Schools

School Board OKs Teacher Contract, New Seaholm Principal

Ohio educator to take the helm at Birmingham high school. Teachers lose sick bank and scheduled salary increase for 2010-11.

The Birmingham Board of Education made several big decisions Tuesday night, including welcoming the district's newest principal and officially ratifying the 2010-11 contract with the teacher's union.

Ohio middle school principal named Seaholm's new principal

The board officially welcomed as the new principal of , from where Terry Piper is retiring at the end of this year.

“Dee is really a forerunner in our industry, pushing 21st century teaching and learning,” Birmingham Schools Superintendent David Larson said.

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Lancaster brings nine years of administrative experience to Birmingham, including time spent as an assistant high school principal, elementary school principal and most recently a middle school principal for the Talawanda School District in Oxford, OH. Before that, she was a high school English teacher at Talawanda for five years after graduating from Miami University.

Despite spending most of her career so far in southwestern Ohio, Lancaster said moving to Birmingham feels natural because her husband grew up in Bloomfield Hills. They haven’t made moving plans yet, she said, but when they do they’ll bring their two sons: Jack, who will be entering the third grade in the fall, and Ian, who will be in kindergarten.

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Lancaster spent most of Tuesday with members of the administration and shadowing Piper, saying she’s excited to begin work. “I felt at home from the very beginning,” she said.

During her time in Oxford, Lancaster introduced Chinese to the elementary schools and redesigned the student advisory program. Partnering with nearby Miami University, Lancaster invited engineering students to help eigth grade girls prepare for the Ohio Achievement Assessment in Science, and help create a digital media program at Talawanda Middle School using resources available through the university’s Interactive Media Studies department.

Lancaster is to join the district July 1.

Scheduled salary increase cut from 2010-11 teacher union contract

The board also ratified the 2010-11 contract with the Birmingham Education Association (BEA), the union representing the district’s teachers. On the chopping block was a scheduled salary increase and the teachers' sick bank.

Larson called Birmingham teachers the district’s “main investment,” but noted the agreement was a long time coming. The BEA is the last union to have its current-year contract ratified after spending most of the year tangled in negotiations.

Bargaining teams made up of administrators and union members from all schools have been negotiating since spring 2010, meeting more than 35 times, BEA President Scott Warrow said.

According to Warrow, both sides clashed on employee pay, health insurance, working conditions and teachers’ duties outside the classroom. The final contract included stipulations that teachers wouldn’t receive a scheduled salary increase for the 2010-11 school year, though they would receive a one-time, 1 percent off-schedule raise that will not carry over into next year.

Finally, the sick bank — where teachers save sick days — will be eliminated in favor of an employee-paid short-term disability program, which would provide time off needed for illness.

“It’s not an easy time to bargain contracts in Michigan, but we did it,” said Assistant Superintendent for Human Resources Jon Dean.

Warrow said he was pleased with the board’s decision, though he noted when the teachers ratified the contract on Feb. 16, bargaining has been especially difficult given the state of school funding in Michigan. In his budget plan released Feb. 17, Gov. Rick Snyder proposed cutting $470 per pupil from the state budget.

“The state of school funding has made it very difficult to resolve our differences,” Warrow said.


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