Release Time Is A Plus For All

Dianne Lang

Appleton Education Association President Dianne Lang believes that her release time is a key element to maintaining strong relationships between the association, the district and the community.

Green Bay Education Association President Keith Patt says having release time allows him to be “a voice for GBEA members as well as the students they serve in a great number of ways.”

Milwaukee Teachers’ Education Association President Bob Lehmann says release time allows him to help members when they need it and promote education in the community.

Keith Patt

Kenosha Education Association President Beth Adelsen says release time not only makes her a more effective president and helps build a stronger union, it is advantageous for the school district and students.

“By having an active, involved and visible president, the KEA and its members are better able to be an equal partner with administration in improving the quality of education and working together to resolve issues at the building level in the best interests of students,” Adelsen said.

Bob Lehmann

“Both the administration and school board appreciate that problems are resolved more expeditiously when they are settled at the building level. When the president has good standing with the membership and school level administration, problems can be resolved before major conflicts develop,” she said.

Release time provides local association and UniServ leaders (typically the president) with time off or leave from their duties as teachers or education support professionals so they can fully serve their members and the community. Typically, the school district is compensated by the local union, sometimes with assistance from the NEA, so it can hire a substitute, and the release time officer continues to receive his or her regular pay and benefits from the district.

Beth Adelsen

While some school districts readily recognize the value of release time, others are reluctant to provide opportunities for their teachers or ESP to serve their unions and refuse to release them.

In Eau Claire this fall, the school board temporarily discontinued release time for the president of the Eau Claire Association of Educators. The move came in response to a request by the ECAE to increase the half-time release to full-time release. Initially, the ECAE asked for a three-year full-time release but, after meeting resistance, compromised by asking for a one-year full-time release.

Jo Ellen Burke

In what the ECAE described as “a mean-spirited, disrespectful attempt to bust the union,” the board then discontinued the half-time release program for the ECAE president, leaving the president with none whatsoever.

ECAE members were bitter, seeing the move as a power play by the school school and demonstrating an unwillingness to work with the union.

“For over a decade, we have had half-time release for our president,” said ECAE President Jo Ellen Burke. “Our union has worked with the administration to promote effective communication among teachers and district officials. This created a proactive partnership rather than the time- consuming, contentious process of grievances.

“When a school board refuses to continue this relationship, the existing trust is compromised, communication deteriorates, teacher morale drops, and environments for learning are compromised. While it costs the district no additional money, the board refuses to see the potential for continued, and improved relations through full-time release.”

Burke said the 900 teachers in Eau Claire “deserve to have leadership that works collaboratively with administration, with the goal of maintaining the quality great schools we have in our area and state.”

On September 13, the board reversed itself and voted unanimously to restore the half-time release for the ECAE president. Burke welcomed the reversal, but the move left ECAE members bitter, and Burke said the board owes them an explanation.

Eau Claire is not alone in facing an uncooperative school board on the issue of release time. For example, one UniServ director who is having difficulty obtaining adequate release time for the UniServ president did not want to discuss the situation for fear it would cause the president’s school district administrator to back off from providing any release time.

Release time can be negotiated as part of the collective bargaining agreement or arranged outside the contract such as through a memorandum of understanding or a motion by the school board. The advantage of bargaining it is that the school board can’t just vote to discontinue it at will, as happened in Eau Claire.

WEAC Collective Bargaining Director Mike McNett, said release time for local union officials benefits the school district-union relationship, the schools, the children and the community, and costs a district nothing.

“Release time officers have more time to work with school board members, administrators, parent groups and community groups on projects that support and improve educational quality,” he said.

Lehmann, Lang, Patt and Adelsen agreed. They all use their release time to help solve members’ problems and to build relationships with their school districts and communities.

“Because our mission is to work for a better future for our members and the students and families we serve, everything that we do publicly and quietly behind the scenes is done with the interest of the students in Milwaukee Public Schools,” Lehmann said, adding that he has used his release time to initiate a Parent Dialog Group that meets regularly during the school day.

“The purpose of this group is to listen to and address concerns parents may have in the education and raising of their children. We have also worked closely with other local groups, including a faith-based caucus, Citizen Action Milwaukee, local labor leaders and the Milwaukee Partner-ship Academy (a local collaboration of business, higher education, the district and the union). Participation in any of these partnerships would not be possible without release time.”

Patt said he schedules regular school visits, meets with the media and community groups, works with school district administrators on personnel and union business, and responds to members’ needs and questions.

“The cost of an additional staff person to the association would be greater than the cost of the full-time released president,” Patt said.

Lang, likewise, spends her time reaching out to the community, working for members and dealing with school district-related matters. She also serves on community groups.

“Being visible in the community and speaking on behalf of our members and public education is critical in this day and age,” she said.

Release time also helps build a more effective union, McNett said.

“As we are moving more toward organizing as a basis of power for our bargaining and political aims, it is important for member leaders to have the freedom to be in the field interacting with members and implementing plans firsthand,” he said, citing this year’s involvement of locals and UniServs in the Great Schools Statewide Action Plan.

Adelsen said members appreciate having a president who is available. “The members have a much more accessible president who has a more visible presence in their schools, in the district, and throughout the community. The members also have a fellow member working full-time in coordination with the professional staff to improve their wages, benefits, and working conditions, which are our students’ learning conditions,” she said. “Moreover, when professional staff and governance collectively work together to share and use their skills and knowledge, the members have an incredibly effective advocacy team.”

In Kenosha, she said, the release-time position began as a memorandum of understanding with the district and then was negotiated into the contract. This is the fourth full year of the release-time program in Kenosha.

Without it, it would be very difficult to fulfill the duties of president of a 2,400-member union, Adelsen said.

“I still miss the classroom, however,” she said, “which is why I so enjoy building visits and seeing our members doing what they do best: educating our community’s children.”

Posted September 30, 2004