Local discussions surrounding teacher health insurance are on the back burner as education officials here and in Nashville are caught up with major overhauls to K-12 education.
Sharon Vandagriff, president of the Hamilton County Education Association, said her efforts have been focused on communicating with the state teachers’ association and providing input on the special legislative session called last week by Gov. Phil Bredesen.
“Negotiations around salary and benefits have taken a back seat,” she said. “Getting this money to Tennessee is more important than focusing on our compensation package.”
Gov. Bredesen called the special session to propose major changes to K-12 education. The governor said the bill, and the changes it proposes — such as tying teacher tenure to student achievement and evaluating teachers and principals annually — was necessary to apply for $485 million in federal Race to the Top funds. The state House and Senate approved the K-12 reform bill Friday.
Contract talks have been going on for almost a year, but negotiators for the school system and the teachers association haven’t agreed on any change to the health insurance plan. School officials want teachers to pick up a larger share of rising costs for health insurance.
The last meeting was Nov. 30. School system spokeswoman Danielle Clark said the pace of talks slowed when it became clear that no changes could be made during the current school year.
Ms. Vandagriff said the break in negotiations was necessary.
“Once the decisions are made at the legislative level, we have to look at how that impacts us and whether we’ll have to rework contract language,” she said.
But Linda Mosley, a member of the Hamilton County Board of Education and chairwoman of the board’s Finance Committee, said she wants the health insurance discussion back in the forefront.
“In my opinion, it’s our No. 1 priority,” she said. “Until we’ve got that settled, I think it’s driving everything we do budgetwise. If we can’t come to a reasonable solution, it’s going to hamper all our processes.”
Rick Smith, Hamilton County’s deputy superintendent, said the Race to the Top discussion may have had an “impact on the urgency” of scheduling more talks, but mostly the issue was seasonal scheduling conflicts.
“I think we had a major holiday right on top of us, all of those end-of-semester issues. We’re in the second week (of school) and we just haven’t rescheduled,” he said.