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Schools

Lakeville School District Makes a Statement on 'Stranding'

School board and staff respond to comments regarding "stranding" and budget issues.

Faced with a barrage of recent public comments, telephone calls and emails stemming from the fallout of , the Lakeville Area Public School District issued a prepared statement at Tuesday’s regularly scheduled school board meeting in an effort to respond to the feedback.

While some of the details which prompted the statement were veiled, the message was clear: Lakeville’s with regards to the school district’s financial situation isn’t going to change. And there’s plenty of blame to go around.

“At this point, as painful and difficult as it may be, it is time to look to the future and begin making the necessary transitions,” the statement read. Tony Massaros, the district’s director of Administrative Services read the statement on behalf of the school board. “Pretending that this is not our reality or that it is possible to make changes at this time provides false hope and ignores the financial realities we face as a district.”

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Recent public comments have been dominated by the so-called as the board has faced parents and teachers concerned over a realignment process that is moving licensed teachers to areas that may be outside of their comfort zone or having little working experience. Special education programs have been a particular focus of those concerns.

“The implication has been made that if only the School Board would work with the teachers’ union, there would not be a need for this realignment of staff based on seniority and licensure,” said Massaros. “This is simply not true. Both the School District and the teachers union recognize that there is no choice given the current contract language and legal requirements but to follow the staffing process being used this year. I can say, however, that the School Board continues to be willing to negotiate changes in contract language that would limit the impact of these requirements in the future.”

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Education Minnesota-Lakeville (EML) President Don Sinner agrees the current contract language handcuffs the current process but that both sides are bound by state statutes.

“The statute lays out a default process,” said Sinner. “That is currently what we have in place.” But Sinner also concedes that the statute also permits local contracts to be worded differently than the default language and that the teacher’s union would be willing to listen to any proposals from the district.

“We’ll have to see what language the school district brings forward,” said Sinner. “Right now we’re negotiating monetary issues.”

While a change in the language may help limit “stranding” issues in the future, again the reality is the current teacher realignment process is governed by the existing agreement.

The district also addressed teacher layoffs and denied suggestions that current contract negotiations might be able to save some of those positions by saying “union representatives have suggested that current contract negotiations could result in a reduction in the number of staff needing to be laid off, thereby reducing the number of teachers needing to be involuntarily transferred. Proposals made by the union, however, do not add up to the required savings for this to occur and, given the current uncertainty about how K-12 education is going to be affected by the state budget and legislative process, the Board is unable to agree to any monetary changes in the contract at this time.”

Massaros went on to say, “It should be noted, however, that the Board did offer to open negotiations early this year to see if they could have an impact on the budget adjustment process, but the teachers union declined that offer in December.”

Sinner responded to the statement by saying the district only gave the union one week to come forward about opening negotiations in December and that no budget numbers were on the table at that time and that EML “politely declined” at that time because there was no financial base from which to proceed.

“EML did file to open negotiations at the earliest date allowed by our contract, which was Feb. 10,” said Sinner. “At the time, no one knew what the district was going to do. Without a district budget, we had no idea what the district was going to propose. Without those numbers, opening negotiations would be like flying blind.”

Neither side would comment on ongoing contract negotiations which have been conducted in closed sessions since April 5. It’s clear, though, that both the “new reality” and pending state legislation will impact those negotiations as the district struggles to move forward as a whole.

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