The Akron Education Association has accused the city’s Board of Education of unfair labor practices, the third action the teachers’ union has taken in response to the school board’s approval of a contract with an outside tutoring firm.
The charge, filed Monday with the Ohio State Employment Relations Board, accuses the Akron school board of violating the AEA’s collective bargaining agreement when the board, earlier this month, voted to approve a contract with Varsity Tutors, a private Missouri company.
The ULP filing follows a lawsuit and a grievance against the board, both filed last week.
Pat Shipe, the AEA president, said the state filing would offer the union different relief than the others. In the filing, she said school board members and Superintendent Michael 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” as defined in the collective bargaining agreement.
She said the AEA is meeting with school board members Tuesday in an attempt to resolve the grievance filed against the district, but the lawsuit and unfair labor practice filings will continue. In its actions, the AEA is seeking to stop the district from partnering with Varsity Tutors — or another agency — to offer tutoring services for students by people who aren’t district employees.
“It would appear the board has to react at some point,” Shipe said. “The ball is in their court.”
A spokesperson for the school district declined to comment on the latest filing. Diana Autry, the school board president, did not respond to a phone call seeking comment.
Previously, Autry said the tutoring program was privately discussed by board members in executive session before a public vote because there were legal questions, though she declined to give specifics.
She said the program will help students who were negatively affected by the COVID-19 pandemic recover from learning loss. The way the board conducted the vote, she said, was “not out of order in any way.”
Robinson, in a letter to Shipe last week, said “no teachers” were harmed by the grant.
In the labor-practices complaint, Shipe included an email she sent to Robinson in October laying out her plan to file all three responses if the board moved forward with a plan to accept state money to pay for tutors. She said the AEA made an attempt to resolve the issue before it was brought to a vote Jan. 8.
Shipe said she was concerned, after the tutoring program was pulled from earlier agendas, that it was discussed with a new board in executive session. She called it a concerning “pattern of non-transparency.”
Additionally, Shipe said previously Robinson had canceled six months’ worth of meetings with her after they traded letters in which each accused the other of misconduct.
“It’s incredibly disappointing we are at this place and time when the Akron Public Schools and the Akron community deserve so much more from the Akron school district,” she said. “To refuse to sit down at the table, to refuse to talk and cancel meetings for the rest of the year is to me not what leaders should be doing.”
Shipe said she was “gobsmacked” by the school board’s actions. She said district leadership can do what’s best for students and families while still treating teachers fairly.
“I have no idea what the board is going to do at this point,” she said. “I don’t know what they’re doing; I don’t know the reasoning behind their decisions.”
