LPUT files lawsuit over teacher mentor issue

Board sets Tuesday meeting on Power Authority re-licensing

by Larry Austin
Lewiston Porter Sentinel, October 23, 2004

Five Lewiston Porter teachers and their union have filed a lawsuit with the State Education Department against the Lewiston Porter School Board, saying the district has violated its Professional Development Plan by failing to appoint mentors for new teachers at the board’s Sept. 21 meeting.

Lewiston Porter United Teachers union president, Jean Henesey, is a party to the lawsuit along with five of the 16 teachers whose appointments to mentoring posts failed by a 3-3 vote at last month’s meeting. The petitioning teachers are Judith Leardini, Janette Mathews, Laurie Muto, Margo Spring, and Mark Johnson.

In its contract with the Lewiston Porter United Teachers union, the district pays teachers $65 per credit hour for mentoring a new teacher.

‘Bureaucratic Waste’

Board President Edward Lilly said at the September meeting that a mentor is paid for the credit every year thereafter whether they continue to mentor or not. Board member Lou Palmeri called the payment “bureaucratic waste” and a payment without providing services.

Assistant Superintendent Donald Rappold said that the mentoring program would cost the school district $2,665 this year.

“The teachers union should be ashamed of themselves for filing a lawsuit against the taxpayers to force us to pay them for service they never had any intention of performing,” Lilly said. “Further, I hope that their consciences will guide them to withdraw the lawsuit.”

If the union does not withdraw their lawsuit, they will illustrate to the public “that their level of greed has no boundary,” Lilly said.

Asked if the board would fight the union on the issue, Lilly said, “There’s not a fight. They’re not entitled to the money. This is about intimidation.”

State Requires Program

Henesey, LPUT president, said state regulations require a program, but without the appointments of the teachers, no program can exist, which violates the teacher’s contract.

Failure to appoint mentors for new teachers violates the district’s Professional Development Plan and means, “the new teachers and their students are not receiving the support needed in order to ease the transition from teacher preparation to practice, thereby increasing retention of teachers in the public schools, and increasing the skills of new teachers in order to improve student achievement in accordance with State learning standards,” the suit said.

The suit asks the state Education Department and Commissioner Richard Mills to order the district to appoint the mentor teachers.

“They’re allowing there to be a program, but they won’t appoint the teachers, so they’re not basically fulfilling that part of the negotiated agreement in 1999,” Henesey said.

Pay Spread Out

The pay scale at Lew-Port spreads the mentor pay over a number of years, rather than in one lump sum. For example, a mentor who received two credit hours at $65 per credit this year would receive $1,170 over the next nine years. Other schools pay the mentors a one-time flat rate, Henesey said, which varies among districts.

“The average in Western New York is $907 up front, all at once,” she said.

Lew-Port implemented a mentoring program years before the state began requiring districts to provide a mentor program, Henesey added.

“We were ahead of the game with New York state, which was a very good thing,” she said. Henesey called L-P’s payment plan “a major value” that did not require “so much cost all at once.”

Costly to District

Board Vice President David Schaubert said in a memo that payment through salary credits, rather than in a lump sum, costs the district “significantly more in the long run.” He calculated that the district would eventually end up paying $50,000 a year toward the program. The cost is $14,000 to $16,000 a year, “even if we never have another mentor,” Schaubert said.

Schaubert also claimed less than half of the 17 new teacher hires this year require a mentor under the state’s guidelines.

Schaubert said in the memo that the program is not an extension of the collective bargaining agreement, but “a board-approved program, and the board can un-approve it if it chooses.”

F. Warren Kahn, the school's attorney, said the district has 20 days to respond to the petition. He said the commissioner would come back with a determination in two or three months.

News and Notes

In other news at the meeting, the board met in executive session and heard an update on the Power Authority’s re-licensing application from Mark Zito, president of the Niagara Power Coalition. The board scheduled a meeting at 7 p.m. on Tuesday to discuss the Power Authority re-licensing issue and possibly present a proposal to the public.

Zito told the board “our mission is almost completed” in the re-licensing process.

Also, October is Board Appreciation Month, and Jane Ziobrowski, representing several parent groups, commended the board for their work.

“I know sometimes it’s a thankless job, and we appreciate you being here and doing what’s best for our kids,” she said.

Part II of the school board meeting in next week’s Sentinel will focus on the new board’s policy on costs to the district when teachers travel to conferences.