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With a week-long teacher work slowdown “having an effect,” according to Berkeley Unified School District Public Information Officer Mark Coplan, Superintendent Michele Lawrence has sent out a letter to teachers and community residents explaining the district’s position in the dispute. 

Berkeley teachers have worked without a contract for the past two years, and contract negotiations are now being handled through a state-appointed mediator. Two weeks ago, to enforce their demands for a contract and a pay raise, members of the Berkeley Federation of Teachers union announced a district-wide “work to rule” action in which most teachers are refusing to work outside their contracted 7 hour work day. 

A bargaining session with the state mediator is scheduled for next week. 

Word of the slowdown has spread rapidly in Berkeley, and Coplan said that the superintendent’s office is “getting a lot of calls and e-mails from parents asking questions.” 

In response, Lawrence sent out a prepared statement to Berkeley residents late Monday night as a “community version” of a letter placed in teachers and staff pay envelopes on Monday morning. In it, Lawrence called the “work to rule” action a “legal activity” growing out of unresolved contract issues over “class size caps and total compensation.” 

Lawrence tells residents that the work action “could mean alternative plans will have to be made for special evening events, field trips or some meetings.” 

On the salary issue, Lawrence holds out little hope for a raise in the near future, saying that “the district budget is very precarious, and has little room for maneuvering.” She adds that “at the time of the signing of the last BFT contract, the goal was to achieve teacher compensation comparable to other districts. This goal continues to be met; compensation is similar to other districts.” 

On class sizes, she writes that “the district is committed to the class size ratios we promised in Measure B. The class size averages will be 20:1 in grades K-3, 26:1 in grades 4-5, and 28:1 in grades 6-12.” 

In her letter, as she has done in her public pronouncements and interviews on the action, Lawrence walks a tightrope, acknowledging that Berkeley teachers deserve a raise and sympathizing with their frustration at the lack of a raise while making the case that the money isn’t there in the budget. Instead of fighting on the local level, she says that Berkeley citizens should turn their attention to Sacramento. 

“I am asking you and members of our community to write the governor and our legislators to help them understand the necessity of ‘guaranteed’ funding for public education, and the need for revenue increases, not cuts, to balance the state budget,” she writes. “The education of California’s children should not be tossed aside in an effort to maintain ill-considered tax cuts. Now is the time to tell our state and federal lawmakers that we value public education and the people who dedicate their lives to educating children.” 

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