Public School teacher representative Ambrose Bennett said he intends to stop attending general board meetings until the board has decided on his longstanding petition for a teachers\u2019 collective bargaining agreement.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve put it forward since April but the board has not made any decision on it. It formed an ad hoc committee but I don\u2019t think they\u2019ve met and made any decision. We need to have either a yes or no answer from the board,\u201d said Bennett yesterday.<\/p>\n
He said attending the board meetings without the board\u2019s recognition of the teachers\u2019 right to bargain would be \u201cuseless.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIt makes no sense to me to attend meetings when I\u2019m not part of the process\u2026 I don\u2019t plan on attending any general meeting where issues are finalized by a vote that I don\u2019t have because it\u2019s a waste of my time, gas, and efforts,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Besides, he said it is not fair to his students, fellow teachers, and principal \u201cfor me to attend BOE functions without a substitute being provided by BOE.\u201d<\/p>\n
Bennett said he would just allow individual school teacher representatives to pursue recognition agreement for teachers.<\/p>\n
He said he \u201cis caught in the middle,\u201d noting that he could only help BOE or teachers when an agreement is reached, \u201cwhich is why I have chosen to step [aside] and let the school level representatives pursue it.\u201d<\/p>\n
When reached for comment, BOE chair Roman C. Benavente said not attending board meetings is Bennett\u2019s choice.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe can\u2019t force him to attend. It\u2019s his choice,\u201d Benavente said, but he warned that such action would be a disservice to teachers he represents.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019d be misrepresenting the teachers,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Benavente said that the ad hoc committee, which he formed a few months ago, has yet to submit a report to him on the matter.<\/p>\n
\u201cNothing has been brought to my attention. We\u2019ll address it when time permits,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
The board chair said that Bennett should remember that by law, his position is a non-voting member of the board.<\/p>\n
Benavente earlier appointed board member Marja Lee Taitano to head the ad hoc committee to tackle teachers\u2019 exclusive bargaining agreement. Other members include Frances Diaz and Herman T. Guerrero. <\/p>\n
Bennett has insisted that CNMI teachers have the right to collective bargaining under federal and local laws. By law, he said the board \u201chas no options and cannot refuse recognition nor dictate the type of representation for teachers.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIt would be prudent and in the best interest of all the stakeholders for BOE to act in \u2018good faith\u2019 through a collaborative effort to reach an agreement on the issue,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Public School teacher representative Ambrose Bennett said he intends to stop attending general board meetings until the board has decided on his longstanding petition for a teachers\u2019 collective bargaining agreement.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-83426","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-local-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/83426","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=83426"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/83426\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=83426"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=83426"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=83426"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}