NLRB says Columbus Charter School engaged in unfair labor practices during unionization

A National Labor Relations Board judge ruled last week that a local school in the city’s northeast engaged in unfair labor practices even though the school’s teachers were unionized.

The violations took place during the 2022-2023 school year, when KIPP management threatened to freeze employees’ salaries if they organized a union and when KIPP threatened to withhold a stipend from intervention specialists if they organized a union, the NLRB said.

The judge ordered KIPP to post notices of these violations for all employees to see and to pay compensation for the workload, with interest to the response specialists.

KIPP teachers, who are affiliated with the KIPP Columbus Alliance for Charter Teachers and Staff (a bargaining body of the Ohio Federation of Teachers), are currently in contract negotiations with the school after they unionize in 2023.

Andrew Mensah, a mathematics professor at KIPP in Columbus, said the NLRB’s decision was encouraging because it confirmed what staff already knew and meant KIPP was being held accountable.

“That’s really why we organize: we want to have the opportunity to sit at the table, have a chair and make decisions, and basically create a safe community for students and for staff ; you can still thrive,” Mensah said.

More: KIPP Columbus leads “anti-union persuasion campaign”

In a statement, KIPP Columbus said that during the unionizing effort, the school “provided team members with information about the potential implications of unionizing for our work and our shared goal of building happy, academically excellent schools, where all students are ready to follow any path. . they choose.”

“We greatly appreciate our dedicated educators and are committed to negotiating in good faith,” the statement said. “In doing so, we remain focused on ensuring that any agreement benefits our students and improves their outcomes. »

Mensah said the union and government have been negotiating their contract for about a year and he is concerned the process is not moving quickly enough.

“We want to believe that KIPP is negotiating in good faith,” Mensah said. “We just want it to be more efficient.”

Teachers formed union at charter school in 2023

Last year, 67 percent of KIPP teachers voted against 33 percent to unionize with the KIPP Columbus Alliance for Charter Teachers and Staff, The Dispatch previously reported.

The union represents approximately 130 elementary, junior high, middle and high school teachers, social workers, paraprofessionals, intervention specialists and student life coordinators at KIPP under the name KIPP Columbus Alliance for Charter Teachers and Staff (KIPP Columbus ACTS).

KIPP Columbus began in 2008 as KIPP Journey Academy with 50 students in a former Columbus City Schools building in Linden and has since expanded to its current 150-acre campus at 2900 Inspire Drive, northeast of the city. This campus is home to more than 2,000 students from KIPP Columbus Elementary, KIPP Columbus Primary, KIPP Columbus Middle, KIPP Columbus High, KIPP Columbus Battelle Environmental Center, KIPP Columbus Early Learning Center, and the KIPP Athletics & Wellness Complex.

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This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: The NLRB says KIPP Columbus used unfair practices against union organizing efforts.