ACSA and School Employers Association of California are launching an alliance to help schools in the area of collective bargaining.
ACSA and SEAC have already been collaborating to offer successful Collective Bargaining Summits the past four years, and the new partnership promises to expand those and bring a host of new offerings in this key issue area.
The collaboration does not include such ACSA events as the Negotiators’ Symposium, the Personnel Institute and the Personnel Academy. These programs will remain under ACSA’s purview and separate from the ACSA/SEAC Collective Bargaining Alliance.
The collaboration will become official as of July 1. As stated in the memorandum of understanding between ACSA and SEAC, the alliance will focus on providing enhanced leadership, professional development, and consultation and mutual advocacy in the area of K-12 collective bargaining.
“Negotiations are becoming more challenging each year,” said Brett McFadden, ACSA legislative advocate and management services executive. “It’s one of the top three career-enders for school leaders. The purpose of this new program is to provide more direct service to school leaders and districts on the development and implementation of proactive negotiating strategies.”
ACSA has recently announced that McFadden’s position is being restructured to allow him to focus on expanding ACSA’s professional development and consulting services in the areas of collective bargaining, charter schools, Response to Intervention and ACSA’s new legal alliance. McFadden will continue his advocacy work with ACSA on K-12 finance and the state budget, but will now also be working in professional development and consulting in those other areas.
The four primary focuses of the collaboration will be the collective bargaining summits; local and regional consultation and training; research, surveys, publications and advisories; and mutual advocacy.
“ACSA already has an excellent set of training and professional development programs on the ‘how and what’ of negotiating on a broad level, so we don’t intend to change those,” McFadden said. “The ACSA/SEAC alliance will instead provide assistance in how to develop comprehensive negotiating strategies at the local level.”
SEAC Executive Director Ruben Ingram said the alliance between ACSA and SEAC is a natural, given that both organizations work to support school leaders in the area of securing the best possible negotiated agreements with their labor unions.
“SEAC brings over 30 years of focused expertise in collective bargaining, while ACSA brings the widest range of management leadership and services in this area,” Ingram said. “This combination will contribute to a higher level of coordinated and proactive actions on the part of management and governance teams than in working independently.
“Our hope is that the long term results will be securing negotiated agreements that protect the management rights of districts, maintain sound fiscal status and represent the students and their educational programs, while providing all employees in districts with fair and equitable salaries and benefits to the extent possible.”
The Collective Bargaining Summits have been an ongoing, successful collaboration. Held in various locations throughout the state, the summits help education management focus on what it would like to achieve at the collective bargaining table. Each district is unique, so the summits simply help districts focus their own goals and decide which tactical approach to take.
In the area of consultation and training, the alliance intends to initiate and market a program that offers local and regional consultation training. This will be designed to work in conjunction with the Collective Bargaining Summits but also be available to LEAs on a customized basis. This would include core value training and collective bargaining contract audits for individual LEAs.
The alliance will also work to conduct or sponsor research and surveys, as well as develop publications and other advisories around K-12 collective bargaining issues.
Finally, the alliance will work on issues of mutual advocacy in agreed areas centered on collective bargaining. Each association will still retain the ability to develop its unique legislative platform and policy positions.
For information regarding alliance services and how to make inquiries for such assistance, please go to www.seacal.org or contact Brett McFadden at bmcfadden@acsa.org.