GREEN COVE SPRINGS – In the wake of the Clay County School District’s objections to a recent special magistrate ruling primarily favoring the Clay County Education Association, the school board chairman has scheduled a public hearing on contract impasse at a time when teachers and other stakeholders will be in their classrooms.

A public hearing on the contract negotiations impasse is scheduled for March 10 from 9 a.m. to noon in the Teacher Training Center at Fleming Island High.

School Board Chairman Johnna McKinnon defended the meeting saying the time was selected to accommodate numerous schedules including the district’s two attorneys.

“It was a scheduling issue,” McKinnon said, who represents District Four and is up for re-election this year. “I was trying to work with 10 different people’s schedules. Thursday morning is the only time I could get the two attorneys together at the same time. I knew at least one of the board members had a conflict. I had to rearrange my schedule. It’s difficult to attend meetings in the day time especially in the morning. Every board member was aware we wanted to get done by spring break.”

School Board member Janice Kerekes objected to the March 10 meeting due to a personal conflict.

“Chairman Johnna McKinnon set this date and time and I find it disappointing that this is not scheduled at a more appropriate time. After all, it affects their livelihood,” Kerekes said.

CCEA President Renna Lee Paiva said the meeting comes at an inopportune time for teachers.

“We’re appalled by the whole thing,” Paiva said. “This is just to stop the freedom of teachers and it’s another ploy by the chairman. The whole thing is ludicrous. Not even our legislature could come up with something as corrupt as this.”

The scheduling snafu comes after the Feb. 23 school board meeting in which district officials and the board met in executive session to discuss the non-binding recommendations submitted Feb. 1 by Magistrate Leonard T. Helfand. The magistrate ruled in the district’s favor on two of the seven issues and ruled in the union’s favor on five of the seven issues. The union rejected none of the Magistrate’s recommendations.

Contracted labor attorney Eric Holshouser of Jacksonville took the board’s input from its Feb. 23 meeting and submitted a response to the CCEA and the State of Florida Public Employees Relations Commission on Feb. 25. In the document, Holshouser on the behalf of the school district and board, rejected four of the magistrate’s recommendations. The district took issue with automatic renewal of annual contracts, conditional recommendation related to the awarding of in-service points, the board’s contribution to health insurance costs and discounting three years of experience for new hires.

According to the Holshouser document, the board rejected the automatic renewal of annual contracts because the threshold to receive an effective rating is 60 percent on the evaluation system which is an artificially low standard established by the Clay Assessment Committee of which union representatives constitute the majority.

“Evaluation from the employer’s perspective is to help teachers develop into the best teacher they can be for the students they serve,” the document states. “The special magistrate’s characterization that the district can or should ‘override the legislature’s non-binding action’ implies that the district should not follow the intent of state statute was based on political beliefs, not a ruling of law.”

The District rejected Helfand’s conditional recommendation related to the awarding of in-service points. Helfand originally recommended the union’s proposal to award in-service points for partial completion of in-service training with the condition that School Board should consult with the Florida Department of Education to ensure that partial credit without immediate implementation or use of a skill does not violate any DOE protocol.

“In this regard, the School District believes that the Florida Department of Education protocols require that follow-up documentation should occur after implementation in cases in which the teacher is to use a new skill or strategy as part of the in-service training,” the document states. “It only [makes] sense that the effectiveness of the strategy can only be measured after it is implemented.”

The district also rejected Helfand’s recommendation to increase the board’s contribution for health insurance to $300 per pay period from its current rate of $258.49. A credit of $11.93 would be attributed to each employee on the lowest Florida Blue Care health plan, which costs $288.07 per pay period.

“The cost of the union’s insurance proposal would be $2.58 million for all employees,” the document states. “Given the financial status of the School District and its availability of funds, the proposal is not feasible or prudent.”

The district also rejected Helfand’s recommendation regarding discounting three years of experience for new employees hired by the district to avoid leapfrogging, or paying new teachers a higher rate than current employees in the district who have worked in the district for a longer period of time.

The School District opposes the idea of permanently reducing the years of experience awarded by three years for new employees because “the school district has had difficulties in recruiting individuals in hard to fill positions, such as speech.”

Although McKinnon said she was unable to comment on the objections due to the ongoing nature of the matter, CCEA issued a press release voicing their concerns about Holshouser’s response.

“It is an interesting process that we must now go through. The very people that refused us at the bargaining table will now have the final say,” Paiva said in the press release. “It is the law and we will abide by it. What will be most interesting is to see if, indeed, these School Board members can be unbiased.”