In Support of Teachers’ Unions
Forward Albemarle
This Labor Day, we'd like to recognize the Albemarle Education Association and its members. We are grateful to have an organized union advocating for educators and school staff members and working tirelessly to secure collective bargaining rights for ACPS employees.
We strongly urge Division leaders and our School Board to come to an agreement with the AEA, sooner rather than later, so our teachers and school employees can begin to negotiate their contracts in earnest. We want to attract the best, most highly-effective teachers, specialists, and staff members to our division and we want them to want to stay here. A strong collective bargaining resolution can help!
We strongly urge ACPS employees to join the AEA! Make sure that YOUR voice is heard in the negotiations process.
Put good out, get good in. It's time, ACPS.
From our August 28, 2023 Newsletter:
In Spotsylvania, hundreds of students are learning online because of teacher vacancies. In Prince William County, there are 535 vacancies across the division (including teachers, support staff, bus drivers, etc.) because employee contracts are not competitive with those offered by surrounding districts.
We know ACPS has a bus driver shortage and that bonuses were offered to help hire for difficult-to-fill teaching and support staff positions, but without a strong collective bargaining resolution currently active in ACPS, are we headed to where Spotsy and PW are??
Collective Bargaining helps recruit and retain highly qualified teachers and school employees, not just because they are given the opportunity to negotiate their contracts (which surely helps), but because of the level of respect "having a seat at the table" conveys to the work force.
Last winter, the Albemarle Education Association (AEA) introduced a resolution to the School Board that would make collective bargaining possible for all ACPS staff. The resolution sets the terms for how a bargaining agent is selected, who is eligible to bargain, and other important aspects of the negotiating relationship. The resolution submitted was very close in scope to the collective bargaining resolution already approved by Charlottesville City Schools.
Instead of approving the resolution submitted by the AEA, the Board hired outside counsel to draft a resolution, which AEA representatives would be invited to negotiate until a mutually agreed upon resolution was reached.
Because these negotiations have been confidential, we don't know the terms of the current iteration of the resolution, only that no mutually agreed upon resolution has yet been drafted and adopted.
We hope that a collective bargaining resolution similar in scope to others drafted across the state of Virginia including right next door in Charlottesville, can be adopted sooner rather than later to protect the workforce we have now, and to be able to attract highly-qualified teachers, support staff, and bus drivers to join the ACPS team in the future.
Read our previous blog about collective bargaining here: Advocating for Collective Bargaining in ACPS