Cumberland County teachers have voted overwhelmingly for Cumberland County Education Association to be the negotiating team for an upcoming collaborative conferencing.
Cumberland County’s teachers will have the opportunity to decide if they want to use collaborative conferencing to develop a new agreement with the school system.
Dec 31, 2020
Teachers and administrators will begin work on a new professional employee Memorandum of Understanding in January.
Tennessee established the collaborative conferencing process in 2011 following changes in state law regarding teacher contract negotiations.Â
At the time, the board and the Cumberland County Education Association were in the middle of a negotiated contract, which expired in August 2013.
Collaborative conferencing is the process where the chairman of the board of education and the professional employees, or designated representatives, meet to confer, consult, discuss, exchange information, opinions and proposals related to terms and conditions of professional services using the principals of âinterest-based collaborative problem solving.â That term is not defined in the law, but Tennessee Department of Education guidance points towards a process where the parties discuss areas of concern in a non-adversarial manner.