New West Bloomfield Parents Group Seeks Speedy Teacher Contract Resolution

Wearing blue T-shirts that conveyed a message of promoting civil, nonpartisan discourse, West Bloomfield Families Stand United held its inaugural meeting at the  on Monday night.

“We need to move on in order to focus on what is really important — our children’s education and futures,” organizer Nancy Cooper read from a statement publicly drafted at the meeting to be read at the next West Bloomfield School District board meeting Monday at .

“We demand you to negotiate openly, creatively, and in good faith in order to come to an agreement on the teacher’s contract,” continued Cooper, 40, of Orchard Lake, who has three children in the school district.

Teachers, represented at the local level by the West Bloomfield Education Association (WBEA), with the district since October 2009 to seek a successor to a collective bargaining agreement that expired in August 2010. That is the contract teachers are working under.

Teachers have been picketing outside of school board meetings since May 2010 to protest the proposed contract from the board. The latest mediation session on Feb. 26 did not end in resolution.

The group meeting was a “breath of fresh air” for many of the approximately 80 parents and community members in attendance, who said they would feel a greater incentive to attend future board meetings given a newfound sense of solidarity.

“I appreciate that everyone is relaxed and coming from a state of, ‘If someone says something, respect what they say,’” said Debbie Allison, 40, of West Bloomfield. “The mission statement is like a breath of fresh air. The parents had been interested in doing something before, but never came together as a huge group.”

The mission statement was predicated on a dialogue led by Christy Forhan, a mother of three in the district. Forhan said her objective was to put into “layman’s terms” the timeline of the negotiations, including handouts of available documents detailing different proposals set forth by the district and teachers.

Forhan explained contract terms that have become commonplace jargon during the public comment portion of board meetings recently, including step freeze, Schedules B and C and furlough pay.

“I got a lot of information here. The timeline and the definitions are things that people just don’t know. And (Forhan) said at the beginning, ‘I’m just a mom with an obsession for (collective bargaining),' ” said CharRhonda Moye, who has two sons in the school district.

“I think that they’ve helped give parents here the inspiration to do their own research. Even if they disagree, at least they’ll find out for themselves what’s going on and then go to the board meeting before speaking up.”

Cooper said the group, which sold 60 T-shirts at the meeting, would be well represented at the district’s “” meeting at 7 p.m. Thursday at , but reiterated the group’s nonpartisan stance.

“I’m not here for the district or for the teachers. We’re not here to use this as a platform for anything greater than West Bloomfield families. I’m here for the kids,” she said. “There was a cohesion here tonight of parents from every school in the district who all want the same thing, and that’s to rebuild our sense of community for our kids.”