bargaining, board members and administrators make common mistakes: allowing the board to negotiate; failing to recognize the beginning of negotiations, authorize the negotiating team, or learn teachers' bargaining language; circumventing the bargaining team; waving red flags; negotiating every union demand; and accepting…

This resource guide was prepared by the University of Alabama College of Education to assist local education agencies (school districts) in Alabama in formulating effective policy. The authors emphasize that if local control of the schools is to remain viable, education decision makers must view policy development as a comprehensive function…

This document contains reports of research findings considered of special relevance for school board members. The introduction summarizes the project which involved selecting, abstracting, analyzing, and interpreting research on 27 topics. Each of the 27 resumes (written in "layman's language") includes questions, review of studies, implications,…

A study examined behaviors of participants trained in a nonadversarial model of contract negotiation, focusing on possible influences of formal and informal power structures, written and unwritten rules, and firmly entrenched adversarial behavior on the bargaining process. Participants were representatives of a district's teacher union and board…

Grievance procedures must be fast and fair to satisfy everyone and to disrupt the normal workflow as little as possible. The following factors help make for effective procedures: (1) binding arbitration, because it is orderly and unbiased; (2) contributions to contract language by the contract administrators; (3) absolute honesty about contract…

Boards of education should undertake the process of devising acceptable grievance procedures with great care and with the most expert advice available. A sensible, workable, and fair system is most likely to evolve if the board takes the initiative rather than waiting for demands by the teachers' associations. (WM)

Across the country citizens' and parents' groups have demanded participation in the collective bargaining process, which traditionally included only boards of education and teachers' union representatives meeting behind closed doors. The first state to require that bargaining in the public sector be conducted in the open (fishbowl bargaining) was…

This negotiation aid for school managers explores the extent to which one noneconomic issue--the evaluation of teacher performance--has become a bargainable item. Included here are summaries of both management and teacher views on negotiating the teacher evaluation issue as they have appeared in the literature; an analysis of teacher evaluation…

THE AUTHOR STATES THAT DEFINITION OF THE SUPERINTENDENT'S ROLE IN COLLECTIVE NEGOTIATIONS IS A MAJOR PROBLEM. THE SCHOOL ADMINISTRATOR MAY SERVE AS NEGOTIATOR FOR THE BOARD, SPOKESMAN FOR THE TEACHERS, MEDIATOR FOR BOTH, OR MAY BE COMPLETELY INDEPENDENT. A STUDY OF 98 SUPERINTENDENTS IN 469 SCHOOLS IN SEVEN MIDWESTERN STATES REVEALED THAT 87…

Guidelines to assist school board members in collective negotiations with teachers associations are developed from the author's experience as a negotiations consultant to school boards and to management in industry. Particular attention is given to the bargaining process, preparations for negotiation, the initial agreement, third-part…

Grievance adjustment between teachers and administrators is viewed as a misunderstood process. The problem is treated under four main headings: (1) Purposes and characteristics of an effective grievance procedure, (2) status of grievance procedures in education, (3) relationship of grievance procedures to professional negotiation procedures, and…

This chapter examines the current state of collective bargaining in Oklahoma. It gives particular attention to procedural agreements, principals, nonprofessional personnel, and mediation. (IRT)

Collective negotiations statutes are vague, and decisions on the subject by courts, commissions, and arbitrators are relatively sparse. The development of a definition of "management rights" agreeable to school administrators is not possible without (1) a clear understanding of the fundamental nature of the public school system; (2) an advocate's…

In Colorado, a local teachers association, the administrative staff, and the board of education frustrated by a series of negotiation impasses, jointly developed a set of bargaining procedures which differ markedly from the games people usually play at the bargaining table. Two people from the teachers association met with two administrators in a…