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By Joanne M. Haas
The 50 teachers at a Waukesha County school are working
under a contract linking Wisconsin’s new teacher licensing law,
PI 34, to their salary schedule.
“I don’t think you’re going to see
a lot of schools doing this,” said Steven Johnson, UniServ Director
for Cedar Lake United Educators. “Nothing in the law, the licensing
law, says that you have to create salary schedules to reflect the licensing.”
Yet, that is exactly what is declared in the signed
2001-03 contract between the Arrowhead United Teachers Organization
and the Lake Country School Board. About 500 students from kindergarten
through 8th grade attend Lake Country School in Delafield.
Another school district that developed professional
staff growth opportunities long before PI 34 is Menomonee Falls, where
work began during the 1997-99 bargain period, said Ellen Mac Farlane
of TriWauk Uniserv Council.
“We did a lot of talking early on. It was all
part of the contract bargain for 1999-2001,” Mac Farlane said.
“We spent the summer of 1999 working out details,
writing the professional development manual, and writing the syllabus
for the first mentoring class,” Mac Farlane said, adding the district’s
professional development standards are being changed to reflect the
standards used by PI 34.
Model language available
Mike McNett, WEAC’s director of collective bargaining
and research, said it is vital that teachers and districts act now to
put in place provisions related to PI 34 before the law takes effect.
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The Lake Country
contract allows the new teacher to move from the Initial Educator
pay lane into the Professional Educator pay lane by year 3 instead
of year 5, as long as the licensing requirements are satisfied.
That would mean an additional $5,000 in pay by moving from Initial
to Professional Educator.
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“I’m hoping that people don’t put off
PI 34 in the current round of bargaining,” McNett said, noting
that the law’s provisions will have an impact during the 2003-05
contract period.
Most of the new hires for the 2004-05 contract year
will have graduated prior to the implementation of the new rules. However,
mid-year hires may be affected, and new hires for the 2005-06 year will
be affected. The latter group will probably be hired before a 2005-07
contract is in place and will therefore be employed under terms of the
expired 2003-05 contract, McNett said.
“This is why it is important to get the language
into 2003-05 agreements,” he said.
The most pressing bargaining issues, McNett said,
focus on those areas connected to the first graduating class of Initial
Educators, or entry-level teachers. These include the selection, training
and release time for mentors and Initial Educators, evaluation safeguards,
and working to tap funds under the federal Elementary and Secondary
Education Act (ESEA) to help implement PI 34.
“We don’t want our members doing more and
more for less and less, for something that is done in a half-baked way,”
McNett said.
A committee of WEAC and UniServ representatives has
developed model contract language available to all negotiators.
The model language, McNett said, is there to help
people “realize that there are mandatory subjects of bargaining.”
“They can’t unilaterally impose a system,”
he said. Districts must work in collaboration with the association and
within their communities to determine how best to proceed.
According to PI 34, the Initial Educator has three
to five years to design and complete a professional development plan
(PDP) to advance to the Professional Educator License. The law also
requires districts to pair Initial Educators with mentors. Mentors may
not serve on a three-member team charged with reviewing and approving
the Initial Educator’s application to be licensed as a Professional
Educator, which should occur between 2007 and 2009.
Other bargaining issues relate to the Professional
Educator License, the second of three licensing tiers covered in PI
34. The Professional Educator license can be renewed the old way of
earning six credits, or by designing a professional development plan
(PDP) based upon two of the 10 Wisconsin Teacher Standards.
To earn the 10-year Master Educator, the third tier,
PI 34 provides two paths. One is to test through the National Board
for Professional Teaching Standards, and the other is to test in Wisconsin.
That state testing process is still in the works. Those holding lifetime
licenses are not affected by the new law, but are encouraged to offer
their expertise as mentors or consider earning the 10-year renewable
Master Educator license.
Putting it in the contract
The Lake Country contract recognizes the licensing
change first applies to those who graduate after July 1, 2004, as the
state’s first holders of the Initial Educator license.
For example, a new college graduate would be hired
at Step 1 in the pay lane for initial teachers under the provisions
of the 2002-03 salary schedule contained in the Lake Country contract.
The new teacher would advance through the succeeding pay steps each
year the person remains on contract licensed as an Initial Educator.
State law gives the Initial Educator up to five years to earn the next
license level -- Professional Educator.
However, the Lake Country contract allows the new
teacher to move from the Initial Educator pay lane into the Professional
Educator pay lane by year 3 instead of year 5, as long as the licensing
requirements are satisfied. That would mean an additional $5,000 in
pay by moving from Initial to Professional Educator.
And, as Johnson points out, the contract defines what
is expected of Professional Educators. PI 34 defines licensing requirements,
and the contract defines performance requirements of the district. The
two work together.
The contract also makes distinctions in pay lanes
for Professional Educators with bachelor’s degrees and those with
master’s degrees. Johnson said the day may come when those lanes
are merged. Bargaining sessions for the 2003-05 contract have just started.
“We have a couple of minor proposals,” Johnson
said. “We proposed a Master Educator lane with one step.”
Johnson said thanks to some forward-thinking people,
the Lake Country district and teachers’ union leaders started modifying
the contract so it would address provisions of PI 34 several years ago.
“We can have things in addition to (PI 34), but we can’t have
any less,” he said of the parameters the contract must honor.
Is there a chance the district could decide to not
renew a contract for a newly anointed Professional Educator who would
qualify for $5,000 in increased pay?
Johnson doesn’t see that happening at Lake Country unless the teacher’s
performance is an issue. “We haven’t had a lot of non-renewals
... and retraining people is costly,” he said.
Johnson stressed PI 34 is licensing as defined by
state law. It is the district officials who decide if the licensed teacher
meets the specific district requirements that are defined in the contract.
The contract is explicit in making sure no teacher
is expected to play any role in performance evaluation of another teacher.
This relates to teachers who serve as mentors to new teachers, or those
who serve on the three-member teams assembled to review whether another
teacher has fulfilled the self-designed plan to renew professional licenses.
The Lake Country contract states only volunteers are
accepted as mentors, who are paid extra for work that is done outside
of normal working hours. Johnson said mentor work performed during the
work day is considered part of a normal working day and paid accordingly.
Menomonee Falls mentors are paid 5% of a teacher’s
entry level salary, which Mac Farlane said currently amounts to $1,400.
All teachers who serve as mentors are certified by taking a three-hour graduate credit class.
Resource page on teacher licensing law
Posted October 8, 2003