Provisions in a three-year-old Culver Community Schools teacher contract were part of an oral argument before the Indiana Supreme Court Thursday. Culver and three other districts in the state had finalized the 2017-2018 agreements with their teachers associations, only to have the Indiana Education Employment Relations Board (IEERB) deem certain parts non-compliant with state law.
The question is to what extent “ancillary duties” may be governed by collective bargaining agreements. In Culver’s case, the contract required teachers to perform up to 10 hours of ancillary duties – like meetings, professional development, and other school activities – for no additional pay.
IEERB’s stance is that while it’s okay for an agreement to specify a pay rate for ancillary duties, it can’t actually define what those duties are. That’s because a state law from 2011 limits teachers associations’ collective bargaining to salaries, wages, and benefits.
Attorney Eric Hylton represents the teachers associations. He argued that the teachers and their school corporations didn’t necessarily bargain over the definitions, but simply agreed to them. He added that teachers have to know what they’re bargaining for.
But Deputy Attorney General Aaron Craft argued that the teachers unions were trying to push back against the limits put in place in 2011 by taking away some of the authority lawmakers gave to the schools. Specifically, he believes the provisions are invalid because they would allow teachers to refuse a work assignment. For example, Craft said that Culver’s agreement would let teachers refuse an 11th hour of professional development, since it only outlines the first 10. But he did concede that IEERB would have likely approved the provisions, had they included a disclaimer that the definitions of the ancillary duties were agreed to, not bargained.
IEERB’s findings had minimal apparent impact on the school districts’ actual operations. For one thing, they weren’t released until May 30, 2018, when the school year the contracts covered was almost over. Instead, they’re more of a guideline for what to include in future agreements.
The Supreme Court will now discuss the cases and issue a written opinion.
