By Larry Lannan
When solving disputes, personal relationships often make a difference. The Hamilton Southeastern School Corporation teachers have a new two-year contract and both sides credit an important personal relationship with allowing that to happen.
Hamilton Southeastern Education Association President Janet Chandler and HSE Schools’ Chief Financial Officer Mike Reuter have bargained a number of contracts in the past and headed up their respective bargaining teams this cycle. If you ask each of them, they both point to the level of trust developed over the years as a major factor in getting the latest deal done.
Just look next door to Carmel. The school board and teachers are often at loggerheads. Situations such as Carmel moved the Indiana General Assembly to dictate deadlines and fact-finding decisions if no agreement is reached by a deadline specified in law
In the HSE school system, both sides were upset with the new law not because it provides deadlines, but because it didn’t allow bargaining to start until the first day in August. They wanted to start the negotiations much earlier.
Both the teachers’ union and the administration had several people on each bargaining team, but the relationship between the people heading up each team, and their experience in hammering out contract language in the past, allowed both sides to agree far ahead of any legal deadline.
If you talk to Mike Reuter, he credits Janet Chandler with developing a level of trust allowing for an open, problem solving bargaining process. Janet Chandler points to Mike Reuter’s command of the numbers and how his numbers are believable for both sides.
Even with the collegial atmosphere, one thing is clear in talking with both sides. Mike Reuter is an able spokesman for the school corporation’s interests. Janet Chandler is a very forceful advocate for the interests of teachers in the school district.
Yet they both understand it is in the interest of teachers, the students and the school corporation to reach an agreement based on what’s best for the local community. Otherwise, a third party fact finder would be making the decision for them.
The experience and efforts of people like Janet Chandler and Mike Reuter help make the Hamilton Southeastern Schools the pride of the Fishers community. Ask anyone outside the community and often the first comment they make about Fishers is the quality of the local schools.
I have one question to ask. Is anyone in Washington DC watching how we solve problems in Fishers?