Brown Deer Teachers Disheartened

By Terry Lawler

Tim Nelson

Tim Nelson, an English teacher and negotiator for the Brown Deer Education Association, believes philosopher Parker Palmer sums up the problems in his district: Education reform “will never be achieved … if we continue to demean and dishearten the human resource called the teacher, on whom so much depends.”

He points to the layout of the Brown Deer High School instructional media center as an example: “It looks great to the visiting public, but I’m not aware that any teacher was consulted regarding its design.”

Pointing to a sculpture that resembles a giant sine wave along one wall, he said, “That construction was very expensive. It looks impressive, but couldn’t the money have been spent more productively?”

Barb Holzhauer

Barb Holzhauer, head of the IMC and chief negotiator for BDEA, agrees. She had no part in designing the facility she runs.

It is a reflection of the lack of respect accorded teachers by the administration and school – the same lack of respect that is a driving force behind stalled contract negotiations.

Brown Deer, like many other Wisconsin districts, is still without a contract for 2001-03.

“The WERC (Wisconsin Employment Relations Commission) declared us at an impasse last August,” Holzhauer said, “but we have made it clear to our board that we still want to achieve a voluntary settlement.”

The major block to that settlement right now is rising insurance costs. Because language bargained in an earlier contract changed co-pays from a flat fee to a percentage of premiums, the teacher share of insurance costs already has increased substantially.

“The board keeps saying ‘get real, make concessions, make adjustments.’ But this is just enabling behavior, not a way to fix health care problems,” Nelson said. “Pressure can’t fall on employees; they can’t simply take more money out of our pockets.”

Both Holzhauer and Nelson agree that the salaries in Brown Deer are good in comparison to the districts around them. And, they add, “The board is beating us over the head with this fact.” Those salaries, however, are in danger of being eroded by rising insurance costs. “It’s tough to try to recruit new teachers by showing them our salary schedule and saying, ‘You may get this much but it may be less,’” Holzhauer said.

A letter a Brown Deer student wrote to the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel precipitated another setback in negotiations.

“A small percentage of teachers decided this year to not write letters of recommendation for students,” Nelson said. “This tactic was never adopted as a district-wide action.” In his letter, Holzhauer said, the student “wasn’t outraged or taking sides; he said ‘Look what’s happening because there is no settlement.’”

Despite this, Milwaukee’s conservative radio talk show hosts used the letter as an opportunity to attack Brown Deer’s teachers.

“I believe one commentator called us ‘greedy bastards,’” Nelson said.

The controversy found its way into negotiations. Holzhauer describes what happened in the first negotiations session after “it hit the fan”: “We were there to negotiate, but the board chose to use the session to vent. When one board member described us as ‘despicable,’ we walked. The truth is we were close to a voluntary settlement at the time. We were hopeful it could be reached.”

Adding to the teachers’ feelings of a lack of respect is the increasing amount of accountability being placed on them.

“The board keeps saying, ‘Just give us something, a chart, a graph, a report.’ For a new teacher, all this paperwork can be overwhelming.”

In fact, so many teachers are leaving Brown Deer that the board wants to increase “liquidated damages,” fines for leaving the district early.

“The board wants these damages to be two to three times higher than what is printed in the current contract offer,” Holzhauer said. “Teachers are being held accountable for things over which they have no control. If teachers present material and students choose not to learn it, is it the teachers’ fault? If you don’t follow your doctor’s advice, does the blame fall on him?”

Nelson notes that because of Brown Deer’s open enrollment policy, students are entering their schools after several years in other districts. “We are being held accountable for students who weren’t under our guidance from the beginning. It’s just politics.”

Brown Deer’s superintendent has been working hard for a voluntary settlement, but he was not present at the last negotiations session.

“The superintendent has been ‘benched,’” Holzhauer said. Still, she added, “I don’t think that the chances for a voluntary settlement are irretrievable.”

Holzhauer has put in for retirement in January. Nelson will then become BDEA’s chief negotiator. Both remain hopeful that cooler heads will prevail on the school board, and a satisfactory contract will be achieved.

Posted December 19, 2002