By Victor Skinner
EAGnews.org

BOISE, Idaho – Nearly two dozen school districts across Idaho have imposed contract terms on their local teachers unions under new laws that give the final word on terms of employment to elected school boards.

The change marks a significant shift in the process of negotiations between school districts and teachers unions brought on by “Students Come First” education reforms approved by the state legislature in 2011, Spokesman.com reports.

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The changes mean that in places like the Lakeland School District in Kootenai County, school officials can impose their final offer for teacher salaries and benefits for the coming year without approval from union officials. In Lakeland, 96 percent of union members rejected the district’s plan to freeze salaries for a fifth consecutive year, but the board approved the move anyway, Spokesman.com reports.

“The law is pretty strict now,” Lakeland business manager Tom Taggart told Spokesman.com. “So pretty much what they rejected, we just turned around to the board and the board approved it.”

School officials in the Kellogg,  Mullan, Wallace, Middleton, Cascade, Idaho Falls, Nampa, Caldwell and other districts have done the same. We believe the new authority is essential for school officials to responsibly manage employees, as well as school budgets that have tightened during the national recession.

State officials realized that union leaders have repeatedly refused contract concessions in recent years to help keep their schools financially afloat, and rightly removed the union’s ability to abuse the collective bargaining process.

Students Come First laws now limit teachers contract negotiations to salary and benefits, prohibit multi-year agreements, and shifted some funds for salaries to merit-pay bonuses. Lawmakers also shortened the time frame for negotiations, which sometimes dragged on for years in the past.

During the legislative debate on the reforms, union officials repeatedly claimed that, if passed, the changes would incite teacher strikes, and legal action from educators, but none of the threats have materialized. Only 21 of the state’s 130 school districts didn’t reach an agreement by the new contract deadline, illustrating that the changes are working well in most schools.

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“(The union) said there would be strikes, there would be walkouts, there would be lawsuits – none of that has happened,” State Superintendent Tom Luna told the news site. “If you measure this against the doomsday scenario that they painted, I think this is very positive news.”

The statewide teachers union, the Idaho Education Association, has gathered signatures to put the new Students Come First laws up for a public referendum in November, in hopes of repealing the reforms.