ELLICOTT CITY, Md. – From Howard County, Maryland, comes a story designed to bring a small tear to the eye of district/union collaborationists everywhere.

Both the school board and the teachers’ union agree that collective bargaining sessions should be open to the public.

“We see a strong benefit to an open process,” said Paul Lemle, president of the Howard County Education Association. “Everyone can see how bargaining works for the benefit of public schools and the public school employees. Great public schools are not built just with bricks, but with a good contract and good relationships between the school system and its employees.”

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The current contract has a provision that calls for closed-door negotiations, so Lemle presented a draft memorandum of understanding to the school board which would waive that provision.

There is just one problem: the board claims that deciding whether negotiations will be opened or closed is the board’s prerogative and an “illegal topic of collective bargaining.” The board unanimously voted to open negotiating to the public in a closed-door session.

This didn’t sit well with the union, which asked the Maryland Public School Labor Relations Board for a ruling on the issue, and filed a “bad faith claim” alleging that the board’s vote violated the contract.

Still, we have to give all parties involved credit for educating the public about labor-management relations in the public schools. The board voted for open sessions in closed session, and the union demonstrated how collective bargaining works by filing a complaint even though it agrees with the board.

Don’t bother opening the negotiations to the public. I think they get the picture – and the bill.