Update: Feb. 1, the Akron Board of Education voted to rescind a contract with Varsity Tutors, with Superintendent Michael Robinson saying legal action taken by the teachers union made it impossible for the program to proceed.
School board members voted 5-0 to rescind their approval to offer 2,400 tutoring sessions for students, especially fourth graders who didn’t receive promotion scores in third grade reading tests. The online tutors would have been funded with $156,000 in state money.
What is the dispute between the school board and the teachers’ union about, and how did we get here? Signal Akron’s Arielle Kass has some answers for you.
Who are these Akron tutors?
Varsity Tutors is a Missouri company that offers online tutoring. It was the district’s second choice for a state-approved tutoring contract that would provide 2,400 tutoring sessions for students, particularly fourth graders who didn’t receive promotion scores for reading in third-grade testing. The State of Ohio would foot the $156,000 bill for the program. School board members voted 6-1 Jan. 8 to accept the money.
Why would the school board want to reconsider the program?
Since it was approved, the Akron Education Association has filed a grievance, a lawsuit and an unfair labor practice complaint regarding the program.
Superintendent Michael Robinson on Jan. 22 asked the Board of Education to consider rescinding its vote to approve the contract. He didn’t say exactly why he was making the recommendation, but when he asked the board to rethink its approval, Robinson called the program an “incredible opportunity” for students.
“What started as something wonderful has turned into the opposite,” he said then. “Today is indeed a sad day for our scholars and families.”
Akron school board asks for more information about tutoring contract
After Robinson’s recommendation, the school board voted 5-2 not to rescind its vote. But several members had questions about who the tutors would be and how they would be held accountable for the work. They pledged to seek more information before making a final decision about Varsity Tutors.
Board Member Rene Molenaur, who voted against the contract Jan. 8 and Jan. 22, said she has a number of concerns about it — namely, that the state is putting public tax dollars into a private company.
Carla Jackson, the board’s vice president, said when she first voted for the contract, she thought teachers would be able to fill the positions. She wasn’t concerned about the quality of Varsity Tutors’ employees if they were Akron Public Schools teachers, she said — but if they weren’t, she wasn’t sure if there would be accountability for employees.
What will be different this time?
The Akron school district’s chief financial officer and treasurer, Stephen Thompson, suggested there should be “robust negotiations” with the teachers union about their concerns. The union has met with district officials, but it’s not clear if anyone’s vote will change.
“You need to engage with union leadership first and make sure you have something to bring to the table,” Thompson told the board before they decided to vote on the topic again.
Why does the Akron Education Association have a problem with the tutors?
The AEA’s president, Pat Shipe, said in a letter to members that the tutoring contract represents “one of the most disturbing assaults on our collective bargaining agreement and workplace conditions we have seen in the recent past.”
She said the plan threatens members’ jobs, undermines the contract the school board agreed to, and “greatly damages and further erodes the trust and transparency which we have attempted to maintain in good faith” with the administration.
Her primary concern is to make sure teachers who are already under contract with the district fill the tutoring positions, even if tutoring takes place after school hours.
Have other districts accepted the state money?
No other major school district in the state has accepted money for outside tutors, said Paul Palomba, co-chair of the Ohio 8 Coalition, a consortium of nine of the state’s urban school districts that’s made up of superintendents and the teachers’ union presidents.
“Labor does not support that in any form,” said Palomba, who is also president of the Canton Professional Educators’ Association. “It’s a violation of the contract.”
What did the AEA’s complaints say?
The union filed three separate complaints. The first was a grievance, filed with the district. It claims, among other things, that the board failed to recognize that the union’s collective bargaining agreement covers after-school tutoring.
Shipe said in a text message that the union had met with the administration regarding the grievance this week but there had not been a resolution.
The second complaint is a lawsuit, filed against the Board of Education and Robinson in Summit County Common Pleas Court. It asks a judge to grant an injunction that would keep the school district from using Varsity Tutors or any other tutoring agency. The lawsuit states that the school board’s Jan. 8 vote came after the board illegally discussed the contract during executive session.
Don Malarcik, an attorney representing the AEA, said the way the contract was approved was “improper and illegal.”
It also claims that a recording of the meeting was edited to delete part of the conversation that took place before the vote.
The third complaint is an unfair labor practice charge filed with the Ohio State Employment Relations Board. It also accuses the board of violating the collective bargaining agreement, with Shipe saying in the filing that board members and Robinson “have systematically and aggressively engaged in a pattern of suppression of information, discussion, or questioning in order to advance their desire to outsource AEA members’ jobs.”
APS denies a board meeting video was edited
District officials have denied making any edits to the video. In response to an open records request, a lawyer for the district said APS does not record its board meetings.
“Rather, APS merely coordinates the live streaming of the Board meeting through YouTube,” the attorney, Stephen Funk, wrote. “The APS therefore does not have any video recordings of the Board meeting at all. Rather, the live streamlining of each Board meeting is uploaded to YouTube as it occurs in real time, and then YouTube later archives the video on its website.”
Robinson, in a letter to Shipe, called her accusation that the video had been altered “both reckless and inaccurate.”
Why did the AEA take so many steps in response to the contract?
Shipe said in her unfair labor practice filing that the AEA and the school board had been talking about the tutoring contract since October. At that time, she told the school board that the union would take each of the three steps it has taken if the contract was approved.
Are there any other legal issues?
Yes, a sunshine law advocate has filed another lawsuit, in Summit County Common Pleas Court, echoing the AEA’s concerns about alleged open meeting violations from the first vote, after executive session.
What does Varsity Tutors say about all of this?
A spokesperson for the company has declined to comment on the contract.
