Baltimore Teachers Union

The Baltimore City school system is likely to move forward with a plan to offer early retirement packages to its most experienced teachers as more than 330 have accepted the deal, which seeks to save the district millions of dollars. When the school system announced the early retirement incentive plan in February, it said at least 350 teachers had to take the plan for it to be successful, and that no more than 750 could. But city school officials said Monday that the 332 teachers who signed up were enough for the plan to go through.

On any given day, the activity in Ellen Vikestad's classroom would resemble a round of bumper cars. As Vikestad and her special-needs students at Claremont High School have made their way from one end of her cramped classroom to the other for lessons, they do so in a 15-minute navigation of instruments, desks and one another. On Tuesday, officials from the Baltimore Teachers Union and the city school system surprised Vikestad with news: Soon that would change. Vikestad, in her fifth year of teaching music therapy at Claremont — a tiny school that offers a life-skills curriculum for its 61 students who are not pursuing diplomas — won the BTU Extreme Classroom Makeover contest, held every year by the local union and its parent organization, the American Federation of Teachers.

Baltimore Teachers Union and school system leaders have officially signed the recently ratified teachers union contract, kicking into high gear months of planning and implementation of the landmark pact. The signing came after the city school board voted to unanimously in a special meeting Wednesday night to approve the contract, which overhauls the way teachers are compensated and promoted in the district. School and union officials will begin meeting immediately to appoint committees that will oversee the implementation of the contract, and plan to announce those appointments in January.

Pointing to an unprecedented partnership between Baltimore's school district and union leaders, officials signed a new teacher contract last year that they said would revolutionize the city's teaching profession by implementing a pay-for-performance plan. But union and school system officials have struggled to work out critical details of the three-year pact that replaces a pay structure tied to tenure with one that gives teachers the opportunity to earn six-figure salaries. The contract stipulated that the city schools would devise how to carry out the reforms by the end of June, but the district is still working out critical details, such as criteria for how teachers can advance and a credit system intended to provide incentives and reward teachers for doing more outside the classroom.

On any given day, the activity in Ellen Vikestad's classroom would resemble a round of bumper cars. As Vikestad and her special-needs students at Claremont High School have made their way from one end of her cramped classroom to the other for lessons, they do so in a 15-minute navigation of instruments, desks and one another. On Tuesday, officials from the Baltimore Teachers Union and the city school system surprised Vikestad with news: Soon that would change. Vikestad, in her fifth year of teaching music therapy at Claremont — a tiny school that offers a life-skills curriculum for its 61 students who are not pursuing diplomas — won the BTU Extreme Classroom Makeover contest, held every year by the local union and its parent organization, the American Federation of Teachers.

As Baltimore school and teacher union officials prepare to return to the negotiating table next week, they said they don't expect to make significant changes to the tentative agreement that educators rejected Thursday and will concentrate instead on clearly explaining the terms of the innovative contract. Bargaining teams for the Baltimore Teachers Union and the school district said they are optimistic that they can reach an agreement that educators will approve. The contract, which was one of the most contentious to be introduced in the city, was rejected by 58 percent of the 2,600 union members who cast ballots this week.

The head of the Baltimore Teachers Union's teacher chapter was overwhelmingly defeated in her re-election bid this week, losing to the candidate she narrowly ousted in a bitter campaign two years ago. President Sharon Y. Blake received 380 votes to Marietta A. English's 598 votes, said Carla M. Tyler, a spokeswoman for the union. Eugene C. Chong Qui, John Richard Perkins and Walter Marse, who also had been seeking the presidency, received 31 votes, 19 votes and 11 votes, respectively, Tyler said.

Godfrey Moore, a teachers union president who led a monthlong strike in 1974, died Saturday of cardiac arrest at University of Maryland Medical Center. He was 61 and lived in Columbia. As president of the Baltimore Teachers Union, one of two competing unions that represented the city's 8,600 teachers, he directed the most recent teachers strike in Baltimore. The strike was called by the BTU's rival union, the Public School Teachers Association, and Mr. Moore was reluctant at first to support it. But at a highly charged meeting at the Poly-Western schools auditorium, BTU members voted to support the walkout.

