OVSD in the News...District, Union Leaders Committed to Partnership
(OC Breeze story)
Unions and management continued to build upon their labor-management partnership within the Ocean View School District (OVSD) last week by hosting a Partnership with Administration and Labor, or PAL, retreat on March 31, 2017. This follows actions taken last year by leaders from OVSD, the Ocean View Teachers Association (OVTA), and the local California School Employees Association (CSEA) unit to commit to work collaboratively, to establish mutual respect, to open and shape communication channels, and to share a common vision.
Photographed from left: Margaret Friedmann, President, OVTA Executive Board; Dr. Carol Hansen, OVSD Superintendent; Monica Mora, OVTA, Teachers' Advocate; and Felix Avila, OVSD Assistant Superintendent, Human Resources (See more photos and video by linking here)
According to Dr. Carol Hansen, OVSD Superintendent, “Research shows that school districts can demonstrate significant gains in student achievement when employees work together with common goals.” Since coming to OVSD from the ABC Unified School District in 2015 as its Assistant Superintendent of Human Resources, Dr. Hansen and her Executive Cabinet are working intentionally to develop formalized partnerships guided by collective agreements on how to best work together to serve our staff and students. “What can often be seen as an ‘adversarial’ relationship between unions and district officials,” continued Dr. Hansen, “can actually become a very empowering, constructive relationship that benefits everyone.”
The PAL partnership, even in its initial stages, is showing progress, including the recent passage of a $169M general obligation bond in November 2016, which will benefit school facilities cross the District. Union leadership worked with the District in a well-organized, cooperative effort to communicate about the Measure R bond and facilitate voter turnout as part of the Measure R Committee.
The Guiding Principles adopted earlier this year are:
Our collective commitments about working together in a PAL culture within OVSD.
We will work together to promote student success. We believe that all students can succeed and we will not accept any excuse that prevents this from happening in OVSD.
We will negotiate and make decisions that support student learning and successful teaching.
Only the most highly qualified employees shall work in our District. We will work together to hire, train, and retain the best and the brightest employees for OVSD.
We will clearly and consistently communicate PAL principles to all stakeholders in the organization.
We want all stakeholders at the table.
We will assume positive intentions.
We won’t let each other fail.