Summit School District officials have indicated they plan to grant staff members’ request for recognition of non-licensed staff as a bargaining unit after staff members expressed not agreeing with the process. 

Numerous non-licensed staff members and their supporters made public comments during a Thursday, Oct. 23, Board of Education meeting, most of which were critical. Some were targeted at a lawyer hired by the district for the process who some accused of having a “union-busting” agenda. 

District officials said there will likely be ongoing drafts of the “H” Series Policy in the upcoming Nov. 6 and Nov. 19 Board of Education meetings for officials to review. Staff members are the ones who will vote on whether to create the bargaining unit or not. 

Non-licensed staff members and their supporters have raised concerns at the last couple meetings about the district creating what’s known as an “H” Series Policy, or a policy essentially laying down a framework and a process for the group to unionize. They said the teachers union did not need an “H” Series Policy to gain recognition as a bargaining union. Superintendent Tony Byrd said some school districts will have an “H” Series Policy in place related to collective bargaining and the Summit School District didn’t, so they are now designing one. The policy defines both certification and decertification processes and outlines standards for union organization. 

Many of the public commenters said they felt the board had too much power and the union wouldn’t have enough power in how the policy was written at the time of the Oct. 23 meeting. 

“(The “H” Series Policy) gives the board nearly all the power deciding if we can organize, if we can vote, and even allowing the board to walk away from negotiations at any time,” said Breckenridge Elementary Administrative Assistant Britton Fossett. “That’s not collaboration, that’s control.”

Upper Blue Elementary instructional lead and gifted and talented coordinator Ashley Girodo showed appreciation for the board showing support for non-licensed support staff’s right to unionize, but worried the “H” Series policy would weaken the group’s collective bargaining power. 

Several public commenters took issue with the district’s chosen legal counsel for the matter, Adele Reester of Longmont-based Lyons Gaddis Law Firm. Reester was contracted by the Lake County School District for negotiations in 2023, and the Leadville Herald Democrat reported some teachers felt she helped to suppress educator wages below basic inflation. 

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“Instead of working with the people who actually live here, the district is taking direction from lawyers who don’t know Summit County, who don’t know our schools … These lawyers have a history of union busting across Colorado … That is who our superintendent chose to bring in,” Summit Middle School kitchen manager Tammy Campell said. 

Byrd said the district did not seek out an anti-union lawyer. He said the district has used Longmont-based Lyons Gaddis Law Firm for the last several years and district officials seek out the attorney in that group who has the most expertise in any given matter the district is working on. He said Reester had the most expertise in the firm when it comes to collective bargaining. 

Summit Middle School attendance secretary Naomi McMahon shared concerns about a portion of the policy that states the union could automatically be decertified if membership dips below 51% for three months.

“When you eliminate it, you eliminate the only mechanism staff have to address contract violations or unfair treatment without fear of retaliation, turning small workplace issues into major crises that cause resentment and drive good teachers away,” she said. 

“Don’t let policy and bureaucracy shield you from reality,” she later added. 

Board member Vanessa Agee and others shared concerns over the draft policy’s requirement for a supermajority vote from non-licensed staff members to actualize the bargaining unit. She wanted to see a simple majority. She also worried about the draft policy giving the board the ability to withdraw from working with the union on negotiations resulting in the union having “no teeth at all for our support staff.”

After coming out of executive session, she said the board indicated they’d like to see some changes on the decertification threshold. 

“I think (officials wanted to see) softening that automatic decertification by (giving) people a longer period of time on that, like a year-plus on that, rather than three months,” she said.

Board members said they would like to see the certification threshold of needing 51% membership for non-licensed staff members be brought down closer to 20%. 

Based on board members’ concerns around the supermajority voting requirement, the district decided to change the “H” series policy threshold from 67%, which is considered to be a supermajority, to 50% plus one person. The change was made following public comment and an executive session held at the Oct. 23 meeting. 

The board stood firm in their decision to avoid a “wall-to-wall” union, meaning one that combines all the employees as one bargaining unit. 

“So, (the board is saying) a no to a wall-to-wall agreement, because we just don’t think it would accomplish that would do the best job of representing the needs of support staff,” she said, adding teachers and non-licensed support staff have different needs based on their jobs. 

In a press release sent to the Summit Daily News before the Oct. 23 meeting, the Summit County Education Association said in banning a “wall-to-wall” union, district officials are “effectively dividing teachers, support staff, and specialists into subgroups, pitting them against each other for both rights and resources.” 

Kassay said Oct. 28 the group still wants to see a wall-to-wall union encompassing both teachers and support staff.