Reuben Ash, a former city schoolteacher and city teachers' union official, died Tuesday from a blood clot at Children's Hospital. The Northwest Baltimore resident was 62. Mr. Ash was active with the Baltimore Teachers Union for nearly 30 years, helping to protect and negotiate the rights of teachers and paraprofessionals. He retired in 1996 as the BTU's director of organization. "He was a real down-to-earth person and not one of those heady types," said Sharon Wilson, a BTU employee who knew Mr. Ash for more than 25 years.

More than 100 Baltimore educators are protesting this week's vote on the proposed teachers union contract, calling for union officials to delay until the contract contains more details on the new evaluation system. By Monday, 125 teachers had signed an electronic petition, titled "Delay the BTU contract vote until we know what we're signing," which was started by a teacher immediately after the union released the contract Sept. 29. Last week, another teacher began an effort to distribute 2,000 fliers throughout the district's schools saying, "Let's send our union back to the bargaining table," and urged that members vote against the contract.

John Hilton left his journalism career in Pennsylvania to join an innovative Baltimore program that develops teachers for the public schools, hoping for "another opportunity to effect change for the greater good. " But after successfully completing the Baltimore City Teaching Residency, he was told that there wasn't a job for him. "They were always very reassuring about us having a job every step of the way," Hilton said. "I gave up everything to join BCTR, so it's been a significant personal loss for me, and I've really had to regroup and very quickly pick up the pieces.

Hundreds of Filipino teachers in Baltimore face crucial visa deadlines, and the school district is scrambling to seek renewals — and to show the federal government that they're still needed despite a growing pool of U.S. teaching applicants. Anxiety has been building among Filipino teachers since March, when 15 were denied U.S. citizenship, school officials said. More than 25 teachers faced a May 31 deadline to file for renewals of their work visas, and 110 t eachers face a June 30 deadline.

On the heels of 330 teachers' accepting early retirement packages from the city school system, officials will propose a similar deal for 500 of its most experienced instructional support staff. According to an early retirement incentive plan scheduled to be presented at the city school board meeting Tuesday night, the school system will look to trim its pool of paraprofessionals who have more than 10 years' experience by offering them 50 percent of their base salary for a year and a sick-leave payout to be put into a school investment plan.

A Mount Washington Elementary School teacher whose fifth-graders engage in lunchtime book club discussions and embody historic figures in social studies lessons has been named Baltimore City's 2011 Teacher of the Year. Margaret May, who has taught language arts and social studies at Mount Washington Elementary for five years, was surprised with the honor Monday with a visit and a bouquet of roses from city schools CEO Andres Alonso, a chorus of ecstatic exclamations from excited students, and tears of happiness from principal Sue Torr.

Baltimore school administrators have ratified a new contract that union officials said would make city principals among the highest paid in the state and promote leaders through a new career and compensation ladder based on performance. The Public School Administrators and Supervisors Association ratified its contract after 150 members voted Friday to approve the deal, which includes a 2 percent retroactive pay raise and $1,800 stipend. The pact eliminates annual step increases — raises based on seniority and academic degrees — and implements a new career ladder.

The Baltimore City school system is likely to move forward with a plan to offer early retirement packages to its most experienced teachers as more than 330 have accepted the deal, which seeks to save the district millions of dollars. When the school system announced the early retirement incentive plan in February, it said at least 350 teachers had to take the plan for it to be successful, and that no more than 750 could. But city school officials said Monday that the 332 teachers who signed up were enough for the plan to go through.

About 3,000 paraeducators and other professional staff represented by the Baltimore Teachers Union will receive pay raises and more vacation time under a tentative deal struck by the union and city school system. The union announced Monday that the Paraprofessionals and School Related Personnel chapter of the BTU — which includes classroom assistants, teacher's aides, accountants, secretaries and office staff — will receive raises retroactive to July 1, 2010, and more holidays off. Members who do not work in a school will also be able to take a spring break.

More resources in the classroom and less pressure on teachers were among the priorities Baltimore education leaders identified Monday as primary concerns about the reauthorization of the No Child Left Behind Act, a highly anticipated task as the federal government looks to revise national education standards. Sen. Barbara A. Mikulski, a Maryland Democrat who was recently appointed to head a critical congressional subcommittee in the reauthorization of the federal program this summer, visited Lockerman-Bundy Elementary School as part of a series of roundtable discussions with school communities across the state to find out how No Child Left Behind has affected student achievement.