The Baltimore City Public School System and the Baltimore Teachers Union failed to agree on a new compensation and promotion ladder for teachers before a state deadline requires one to be in place. The impasse has launched a mediation process that could take months to resolve and lead to lost funding.
School districts across Maryland needed a revamped career ladder in place by Monday under the Blueprint for Maryland’s Future education reform plan. After multiple rounds of negotiations over specifics in Baltimore’s teacher career ladder, the union and school system reached a stalemate.
“We’ve already filed formal impasse papers,” Zach Taylor, the union’s director of research and negotiations, said Friday, ahead of the deadline. The state Public Employee Relations Board will now consider the impasse request.
The new four-step career ladder required under the Blueprint aims to offer more ways for teachers to become school leaders and advance their careers and salaries faster. Teachers’ ability to do that largely depends on whether they have their National Board Certification, a rigorous credential through the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards.
A sticking point in negotiations in the city school district’s proposal is that board-certified teachers take on additional responsibilities to earn the raise, without specifying what those responsibilities are, said Zach Taylor, the union’s director of research and negotiations. Under the Blueprint, National Board-certified teachers will receive a $10,000 raise and up to a $17,000 raise if they work in high-needs schools.
“[District officials] are just going to say, ‘You have to do more work later, and we get to decide what that is.’ I can tell you no place is doing that,” Taylor said. “That’s not what state law says. That’s not what any of our neighboring districts are going to do.”
The district’s current career pathway, which dates back to 2010, ended Sunday, leaving the process for teachers to earn a promotion or pay raise unclear. The missed deadline also means the Blueprint’s Accountability & Implementation Board, a powerful state entity that enforces the very specific reform, can’t approve Baltimore City’s plan for how to implement the Blueprint.
Maryland’s 24 school districts submitted two-part implementation plans this past spring and are in the process of updating them with the board’s feedback. If a school district’s plans aren’t approved, the accountability board could withhold 25% of state funding. Districts can appeal the decision to withhold funds.
“Under that process, the AIB would issue a warning, and by February, the board would make a decision on withholding funding,” said Rachel Hise, executive director of the board. “That would trigger an appeals process.”
Although the accountability board doesn’t want to prevent the release of state funds, “that’s the way we interpret the law, and that’s what the law says,” said Isiah Leggett, chair of the board.
Under the Blueprint, all school districts also must increase teacher salaries by 10% and raise starting salaries to $60,000 per year by 2026. One of the five main priorities of the Blueprint is to create a highly qualified and diverse teacher workforce.
“While City Schools does not yet have an agreement with [the Baltimore Teachers Union], we look forward to a new career ladder that will advance our goal of attracting and retaining a high quality and diverse workforce who support and accelerate student achievement,” Sherry Christian, a BCPSS spokesperson, said in a statement.
The school districts will “build on the strengths and address the challenges of our previous career pathways while also meeting all Blueprint requirements” she continued.
Baltimore school officials will now send the accountability board written notification that they failed to meet Monday’s deadline.
Baltimore City Schools moved to end the district’s decade-old career ladder by the end of June to make way for the Blueprint plan. The union wanted to retain some aspects of the current ladder.
Teachers were compensated with a complex pay-for-performance plan that was considered revolutionary when adopted in 2010. It replaced automatic pay raises based on tenure or advanced degrees with a four-tiered career ladder based on teachers’ effectiveness in the classroom. Each tier came with a pay increase, and teachers who earned enough credits called “achievement units” could move up a pay grade.
Baltimore teachers rushed to earn college credits before the current career ladder ended — one way to receive an achievement unit corresponding to a pay bump. But school officials decided June 4 that they would no longer accept credits from Idaho State University as achievement units over concerns about the quality of the courses, Taylor said.
Christian declined to comment on the achievement units.
Teachers feel they’ve wasted money and time on college courses that the district previously accepted, Taylor said. The union filed a grievance over claims the district violated their contract violation. This month, members packed a Baltimore Board of School Commissioners meeting to protest the credit reversal and the district’s persistent late payments.
“They’re getting the rug pulled out from under them without any sort of mindfulness about what kind of hit to morale this is causing,” Taylor said.
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