Everything Comes Back Around

Just to take a step back from what’s happening day-to-day in the Central Falls, RI negotiations over a once-potential mass firing of teachers, consider this timeline of Providence Journal stories:

• January 12, 2010: The state identifies six persistently low-achieving schools, including Central Falls High School.
• February 11, 2010: The local teachers union balks at Superintendent Frances Gallo’s requests to increase the school day by 25 minutes, create a tutoring schedule, agree to eat lunch with students once a week, attend two weeks of paid professional development in the summer, accept third-party evaluations, and stay after school 90 minutes one day each week for paid collaboration time. Teachers would have received an average of $3,400 in pay increases for the changes. Gallo threatens to fire all the teachers and make them reapply for their jobs. No more than half could return to their old positions.
• February 23, 2010: Former RI Republican Senator Lincoln Chafee (now running for governor as an independent) calls for an independent mediator.
• February 24, 2010: Every Central Falls High School teacher is fired.
• February 25, 2010: American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten issues a statement in support of the fired teachers.
• February 25, 2010: Secretary of Education Arne Duncan applauds Gallo and RI Superintendent Deborah Gist and says he applauds them for, “showing courage and doing the right thing for kids.”
• February 26, 2010: All fired teachers appeal the decision.
• March 2, 2010: Echoing Duncan’s statement, President Obama publicly weighs in in support of the firings by saying, “our kids get only one chance at an education, and we need to get it right.”
• March 4, 2010: Talks between the district and union leaders resume.
• March 19, 2010: A teacher is disciplined after Gallo discovered an Obama effigy doll hanging outside the teacher’s classroom.
• April 29, 2010: The teachers union files a lawsuit to stop the firings.
• May 12, 2010: ABC’s popular “Extreme Makeover” show invites school officials to apply for a total renovation.
• May 18, 2010: An agreement is reached. All teachers must attend an interview session with the incoming principal, but no teachers will be fired. In exchange for a $4,800 increase in salary, teachers agreed to a longer school day, 90 minutes of after-school planning time once a week, an official tutoring schedule, additional summer professional development, a new teacher evaluation plan,  and having lunch with students.

If you’re feeling dizzy from these turn of events, do not be alarmed. It appears that ultimately the district got almost exactly what it was originally asking for. All it took was a threat to fire all of the high school’s teachers, a lawsuit, support from the Secretary of Education and President, and $1,400 more per teacher.

Tagged as: Deborah Gist, Frances Gallo, Providence Rhode Island, Randi Weingarten