SAN DIEGO – Being the parent of a child in the San Diego Unified School District is a nerve-wracking experience.

Over the past several years, the district of 132,000 students has adopted a number of drastic measures to stave off financial insolvency – including laying off hundreds of teachers and support staff, reducing academic offerings and shrinking the school calendar. At one point, San Diego schools were only providing students with 175 days of instruction, compared to the standard 180 days.

In the midst of all the financial upheaval, the San Diego Education Association (SDEA) – the local teachers union – signed a contract in 2010 that phased in a 7 percent pay raise for teachers. Union members also preserved their “Cadillac” health insurance benefits, which cost the district more than $11,000 per employee, with teachers paying no premiums, according to a VoiceofSanDiego.com report from 2011.

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Parents and taxpayers couldn’t have been surprised, then, when UTSandDiego.com recently reported that “more than 90 percent of the district’s operating budget goes to employee compensation.”

The union’s lopsided contract expires at the end of June, and SDEA leaders are using the district’s improved financial status, thanks to California voters’ 2012 decision to raise K-12 taxes by $6 billion to demand (in part) smaller class sizes, increased wages, retirement “incentives” for teachers, and even better insurance “with no additional costs” for SDEA members.

But a group of parents calling themselves “Four the Kids” has inserted itself in the new round of contract negotiations in an effort to ensure student interests will be represented at the bargaining table.

Four the Kids – which is collaborating with the group Unified Parents for Education (UPforEd) – is asking San Diego school leaders to include four policies in the new teacher union contract: a revamped teacher evaluation system; freedom for school principals to hire teachers “based on student needs and school culture rather than seniority alone”; a zero-tolerance bullying policy; and professional development sessions that are conducted apart from students’ instructional days.

The parents’ group – which currently has about 20 members – presented their requests to San Diego school board members during an early April board meeting. Parents also met with first-year Superintendent Cindy Marten to discuss why the policies are needed.

It appears that San Diego school leaders were listening.

According to UPforEd Executive Director Lisa Berlanga, versions of all four requests were included in the district’s opening offer to union negotiators.

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Scott Barnett, the school board’s most conservative member, said the offer was the first he’s seen that actually “put(s) kids first.”

“This proposal – the tone, the content – I’ve never seen anything like (it) in my years on the board,” Barnett told UTSanDiego.com.

Union prepared to fight against parents’ requests

Predictably, SDEA President Bill Freeman said he was “troubled and shocked” by the “top-down changes” being proposed by San Diego school leaders.

UTSanDiego.com reports the union is “bracing for a fight.”

But what Freeman and SDEA members see as a radical scaling back of union power probably seems very reasonable and commonsensical to many San Diego parents and taxpayers.

Take, for example, Four the Kids’ request for a more comprehensive teacher evaluation system.

Berlanga says the current single-page teacher evaluation is “decades-old” and “based on a single source’s feedback.”

To correct this, Four the Kids members want evaluations to include parent and student feedback, multiple classroom observations conducted by multiple observers and student achievement gains data. The revamped system will allow administrators to identify the truly gifted teachers from the rest of the pack.

That feeds into Four the Kids’ request that principals be allowed to consider a teacher’s overall effectiveness and content knowledge – as well as students’ needs and the school culture – when making hiring, transfer and layoff decisions.

Seniority-based decisions too often lead to “the loss of remarkable teachers during budget cuts simply due to teachers being the newest in the talent pool,” Berlanga writes in a recent op-ed.

Teacher unions see educators as interchangeable cogs in the K-12 machine, which is one reason why SDEA members are kicking up a fuss over these proposals.

The least controversial request on the Four the Kids’ list may be that San Diego teachers receive their professional training when school is not in session. According to Berlanga, the majority of the union’s 10 professional development days a year occur when school is in session.

While the district’s new budget restores the 180-day school year, parents say that between professional development requirements and teachers’ normal sick leave, students are still missing out on too much high-quality instruction. (That total shrinks even more when standardized testing days are factored in.)

“We want teachers to be in the classroom all 180 days,” Berlanga says, adding that teachers could receive training after school and on Saturdays.

Community has a stake in contract talks

The San Diego school board may currently be supporting Four the Kids’ pro-student, pro-common sense agenda, but there’s no guarantee it will continue to do so.

As a recent UTSanDiego.com editorial notes, precious few reforms have been adopted “in the five-plus years since SDEA-financed candidates took majority control of the school board.”

The school board could abandon the Four the Kids-influenced provisions as quickly as it incorporated them in its initial offer. Berlanga seems to understand this, which is why UPforEd and Four the Kids are working to draw more parents into the effort.

She says the groups will continue getting information out to parents and encouraging them to share their views with board members. Berlanga would like to see Four the Kids’ membership swell to hundreds of parents.

Not all parents will have the stomach for getting in the middle of highly contentious contract debate, but Berlanga believes it’s important for them to.

“Teacher contracts affect all San Diego public school students,” Berlanga writes in her recent op-ed. “And because students are the backbone of our city’s tomorrow, it’s no exaggeration that students, parents and the community have a stake in the outcome of negotiations.”