Broward County Public Schools (BCPS) and the Federation of Public Employees (FOPE) have been diligently working on a joint initiative to identify and train hundreds of employees throughout the District who perform facilities work at school and District office locations. Employees were required to attend safety classes such as Lockout/Tagout; Asbestos Awareness and a series of specific courses, which are necessary to perform their job duties safely and accurately. The District's Employee Relations Department led the strategic effort to implement a plan after reaching an agreement with the FOPE on October 19, 2012.

A collaboration of District representatives that included Employee Relations (Amanda Bailey, Lerenzo Calhoun, Susan Cooper and Yatzie Brown); Talent Development (Terrance Johnson, Alex Macri and Claudia Ranger); Non-Instructional Staffing (Vicky Kaufman, Mario Mallett and Sylvia Williams) and FOPE representative, Roy Jarrett, worked on plans to notify and assist employees, some of whom had not met course requirements for several years.

Meetings were held to provide an opportunity for more than 300 employees to be notified of outstanding classes; to register for available classes; to provide verification of completed coursework; or accept a different position that did not require this coursework. For employees who are not native English language speakers, employees were reminded of available resources to attend ESOL classes offered both in person and online by the Talent Development team.

"We wanted to implement a strategic plan to provide every opportunity possible to assist our employees to complete required coursework to help them successfully perform their job duties," said Superintendent Robert W. Runcie. "We also wanted to engage our employees together with the FOPE and ensure that our employees understood the safety risks of performing their jobs every day without learning how to prevent safety risks to themselves and others at their work locations."

Employees who do not successfully complete required coursework by June 30, 2013 will be identified for layoff for the 2013-14 school year. Employees will be eligible for rehire once the coursework is successfully completed.

The priority for this joint initiative was to immediately respond to the safety of all students and employees at each location, since a majority of work performed by these employees regularly requires mixing toxic chemical cleaning solutions and operating heavy machinery to strip and wax floors.

For more information relating to this initiative and the agreement terms, please contact Employee Relations (Lerenzo Calhoun or Susan Cooper at 754-321-2140). For questions to verify class attendance or verify class availability, please contact Talent Development (Terrance Johnson at 754 321-5050). For questions regarding employment status (i.e., layoff, recall, and mandatory training), please contact Non-Instructional Staffing (Sylvia Williams at 754- 321-8121).

Information Points

• October 2012 – approximately eight hundred and eighty (880) facility service staff employees were identified to complete outstanding coursework required to perform their job duties.
• October 19, 2012 – BCPS and FOPE reached an agreement on the terms of employment conditions for employees in need of completing required coursework.
• October 22, 2012 - Employees were provided an initial notice regarding the need to complete required coursework.
• April 10-12, 2013 – BCPS and the FOPE implemented an action plan to meet with over 300 employees who were neither registered for nor completed required classes.
• Coursework provides safety guidelines to employees when performing their jobs such as the proper use of heavy machinery, the utilization of toxic chemicals, identification of hazardous materials, and the appropriate procedures for handling equipment in need of repair.

An update of affected employees is listed below:
o Ninety-eight (98) employees remain outstanding to complete required coursework.
o Sixty-seven (67) employees are pending completion of one or more of the required course(s) in order to maintain active employment with BCPS.
o Thirty-one (31) employees have either not registered or successfully completed any of the required course(s) and face the possibility of layoff.

Employees who have not completed coursework shall be placed on layoff, effective June 30, 2013, but will still be eligible to register for required coursework. Once the required coursework has been completed, any eligible employee shall have recall rights to be rehired with BCPS for one year.