Avossa stirs feud with union chief
Superintendent cites ‘hostile’ tactics; union leader says he’s just trying to help teachers.
Palm Beach County Schools Superintendent Robert Avossa blasted the county teacher union’s first-year president this week as “hostile” and “inexperienced,” accusing him of mishandling contract negotiations and misinforming teachers “in an attempt to incite your membership.”
The comments, made in an email sent by Avossa to union President Justin Katz on Wednesday, were the latest escalation between
district and union leaders as the two sides feud about teacher salaries and whether or not teachers have to attend team meetings during their planning time.
Katz responded to Avossa’s criticisms via email, saying that as a union leader he had “an obligation to exercise any and all options to pursue our collective goals.”
Hours later, Katz lambasted recent school-district proposals for teachers at a public school board meeting and said he did not
intend to temper his opposition to district proposals.
“I apologize to people whose feathers are being ruffled by the way that I conduct myself,” said Katz, who took office this summer and also serves as Boynton Beach’s vice mayor, “but I conduct myself in a deliberate and calculated manner and I am respectful to everyone I engage.”
The dust-up stems from prolonged contract talks and a long-brewing fight about whether teachers should be required to attend team meetings that Avossa began calling for this past year. Tensions have escalated since the union this past week rejected the district’s salary proposal as “unacceptable.”
In recent weeks, Katz has been pressing Avossa to tell principals that they cannot order teachers to attend the team meetings, known as professional learning communities. In an email to Avossa on Monday, Katz warned that if Avossa failed to do so he would take his concerns directly to the school board and media outlets.
In a response Wednesday, Avossa called Katz’s threats to air his grievances publicly “unacceptable actions.” He scolded him for “pushing the limits of how negotiations should be managed.”
“I’ve been very professional with you thus far, but I draw the line at tactics that are not in the best interest of your membership and do not fairly represent the growing majority of teachers who choose not to join (the union), but are directly impacted by your behavior,” Avossa wrote.
“I know you’re new and inexperienced,” Avossa added, “but there’s no excuse for such hostile tactics.”
Avossa also accused Katz of misinforming union members about contract talks and teacher meetings. He said Katz had “edit(ed) the videos of the bargaining session to remove valuable context in an attempt to incite your membership to uninformed reactions.”
In an interview, Katz called the claim a false allegation, denying ever posting or publishing video footage of the teacher contract negotiations.
“I’ve posted videos of the many times I have spoken directly to the school board at their monthly meetings,” he said. “But I cannot ever recall a time that I posted any of the negotiation videos, much less edited them in any way.”
Avossa conceded Friday that he had no evidence of any video posted online or edited by Katz. In an email to Katz, he said the district’s director of labor relations had told him she had seen a video posted by the union that showed one part of the negotiation session “without showing both sides of the issue.”
Asked to produce evidence of the clip, the district official was unable to locate the video Friday, Avossa said.
“Those videos referenced were shared either on Facebook or in email, but (the district official) is now unable to find them, despite an exhaustive search for these clips,” Avossa wrote.
On Wednesday, Katz wrote to Avossa that the school district’s proposals have left the union “with no choice but to speak as forcefully and as loudly as possible.”
“The current negotiation session has been nothing short of an open attack on classroom teachers,” he wrote.
District leaders have proposed raising teachers’ pay by an average of 2.4 percent, a raise that Katz has rejected as “unacceptable.”
In earlier talks, district leaders also proposed changes to the teachers’ union contract that would affect their planning time and the number of periods that high school teachers teach. Those proposals were later withdrawn after the union rejected them.
“All of this is business to me, and I do my best never to take things personal,” Katz wrote. “I would hope the same would be able to be said from the district’s side of the table.”
“But again, I have to do what I believe is right by teachers and by extension, our students.”