LAND O’LAKES, Fla. – Officials in Pasco County, Florida recently learned the health and welfare of students and staff is a subject of collective bargaining with the district’s teachers union.

Apparently the contract with the United School Employees of Pasco County dictates certain campuses opened before July 1996 can have designated smoking areas for staff use, although tobacco is banned at newer schools, the Tampa Bay Times reports.

The school district’s health advisory committee recently sent a letter to school board members urging them to make all campuses tobacco free, a move that would “limit your youth’s exposure to tobacco products, and slow their rates of tobacco use and addiction,” the committee wrote.

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But the teachers union contract requires faculty and staff to unanimously approve a transition to  tobacco-free campuses, a 17-year-old provision that impacts about 60 percent of the county’s schools.

Since the provision was approved, numerous restaurants, colleges and other businesses have gone tobacco free, but union officials aren’t interested in making the change, at least not right now, the Times reports.

“We just finished negotiations,” USEP President Lynne Webb told the news site. “There has to be a compelling reason to reopen negotiations.”

The health and safety of students isn’t compelling enough?

Webb said teachers have more important issues to work on, like implementing Common Core standards. She said the district will just have to wait until next year’s negotiations to broach the subject.

While it’s bad enough that a simple decision about the health of students is a subject of union bargaining, the “unanimous” approval needed to make the change ensures the teachers union ultimately holds the final say on the matter.

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The school district’s health committee suggested a change in the contract language to allow a tobacco ban by a simple majority vote, but there is an even better solution.

Why not eliminate all union contract provisions that give the union decision-making power over student or staff health issues?

It’s clear district officials are frustrated with the union’s disinterest.

“Under the policy, it is possible that the Pasco County school district could never be smoke-free,” assistant superintendent Ray Gadd told the Times.

Gadd acknowledged that there’s not much the district can do about the issue until the union decides to cooperate, but vowed that “we’re not going to drop it.”