School Board Meeting Called to Discuss Salary Proposal

The West Bloomfield School Board of Education has called a special meeting at 8:30 p.m. Thursday at (WBHS).

According to agenda item No. 1 (PDF attached), as posted on the school district's website Wednesday, the board is meeting to discuss a salary proposal from the West Bloomfield Education Association (WBEA) and will recommend to adopt an implementation resolution. There are no other topics on the agenda.

The board will meet in a closed session at 7:30 p.m. Thursday.

The school district has the right, as recommended in a Fact Finding report (PDF attached) submitted Dec. 21 by Michael P. Long, a neutral labor expert selected by the state Board of Education, to ask teachers to work under a contract described as the “best, last offer," Cyndi Austin, Uniserve director for the Michigan Education Association, said last month.

The West Bloomfield Board of Education has refrained from public comment regarding the status of , but Superintendent JoAnn Andrees said last month that a public meeting must be called before any legal action to impose a contract would take place.

Austin said in an email Wednesday that the WBEA, represented at the state level by the Michigan Education Association, would for one hour outside WBHS during the school board's scheduled closed session at 7:30.

Members of the WBEA have been picketing periodically since May to protest the proposed contract from the school board. Teachers have been in negotiations with the district since October '09 on the contract, which expired in August 2010.

"It's a scary thing. We've waited 18 months for this, and now it's happening so suddenly," Cristina Elsen, a mother of three children in the district, said Wednesday. "There's so many questions — why did it take so long? What does the contract look like? ... Why call a late, emergency meeting?

"Whatever comes down, I hope the district has the best interest of the kids in mind," Elsen said.