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BPS, teachers declare contract impasse
By adamg on Wed, 03/28/2012 - 7:30am
City and BTU negotiators last night threw up their hands and decided there's nothing more they can say to each other, so they'll be seeking state help to mediate a contract.
The declaration comes 21 months of negotiations; firefighters still hold the modern Boston record for going without a contract, at four years.
Meanwhile, BPS has decided to fight back against BTU airplanes with updates, which they declare are "not intended" for the eyes of union members (also see the BTU's contract Web page).
The Dig considers the impact of Menino's apparent attempt to WiFi John Connolly over the issue of school assignment.
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Comments
West Zone includes parts of Roxbury
Re your note to Dig...the Trotter is one of the schools West Roxbury kids could end up at...the Hale also, but that is actually a desirable option. And it's not just racism; you should try driving to and from those schools from West Roxbury; it's a pain. And the bus? Do you have time to sit around for an hour every pm waiting for the bus to show up and drop off your 4-year old?
Yes, a small piece of Roxbury is in the West Zone
But that's hardly the "Roxbury" people in West Roxbury would be up in arms about (any more than they would be about the fact that BLS is in Roxbury).
As somebody whose kid was bused into West Roxbury (yes, all the way from Roslindale, and yes, we learned to not trust the bus schedule), I can tell you the real issue there, at least at the PTSO meetings we went to, was not so much the fear of Roxbury as the anger that "outsiders" were taking up valuable spaces in "their" schools.
Roxbury in the West Zone
There are six West Zone schools in Roxbury, which is similar to the other West Zone neighborhoods.
Thanks for the clarification
I always thought it was like two schools. I've taken out my crack about the Dig, although I stand by my assertion that, at least at the school our daughter went to, people never expressed concern about that as much as about those darn outsiders coming in.
Reason for that
There's a reason for that, Adam. The people you are talking about would never let their kids go to school in Roxbury in a million years, so it doesn't worry them terribly much. They'd just send their kids to Holy Name or move to Dedham.
The "outsiders" coming in, now that's something they actually expect to deal with.
The way the lottery to end segregation really works is like this:
-All the white kids in the rich neighborhoods put the schools in the rich neighborhoods at the top of their lists
-All the black kids in the poor neighborhoods put the schools in the rich neighborhoods at the top of their lists.
-If the white kids get into their neighborhood schools, they go. If they don't, they leave the system.
-If the black kids get into the rich neighborhood schools, they go. If they don't, they stay in their own neighborhood schools, which are 97-99% black and hispanic.
Wake me when this ends segregation.
Black families leave too.
Let's not forget that whites aren't the only ones who flee. Yes--of course there's a huge racial component, but this has as much to with social class and mobility. Last time I checked the waiting list for METCO was still overflowing. And though I have no numbers at hand, I'm guessing that middle and upper class people of color are choosing private and parochial schools over most Boston schools. The desirable schools also, it appears to me, aren't necessarily in "rich" neighborhoods (how many of those are there left? No schools in Back Bay or Beacon Hill anymore) but are well known for being good schools, having extras, advanced work programs, good teachers, etc. it seems as if most neighborhoods have one or two but they're oversubscribed.
Most of Roxbury is in the west zone
http://www.bostonpublicschools.org/facts-and-figures
I'm guessing
That you mean BLA not BLS?
No, BLS
That's Roxbury. I throw my arms up in the air when it comes to the location of BLA, although I have heard people refer to it as Dorchester :-).
Seriously?
So...Harvard Med School and the Gardner Museum are also in Roxbury? By whose map. That's just weird.
I also think of BLA as dorchester, though I've never been entirely clear on the boundaries there.
BLS is in Fenway/Kenmore neighborhood
I don't believe the city uses 02115 (zip of BLS) as Roxbury. I think the Roxbury line would be somewhere on the other side of Huntington Ave.
The Longwood Medical area in the vicinity of BLS is considered Fenway / Kenmore for BTD and Boston for mail purposes (also the neighborhood association uses LMA) and the area by the B&W hospital would be considered Roxbury Crossing for mail purposes and Mission Hill for BTD.
