MINNEAPOLIS – Community leaders aren’t holding back in their criticism of the Minnesota Federation of Teachers’ request that its contract talks with the school board be moved from the public arena to the privacy of a state mediator’s office.

Community leaders understand that the teachers’ union contract has enormous ramifications for how their children’s schools and classrooms operate.

The leaders also understand the will only way their concerns will be addressed in the contract is if the public can observe negotiations as they take place. Their input will be completely useless if they only find out the work rules and school policies after a new contract has been ratified by the union and school board.

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That’s precisely why the MFT is trying to send the talks into mediation. The union has spent most of the past four months addressing side issues that have never been included in its collective bargaining agreement, including “wraparound” social services for students and the value of playtime, according to published reports.

We trust the union is talking  about  student playtime, rather than creating a designated period of recreation for teachers every day. With teachers unions, you never know.

The union’s strategy has clearly been to run down the clock, thus making state mediation inevitable.

African American community leader Chris Stewart called the union’s effort to close  negotiations to the public “insufferable” and “intolerable.”

“The only reason to close negotiations is so you can hide important details (from) the public,” Stewart told StarTribune.com.

Rev. Randolph Staten, head of the Coalition of Black Churches, went even further in his criticism.

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“We have been spit on and we won’t tolerate it,” Staten told StarTribune.com.