Teachers union sues again to void charter contract

A Travis County ruling has given the Texas State Teachers Association “more ammunition now” in its efforts to restore contracts, with back pay and benefits, of teachers and staff who worked at Stewart Elementary.

The Texas State Teachers Association is again suing the San Antonio Independent School District and Mike Morath, the state education commissioner, over the decision two years ago that handed operations of Stewart Elementary to Democracy Prep Public Schools, a charter network based in New York.

SAISD’S teachers union, an affiliate of TSTA and the Texas chapter of the the American Federation of Teachers, filed a similar complaint in 2018 in Bexar County, which the Texas Supreme Court eventually dismissed.

In June, a district judge in Travis County ruled in favor of both statewide unions in a different case, nullifying a provision in the Texas Education Code that allowed Morath to approve the agreement between SAISD and Democracy Prep.

The Texas Education Agency has appealed that ruling, but the TSTA doesn’t want to wait out the appeals process, said Clay Robison, spokesman for the union.

“We believe that that ruling applies to this case,” Robison said. “We think we have more ammunition now.”

The TSTA filed the new complaint Tuesday in district court in Travis County. Alejandra Lopez, president of SAISD’S union and a teacher at Stewart until the takeover, is also named as a plaintiff, along with Karen Truelove and Becky Wilson, who taught at the Southeast Side school with Lopez.

The lawsuit claims SAISD did not consult Stewart employees in early 2018 on the proposed management agreement with Democracy Prep, as state law requires for certain partnerships with outside entities to operate campuses.

The TSTA and the SAISD union also filed an administrative grievance two years ago that was eventually appealed to Morath, who said the consultation rule did not apply because Democracy Prep did not have a state charter and partnered with SAISD as a nonprofit.

But in the June ruling, state District Judge Jan Soifer threw out the rule that said school districts only needed to consult campus employees beforehand about management deals with external partners, and honor the employees’ contracts, if the TEA had granted the proposed partner a charter.

Robison said Wednesday that Morath “violated the law when he approved the school district’s deal with Democracy Prep.”

The TSTA’S new complaint also alleges open meetings violations during the process of approving the agreement, claiming the public was not given sufficient notice of the meeting at which SAISD trustees directed Superintendent Pedro Martinez to negotiate with Democracy Prep. The union says employees were denied the right to an open grievance hearing before the SAISD board and trustees did not vote in open session on the grievance. Under the management agreement, starting in the 201819 school year, Stewart teachers became at-will employees of Democracy Prep rather than SAISD employees with district contracts. Only two teachers returned in fall 2018 to Stewart. Others transferred to different SAISD schools or left the district entirely.

The lawsuit seeks to void the approval of Democracy Prep’s charter to operate Stewart Elementary and to reinstate the contracts, with back pay and benefits, of all Stewart employees who were members of the San Antonio Alliance of Teachers and Support Personnel, the SAISD union for nonadministrative employees.