Yes
Where did you think they were?
Where they are
I'd call them Longwood Medical Area and Fenway.
Exactly.
I'm just trying to figure by what stretch of the imagination any of those places are in Roxbury. I'd call that Fenway and maybe Mission Hill at a stretch.
Uh, oh
Ya know, some people still consider Mission Hill part of Roxbury [ducks].
Thwack!
Oh, missed...
Kidding. I probably do too (with maybe Parker St. as the blurry border?) but claiming Ave. Louis Pasteur as part of Roxbury just doesn't make sense. It's Fenway. On the BPS map you can see its nowhere even close. That said, it may be close enough to scare off some parents, but if they're that easily spooked then they've probably long since moved to Haverhill or someplace.
Sorta
Fenway starts right around there, more on the side of that area where the, er, fens are, but Longwood Medical Area isn't one of the official Boston neighborhood designations. Yes, it works for giving directions and whatnot, but the LMA is in Roxbury if we're going by actual neighborhood.
Ooh look!
This map thinks Longwood/Northeastern/etc. are in JP. WTF!
http://www.cityofboston.gov/dnd/dnd_intro.asp
Ooh look!
This map thinks Longwood/Northeastern/etc. are in JP. WTF!
http://www.cityofboston.gov/dnd/dnd_intro.asp
BLA is in the old Roxbury
BLA is in the old Roxbury Memorial building. What does that tell you?
BLS is not in Roxbury
It's in the Fenway. Look at a map. Google it. Saying it is in Roxbury is like saying the Seaport is in the Financial District. It's clearly not in Roxbury. Where would you get something like that?
Historically, it's Roxbury
The area from what is now Huntington Ave up to the Muddy River was all part of the town of Roxbury.
1848 map:
http://maps.bpl.org/id/11123?srch_query=Roxbury&sr...
True
but how is that really relevant here?
Um...did you read the anon's post above mine?
It is relevant because the area where Longwood Medical, Boston Latin, and the Gardner Museum no sit fall within the boundaries of town of Roxbury--that's why it is called Roxbury. The above post by anon insists that it is in Fenway.
I understand
but we're not talking about 1849--we're talking about modern neighborhoods and school districting. If every area on that map was still part of Roxbury, it'd include Roslindale, JP, Mattapan, Mission Hill, the Fens...very cool history but not relevant to the current conversation, IMHO.
Agree with Sally
By that logic Needham is still part of Wellesely simply because it used to be. It's not. And BLS is not in Roxbury. Also, BLS predates Roxbury's annexation to Boston, does it not? In any case, the land that BLS currently sits upon is in the Fenway, not Roxbury.
Sorry Sally
I live in Roxbury--the part they call Mission Hill. My kids go to North Zone Schools--as do their classmates from Beacon Hill, Back Bay, and East Boston. Geography is important and is based on historical boundaries.
In many peoples' minds Roxbury is synonymous a very bad place to be (and no doubt there are many rough places in Roxbury). That said there are great places too, though it is funny how those get moved into more "acceptable" parts of Boston depending on the commentator. Others in this post suggested that some parents "would never let their kids go to school in Roxbury in a million years" But when it comes to Boston Latin...oh that's Fenway or that's the Longwood Medical Area or (ignorantly) Mission Hill. The nicer that parts of Roxbury become the greater the chance it gets moved out of Roxbury. If it gets gentrified its "good" and Roxbury equals "bad" (Lower Roxbury bordering on the South End for example). But just let there be a shooting on Northampton Street and suddenly it's Roxbury again.
Oy.
Let me get this straight--because of anti-black racism that stigmatizes Roxbury (and you do know that Roxbury as a black neighborhood is a relatively recent development, right?) we should go back to calling neighborhoods by their pre-1868 names? Um...huh?
