LTA and district battle over jobs

The Lawrence Teachers Association filed a complaint in 2011 with the New York State Public Employment Relations Board, charging that the Lawrence School District’s use of an online learning program called Adventa to replace summer school reduced opportunities for teachers to work, in violation of the union’s contract with the district.

“Their claim is by using [Adventa], the district is contracting out work that rightfully belongs to teachers,” said Lawrence Superintendent Gary Schall, who would not say how many teachers were affected. “I’ve been advised by counsel that since the Adventa case is currently at PERB, it becomes a personnel issue with details I cannot comment on.”

A total of 36 teachers, kindergarten through 12th grade, taught summer school in 2010, according to the LTA.

Lawrence brought in the Adventa program to replace the summer school program beginning with the 2010-11 school year. Summer school was one of the programs the district eliminated through its “strategic abandonment” approach to eliminating programs that were not considered optimally effective. The district also uses the Adventa system for advanced students taking college courses, students who need remedial drills and those who cannot attend school due to illness.

“I am not at liberty to discuss these issues,” LTA President Lori Skonberg said. She did confirm, however, that the PERB complaint focuses on the district’s implementation of the Adventa program.

Schall said he considers online learning an innovative component of modern education, and that it would be a “gross mistake on our part,” not to think this is the direction that education is heading. “We have to define its place in the school system,” he said. “We are proud that we are at the cutting edge of this. What the financial savings are is secondary to being an educational tool.”

Board of Education Vice President Murray Forman, who was president of the board when the district decided to do away with summer school and replace it with Adventa, said that the program was thoroughly reviewed before it was implemented. “The program was carefully vetted by our administrative staff and was recommended as superior,” Forman said.

He added that district officials believe that eliminating summer school teaching jobs was within their rights as part of the collective bargaining agreement with the LTA. “We fully expect, as with other numerous other LTA actions, for this to be meritless,” Forman said, “and the district will prevail.”

Shannon Mateiko, an Inwood resident, used the Adventa program last summer, she said, to retake 12th-grade English and U.S. history and earn her diploma from Lawrence High School.

Mateiko studied online in a high school classroom for two hours per course per day from Monday through Thursday until the last week in August. There was a teacher present in the classroom while she and several other students did their work.

“I think it was easier and faster to get it over with instead of going to class again,” said Mateiko, who just began working at a local pizzeria and will attend Nassau Community College when classes resume for the spring semester.

But she underscored the difference between online and regular classroom learning. “The benefit of being in the classroom is the teacher is there to teach,” she said. “Online, you have to do it on your own.”

On Dec. 16, LTA and district representatives met at the PERB office in Brooklyn with Administrative Law Judge Angela M. Blassman in an effort to find a resolution. “As a general rule, conferences are for the parties to either come to a settlement or narrow the facts in dispute,” said David Quinn of PERB’s counsel office. “The administrative law judge applies case law to help guide the parties toward reaching a settlement.”

When the issue cannot be resolved in the conference, the action is reassigned for a hearing before a different administrative law judge, Quinn explained. Hearings are typically scheduled six to eight weeks after the conference.

LTA and district officials did not reach a resolution in the conference, but a hearing has yet to be scheduled. The parties were expected to meet on Jan. 3, however.