A controversial plan to make major changes to Broward middle and high school student schedules was quashed by the School Board on Tuesday.
The proposed $35 million cost-cutting measure ended the same way it began a few weeks ago —behind closed doors.
The proposal would have ended traditional block scheduling as well as personalization periods, or study halls, in secondary schools. It also would have limited the ability of teachers to make extra money by teaching classes beyond their normal load.
The idea was rolled out a few weeks ago during a closed session and first shared with union stewards in early November. It prompted fierce opposition from teachers, students and parents. School Board members were flooded with emails, and thousands signed petitions opposing the changes.
“After careful consideration, the School Board and I have decided to maintain the current high school … block schedule with personalization/study hall period, and with middle schools maintaining their current schedules,” Superintendent Howard Hepburn announced at the end of a nearly three-hour closed-door session Tuesday.
Sarah Leonardi, a former teacher who was elected Tuesday as the new School Board chairwoman, told the South Florida Sun Sentinel she personally had never been comfortable with the proposal, since it resulted in teachers making less money.
“I believe the board reversed course after hearing overwhelmingly from parents, students and teachers that the negative impacts of this outweighed the cost savings,” Leonardi said. “We’re going to have to find cost savings elsewhere. This was just not the place to do it.”
The School Board also has been discussing closing schools, selling property and laying off employees to deal with budget shortfalls attributed to declining enrollment.
During the meeting, Hepburn instructed schools to discontinue any work they were doing to change their schedules.
Earlier this month, the school district had directed affected schools to discuss the proposed changes at “emergency” School Advisory Council meetings. The changes were also to be voted on by teachers. A Sun Sentinel reporter and photographer arrived for a committee meeting scheduled Tuesday afternoon at West Broward High in Pembroke Pines but were told 10 minutes before the scheduled start time that it had been postponed until after Thanksgiving.
About that same time, Hepburn announced the decision at the board meeting to drop the proposal.
Several students who are members of a leadership club called DECA at South Plantation High attended Tuesday’s meeting earlier in the day and asked board members to reconsider dropping study hall.
“Study hall isn’t a break for us,” Rebeca Esquenazi, a junior who is president of South Plantation’s DECA club, said Tuesday. “It’s where we finish assignments, study for tests, continue working on DECA projects and manage the heavy workload that comes with being high-achieving students. Without study hall, many of us would struggle to balance our commitments.”
Anna Fusco, president of Broward Teachers Union, also attended Tuesday’s meeting and criticized not only the proposed changes but the School Board’s decision to discuss the matter behind closed doors.
“You should really consider exactly what goes in closed-door meetings and what really should be out in the public, considering your hostile takeover of our high school and middle school block scheduling and personalization courses,” she said. “You guys must have had it in a closed-door session, because I went through all of the videos of workshops and board meetings, and I saw nothing mentioned.”
School district officials said the discussions were behind closed doors because they involved proposed changes to the collective bargaining contract with the Broward Teachers Union. State law allows strategies for collective bargaining to be held in closed session.
“Matters directly tied to collective bargaining negotiations are discussed in a closed-door session to ensure the integrity of the process,” district spokesman John Sullivan told the Sun Sentinel.
The proposed changes could have had a major impact on some teachers’ pay.
The changes would have meant less planning time for secondary teachers or a sizeable pay cut. Teachers now get two class periods for planning. If they teach during one of their planning periods, they can earn $6,000, or $12,000 if they teach during two. Under the proposed change, teachers would have been required to teach six out of seven classes per day and would only be eligible for one $6,000 stipend if they taught all seven classes with no planning period.
Some School Board members had said that middle and high school teachers had opportunities to earn extra money that is not available to elementary school teachers, who generally stay with the same students for most of the school day. They said they hoped to use the $35 million in savings to provide pay increases for teachers of all levels.
Fusco sent out a note to members Tuesday afternoon urging them not to participate in any votes.
“I am at the School Board meeting right now as your BTU President, working to shut down this scheduling issue with the district,” she wrote to members.
She told members not to complete “any survey, form, vote, or input request about changing schedules, and do not succumb to pressure from your administration to do so. Just continue with your current schedule.”
After the announcement was made, Fusco said in a Facebook Live video, “The School Board members heard you, and this was a huge win.”