I live in (pre-1868) Roxbury, now known as JP. My grandmother was born in Roxbury about a mile away. I went to elementary school in current day Roxbury and was a North Zone parent for seven years. And I'm old enough to remember when "the South End" was just another run-down city neighborhood and not a haven of restored brownstones and hip restaurants. So I don't need a lecture about Boston neighborhoods or how gentrification works or how Roxbury gets the short end of the stick. Your argument just makes no sense. Look at your map again--yes, the 160-year-old map, drawn back when most of this was farmland and most black people in Boston lived on the north side of Beacon Hill, not in Roxbury. What was then is not now. Roslindale is Roslindale. Hyde Park is Hyde Park. The Fenway is Fenway. If you want to refer to them all as Roxbury feel free, but don't be surprised when no one knows what you're talking about.
Parochialism runs Wild, absolutely Wild, I say
As a partisan of the Roxbury-properly-runs-all-the-way-to-the-Muddy-River-encompasing-the-MFA-BLS-and-the-entire-LMA Party, let me say that it never amazes me that a Universal Hub post ostensibly about the deplorable state of contract negotiations in the equally deplorable Boston Public School system can so easily degenerate into a (very narrow!) spume of comments about where my neighborhood begins and yours definitely ends.
Yikes.
For the record, let me say that what 02120 says is true. Cuz, my Party will keep yammering on about this against the under-current of white racism that wants to keep Roxbury (and all that inconvenient drug violence) in as constrained a geographical extent as possible and the black racism that wants a similarly circumscribed Roxbury so we can get decent representation at the municipal and state level that looks like us. [OBTW, anybody heard from Chuck recently?]
Oh. And, all of Mission Hill is Roxbury. The Roxbury Crossing Post Office (02120) is still waaay out Tremont, almost to Brigham Circle.
I've been forced by facts to trade Northampton Street for Hammond Street, but Rozzie, JP, and points yonder? Y'all can have that. Well except maybe the encroachment currently underway at Jackson Square, where that huge rotary used to be, which is now being eaten up by JP. We want that bit back, thank you very much.
Maybe it's anti-semitism
After all, when the current BPS building was built in the part of the Fenway that used to be Roxbury, Roxbury was largely a Jewish neighborhood.
Or maybe it's anti-Irish sentiment: when the fens were filled and the Fenway neighborhood was created out of parts of Brookline, Roxbury, and tidal swamp, in the late 1800s, Roxbury was largely an Irish neighborhood. So maybe the Fenway was a know-nothing plot!
The argument that Mission Hill is still part of the Roxbury neighborhood has an entirely different basis. All the land in Mission Hill was part of the town of Roxbury when it was annexed by Boston. The Fenway land, however, was not. Much of it was created as part of the same fill effort that brought us the Back Bay. Indeed, the Fens were originally referred to as the Back Bay Fens, so you could say that the Fenway is a sub-neighborhood of the Back Bay.
The new neighborhood of the Fenway was intended to be a high-class neighborhood for wealthy folks, like the Back Bay. It turned out to be more attractive to educational institutions, however, including Boston Latin. The Fenway as such was never part of Roxbury, just some parts of the swamp underneath it.
1868 - Annexation of Roxbury
1873 - Annexation of land from Brookline
1882 - Filling of Back Bay
1900 - Filling of the Fens
1922 - Current BLS school building built
Funny that
You deplore the "degeneration" of the conversation yet don't hesitate to jump in with a rant that sounds to me awfully parochial--"we," "y'all", we want this, y'all can have that...sounds as if you're the one creating the boundaries. This isn't one of those "I live on street X and I think I'm JP/Westie but the post office says I'm in Roxbury/Rozzie--nooooooo!!!" conversations. This whole notion that the LMA or the Fenway areas were somehow wrested away from their rightful designation as Roxbury because of elitism or racism is just plain bananas and factually incorrect. Again, going back to the original claim that because part of this area was once part of the pre-annexation town of Roxbury, it's still Roxbury today, by that logic, everything from the South End to Dedham and from Brookline to Dorchester is ALL Roxbury. If you and 02120 would like to make a case for that, feel free but you're ignoring history and reality.
Nobody Reads for Tone Any More, I say, Absolutely Nobody
Take a deep breath, Sally. Relax.
In. Out. Breathe through your mouth.
In. Out. In. Out.
