Grievances are important because we must enforce our negotiated contract. From a negotiations perspective, there really is no need to negotiate changes to our contract if our members are not willing to enforce that contract.

If you feel that there is a contract violation happening on your school site, it is important to quickly discuss your concerns with an LEA Site Representative. Grievances must be filed (informal oral) within thirty (30) days of knowledge of its occurance. Check out the grievance packet and current contractual agreement to help answer some of your questions.

Ideally, a member who feels a grievance is in order will discuss the matter with their school site representative before meeting with the site administrator. The site rep will be able to consult with the LEA Rep-At-Large for their level or division if needed. After deciding that a grievance needs to be filed, the site rep or member involved will schedule a grievance meeting with their site administrator. At that meeting, it is important to state that the meeting is to informally discuss the situation and try to resolve the matter. The principal has five days to respond (usually verbally) and if the grievant (or Association) is not satisfied with that outcome, they can file a written, Level I Grievance with that same site administrator within ten days.

Within five days of filing the Level I Grievance, the principal must respond in writing or can refuse to respond. If the response is not acceptable or no response is made, the grievant (or Association) has ten days to file a written, Level II Grievance with the Superintendent's Designee (currently the Director of Human Resources).

Within five days of filing the Level II Grievance, the Superintendent's Designee must meet with an Association Representative and respond within another five days of that meeting. If the response is not acceptable or no response is made, the grievant (or Association) may ask the Grievance Committee to review it and file a Level III Grievance with a state arbitrator. This initiates the arbitration process which will result in an arbitration hearing and a binding decision by the arbitrator that both sides must abide by.

Our Grievance Committee meets on an as-needed basis to discuss and evaluate grievances happening in the District. Our Greivance Chairperson is Elise Allen and LEA has designated Greivance Reps to assist the Site Reps in handling the grievances.