By Jamie Kelleher
and Kellie Mullin
Staff Writers
The Manhattan Beach Unified School District and the Manhattan Beach Unified Teachers’ Association continued negotiations on Jan. 14, concerning salary, benefits, stipend rates and the usage of the $1.3 million Common Core grant.
According to MBUTA bargaining chair Adam Geczi, the recent negotiations have mainly focused on how to spend the money granted for the implementation of Common Core standards. As of now, both parties agree that a portion of the grant should be used to fund staff development days for teaching Common Core standards.
“I think the issues surrounding teaching Common Core are very important, so we need to find some way to help all our teachers move forward in that area,” MBUSD Superintendent Dr. Michael Matthews said. “It’s a complex situation because we have different needs for different teachers.”
According to MBUSD Deputy Superintendent Rick Bagley, MBUSD and MBUTA are deciding the curriculum of the staff development days and whether or not attendance at these staff development days will be mandatory.
“The teachers were originally adamant about not wanting any mandatory days, but now I think they seem more open to it, so we are closer to reaching a compromise,” Bagley said.
MBUTA conducted a survey to find where members stand on the issue of Common Core funding, which revealed that a majority of members is in favor of staff development days.
“If the district does not provide sufficient staff development, then each teacher has to learn how to comply with Common Core standards on their own,” Geczi said. “If we’re going to spend our own time doing that, we want to be paid for it.”
Negotiations regarding MBUTA’s original proposal, which cannot be released, are scheduled for Tuesday.
“I am very encouraged by the level of communication that happened at the last negotiation meeting,” Matthews said. “The issues are pretty difficult, and if we can talk about them thoroughly, we can find a solution more easily.”
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