See. You feel better already? We thought so.
It's a jocular tone. J-O-C-U-L-A-R. In the manner of a joke. The tell-tales are the self-deprecation: the title of the post, the ridiculous title of my imagined party, the question about Chuck [How is he doing?], the nonsense about the encroaching at Jackson Square, among others.
All wrapped around the hard kernel of truth that two oddly aligned political forces both have wanted to reduce Greater Roxbury, but for different reasons.
Nowhere does my post assert that the LMA and the Fenway were "wrested away from their rightful designation as Roxbury because of elitism or racism."
Keep breathing deeply. Then, read for tone. And, content.
Trust me
I'm still breathing. And smiling. If I didn't enjoy being here arguing about this ridiculous stuff, I wouldnt be. And again, this isn't some weird personal issue for me--the borders of neighborhood X and neighborhood Y don't affect where my mail gets delivered or where my kid goes to school. But if you're asking me and others to be able to parse your posts to the degree you just spelled out, you may be demanding too much. Sarcasm, satire, parody etc. are often lost in translation on an anonymous online board, so you might want to be a little more straightforward.
PS
I always think of Hammond St. as the childhood home of Duke Ellington's great saxophonist Johnny Hodges--can't bass by without thinking of him.
Almost right
Boston Latin is in Roxbury and not in the Fenway to the extent that "Fenway" is not a neighborhood existing in Boston. Do you think "Fenway" is a neighborhood here? Most people here think "Fenway" exists as a neighborhood, and not just a ball park, including the City of Boston.
Part of the reason Fenway is not generally considered a subdivision of Roxbury is that, historically, much of it never was. The part north of the Fens, including Fenway Park itself, is built on ground annexed from Brookline, not Roxbury. Other parts, notably the central feature of the neighborhood, are built on fill dumped in the water between what was Brookline and what was Roxbury. It isn't just as incorrect to say that Fenway is part of Roxbury as it is to say that Jamaica Plain is part of Roxbury, it's more incorrect. Most of the land of today's Fenway was never part of Roxbury.
It's true that Boston Latin is built on some of the Fenway land that used to be part of Roxbury. But the current BLS building was constructed in 1922, well after the formation of the Fenway neighborhood from parts of Roxbury, Brookline, and landfill. Before the draining, filling, and construction that gave the neighborhood its name, it was largely uninhabited swampland.
So worry not - you aren't sending your little sixies to Roxbury after all.
Just curious
Who were the outsiders? You interlopers from Rozzie?
Everybody who doesn't live in West Roxbury
Which would include us, although we never pressed the issue and we look like we could live in West Roxbury.
laughable elitists from West Roxbury
It just cracks me up that people would consider a move from West Roxbury to Dedham to be a significant change of class status or would be worried about scumbags from Roslindale crossing the Parkway. If you think you are rich, try buying a house in JP or commit to the suburbs and cross 128 where you can continue to play the envy game among all those towns that think they are so much better than each other and/or have divided themselves into good and bad neighborhoods. The pursuit of situational affluence continues forever.
"Scumbags from Roslindale"?
Nice little turn of phrase.
Not.
I think
he was speaking from the POV of the "laughable elitists" not insulting Roslindale.
What's Up with the Update
The "update" linked to in the article doesn't make sense to me. The table of "Fiscal Impact" data seems to wildly skew the impact of the BTU pay increase proposal. The BTU increases do seem pretty steep, but I can't really speak to that as I'm not familiar with the grade, benefits, etc. But I would really like for somebody to explain how a difference in one percent between the plans creates a difference in "Fiscal Impact" of two hundred percent rather than one, or as in FY13 *four* hundred percent. How does that work? If they're including other factors, they should provide a bit more detail.
Chickens coming home to roost?
