Orange County teachers union sues school district over teacher evaluation negotiations

Orlando Sentinel | By Steven Walker | November 18, 2024

Orange County’s teachers union on Monday filed a lawsuit against Orange County Public Schools claiming it violated the state constitution by failing to negotiate teacher evaluations.

In the complaint, filed in Orange County Circuit Court, the Orange County Classroom Teachers Association argues the school district and Superintendent Maria Vazquez violated the Florida Constitution when they did not negotiate teacher evaluations during collective bargaining this summer.

Evaluations are used to determine raises for teachers. Historically, how evaluations are conducted and what is included have been part of what teacher unions and Florida school districts negotiate during bargaining sessions.

During recent collective bargaining negotiations, district officials cited changes to Florida law and said evaluations were no longer subject to collective bargaining, the lawsuit says. According to emails obtained by the union and shared with the Orlando Sentinel, district administrators lobbied state legislators to add a line exempting evaluations from bargaining to state law.

The district’s lobbying efforts followed a 2018 ruling by the Florida Public Employees Relations Commission that teacher evaluations were a mandatory subject of bargaining.

But the union said OCPS has taken its interpretation of Florida statute too far and wants a judge to rule that  evaluations must be negotiated.

Clinton McCracken, the union’s president, said Vazquez was “misapplying the law” and “depriving educators” of a fair evaluation.

“We believe the district’s sweeping interpretation of the law has gone too far in stripping teachers of their rights. The Florida law does not give (Vazquez) unlimited rights and her actions violate the Florida Constitution,” McCracken said in a statement Monday. “Teachers deserve a say in the conditions that shape their careers and professional futures.”

OCPS spokesperson Michael Ollendorff said evaluations had “always been considered a management right under the law” and that the updated statute language only clarified that. He also noted that teachers previously approved a contract with those changes.

“To now file a lawsuit, two years later and after an overwhelming 95.7% vote by teachers to approve changes that would bring contracts in alignment with the law, is unfortunate,” Ollendorff said.

Article I, Section 6 of Florida’s constitution states that, “the rights of employees, by and through a labor organization, to bargain collectively shall not be denied or abridged.”