California Educator

June 2011

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Beating the clock A typical teacher’s workday begins early and ends late. It includes offer- ing extra help to struggling students at lunch or after school. It may also include coaching sports, supervising extracurricular activities and grading papers at home after dinner. With such a schedule, the idea of teachers punching a time clock was unheard-of and considered ludi- crous unt il school board members and ad- minis trators in the Sausalito Marin City School Dis t r ict de- manded in 2009 that teachers clock in. But it was no ordinary time clock: The district had purchased a bio- metric scanner used in government and corporate security to identify employees by their thumbprint. Employees had to press their thumb to a small scanner, which compared the image to employer records. Amazingly, the district had on- ly eight teachers and a few classified staff members to keep track of with this state- of-the-art, high-tech equipment, until teachers won a settlement recently that freed them from this unnecessary and degrading policy. When the time clocks were installed, the Sausalito District Teachers Association (SDTA) filed a lawsuit in Marin Superior Court, claiming the equipment was in vio- lation of its contract. The lawsuit main- tained that time clocks are regulated under the federal Fair Labor Standards Act, which specifically excludes teachers because they are not hourly employees. However, the district maintained that the scanners were needed for “safety reasons” so it would be able to keep track of em- ployees’ whereabouts during emergencies or evacuations. But SDTA members felt otherwise. “They said it was for safety reasons, but there was a charter school on campus and staff there didn’t have to do it,” says Susan Cassidy, president of SDTA. “The district CTA third vertical-OUT.indd 1 28 California Educator | JUNE 2011 5/2/11 4:53 PM office is also on our campus, and their staff didn’t have to punch in either.” Teachers felt “demoralized” by the pol- icy and were also greatly inconvenienced, says Cassidy. “We’d have to come schlep- ping down to the office and punch in, and sometimes the office wasn’t open yet and you’d have to wait. And if we stayed late, the office was closed when we went to punch out.” When the clocks were first put in place, teachers jok- ingly asked if they would be paid for all the extra hours they were putting in. But that didn’t happen. Teachers initially tried to get rid of the time clocks through bargaining, says Cassidy. SDTA pointed out that there were progressive disciplinary procedures already in place for administrators to deal with an employee who was chronically late or not working the hours mandated by the contract. But the district refused to budge, and SDTA members were forced to use the biometric time clocks for two years on the advice of CTA counsel. But as a court date drew near, school board members and administrators began to have second thoughts. In the spring, they agreed to eliminate the requirement that teachers submit to thumb scans and punch in. (Classified employees are still required to do so, however.) “When I heard that, I jumped for joy,” says Cassidy of the victory. “I think the district settled with us as a way to save money. They didn’t want to fight the law- suit, because there’s a very good chance we would have won.” Now that teachers are “off the clock,” she hopes that there can be time set aside for healing. “We hope this will result in building trust between the teachers association and the board,” says Cassidy. “That’s what we are really interested in.” SHERRY POSNICK-GOODWIN

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