One thing I'd like to know - where does the BTU think the city is going to come up with this money? Yes, we have a half billion dollar reserve fund, but you don't want to use that for operating expenses. So that leaves the annual increase in revenues currently running about $75-100 million of which about 1/3 typically goes to the school department. However, once you take that $25-30 million and pay for inflation on overhead (like fuel for our late and empty school buses) annual increases on 8000 health insurance plans and at least a nominal attempt at paying down our pension obligations there is basically nothing left for pay increases. The only place you can get extra money is to pay other people less or fire people. If the BTU wants more money for the teachers, they should have to put on the table who should get paid less or get fired so the teachers can be paid more. Nothing to do with whether the teachers deserve it and everything to do with what the city can afford. The budget is a pretty fixed pie and there's not a whole lot left to tax that isn't already taxed.
How 'bout it Mr. Stutman - who deserves a pay cut or to get laid off to pay for this?
Stevil, Just because you say
Stevil, Just because you say it doesn't make it true. I'm not Mr. Stutman, but your "annual increase on 8000 health insurance plans" comment is wrong. The city is actually seeing a reduction this coming fiscal year as opposed to increases in gic plans. Also, for someone who claims to be an expert on the finances of the city you would have to know that the city has been on a "nominal attempt at paying down our pension obligations" since 1996. Thanks to the forward thinking of Lisa Signore the city of boston pension fund will be fully funded in 2025.
Ongoing?
I believe your are correct - due to some changes in the legislation, the city has more leverage in dictating policy about health coverage and I think there is at least one year of savings, but that is probably not ongoing. at $15k per policy, even a 4% increase eats up almost $5 million a year in incremental school spending - and that's way below recent trends.
Yes, I am fully aware the city has been making these nominal attempts at paying down pension obligations, thus that comment. As a matter of fact we very quietly moved another $70 million into the pension fund I think based on a mid-year revision to the budget (for those who think the city doesn't have money sloshing around, where perchance did they come up with $70 million?).
I'm actually a big fan of Lisa's and hope and trust all is well with her at the Perkins, but wasn't full funding of municipal pensions by 2025 a state law - or were we just following Beacon Hill's lead? Even if not, let's face it, scraping $25 million a year out of some city trust fund isn't going to fund our pension obligations by 2025 (thus the aforementioned "found" $70 million). I haven't seen the actuarials on those numbers, but without some substantial additional contributions, the Boston Municipal Research Bureau also seems to doubt the city's ability to get to full funding by 2025, especially because of the other bogeyman in the room, retiree health care bennies.
Bottom line remains true - the city can afford about $25-$30 million in incremental expense annually on the schools. Whether it's inflation, insurance, unforeseen capital costs or a host of other things, by the time you get to raises for the teachers the city's current offer is actually probably already far too generous for what we can afford. The unions demands are from some remote planet in an alternative universe.
Inclusion costs
The BPS is going to increase inclusion in the schools in 2013 and onwards meaning that kids who might require special education will be integrated into the regular ed classes at the various schools. This will presumably require more specialized teachers will need to be hired as there won't be concentrated groups of kids requiring the same type of support. This is all going to cost more money, which isn't even on the radar of this contract discussion.
Inclusion is often cheaper, actually
Kids who are included are in larger classrooms than kids who are in a center-based or an autism classroom. It's usually significantly larger, like 20 kids in a classroom in an inclusion classroom versus 9-12 in a center-based or 6 in an autism program.
There are some children for whom the least restrictive environment is actually a regular ed classroom with a one-on-one aide, but this isn't many, and even in these cases, the aide isn't a credentialed teacher, or usually even an ABA therapist, but generally a paraprofessional.
For most kids who are included, they don't get any services from a special ed teacher. The classroom teacher has regular ed licensure and usually has gone to some trainings on inclusion. The children with an IEP get services from the speech-language pathologist, occupational therapist, and others who are already in the building and would already have the kid on their caseload if s/he was in a center-based classroom.
WiFi
Can we change the definition of the verb "WiFi" to mean "When the mayor takes control of an idea first proposed by a city councilor and then completely fails to implement it, relegating it to an unfunded city-controlled non-profit?" Even the non-profit that was set up by the mayor to do WiFi (Open Air Boston) no longer does WiFi - even though its kept the (now incongruous) name.
Don Saklad?
Is that you?
nope
Nope, someone else who had an interest in citywide WiFi.