What happens when a school district-supported teachers’ representation group is ordered to dissolve by the state? Who represents teachers?
That’s the situation Clovis educators find themselves in now: The Public Employment Relations Board ordered last month that the pseudo-union group, the Faculty Senate, disband and break the favorable relationship it had with Clovis Unified School District.
The order came after the Association of Clovis Educators (ACE), a teachers’ group wanting to unionize, filed complaints with state labor authorities. It argued that PERB’s ruling in December – ordering the district to stop providing resources and money to its Faculty Senate – didn’t go far enough in stopping the district’s “unlawful” and “anti-union” actions, as the PERB described in the June ruling.
As of the 2023-2024 school year, Clovis employees remained divided into different representation groups, none officially unionized. However, ACE did manage to unionize the district’s psychologists and mental health support providers and negotiated the district’s first-ever union contract.
Clovis Unified spokesperson Kelly Avants said the district has 20 calendar days to ask the PERB to reconsider their ruling, and 30 days to appeal it.
“That deadline will fall before our next Governing Board meeting on July 17,” Avants said.
Because of that, Avants said the board met for a special meeting on Monday, June 24, and voted 7-0 to give the district permission to decide whether or not it’ll appeal the resolution to disband the Faculty Senate.
The disbanding of the Faculty Senate could open the door for other teacher representative groups to organize and formalize themselves as unions in the district.
“The District used the Faculty Senate to prevent us from forming a real union,” ACE said in a statement to The Bee, “to control what we can and can’t do to address our concerns, and to take away any leverage that we would have if we weren’t under the District’s control.”
In an email to The Bee, ACE said that the demise of the Faculty Senate now allows teachers to be better informed and exercise their free choice to join a representation group.
To unionize, public school teachers must collect signatures of the majority, “or more than 50% of employees,” ACE stated.
This means that ACE and other groups attempting to unionize need consensus from all employees by signing their petition, not just the majority among those who vote in union matters like in private sector employee groups.
Between the dominating control of the district, with its Faculty Senate, and teachers split into multiple representation groups, getting the majority of the district staff to sign on has been a challenge.
The state’s latest ruling does not specifically or necessarily favor ACE, but instead aims to level the playing field for all of those interested in forming representation groups and unions.
However, this latest state order does appear to increase the chances for a teachers union in Clovis. This situation also raises the question: Will Clovis have one or multiple teachers’ unions?
How many teacher groups are there in Clovis?
Besides ACE and the Faculty Senate, there are the Independent Clovis Unified Educators (ICUE), the Clovis Teachers for Clovis (CTC) and the Clovis Teachers Organization (CTO) groups, dividing Clovis teachers into different factions.
ACE is backed up by the California Teachers Association (CTA), one of the state’s largest teacher union organizations with 1,100 chapters across the state, including the Fresno Teachers Association, the Sanger Unified Teachers Association and the Selma Unified Teachers Association.
The Independent Clovis Unified Educators’ (ICUE) Facebook page states it is led “without any outside influences” and run by teachers, not backed up by the CTA or other statewide organizations.
The ICUE’s page appears to have not been updated in several months. In a comment on one of their posts, the ICUE account stated that the group was still active, collecting signatures and reaching out to its members via their district-provided staff emails.
The CTC believes the Faculty Senate is “effective” and should remain the teachers’ representative body, according to its Facebook page, and frequently use the hashtag #keepunionsout in its posts. When clicking the link to their website, a message is projected across the screen saying it can’t be reached.
The CTO was formed by the Faculty Senate in 2021, The Bee reported. Then, the PERB did not recognize the Faculty Senate as a representative group and there was concern within the district that people “outside” of Clovis Unified could help form other teacher representation groups.
“Anybody else, any outside group, can try to come in and influence and gain access or representation,” said Bill Buettner, the Faculty Senate’s vice president at the time.
“We would like to make sure that the people that negotiate or work with [the] administration and the district and in the community are Clovis Unified teachers representing Clovis Unified teachers,” Buettner said.
After the Faculty Senate voted to approve the creation of the CTO on Oct. 11, 2021, the plan was to collect enough signatures so the new group would file for official recognition by the PERB. If recognized, then the Faculty Senate would dissolve, Buettner told The Bee then.
Yet, the Faculty Senate still existed during the 2023-2024 school year.
Will all Clovis teacher groups turn into unions?
In 2021 ACE issued a public letter to Clovis educators, sharing its concern that another employee organization was formed – the ICUE, in late 2021 – as an alternative to ACE.
ACE aims to be the exclusive union representing Clovis Unified educators in the district, and the division of the staff through different groups has presented a challenge.
Instead of partnering with an advising law firm – or the district itself – ACE decided to affiliate with the CTA to collaborate with experienced educators from all over the state to share insights on best practices, resources and training, its public letter from Dec. 7, 2021, reads.
The next Clovis Unified board meeting – and first scheduled for the 2024-2025 school year – will be hosted on Wednesday night, July 17, in the district’s Professional Development Building at 1680 David E Cook Way in Clovis. Community members can join the board’s session in person at 6:30 p.m. and, before the meeting starts, can sign up to speak during the public comment section.
