First Class Reflection May 9

It was very eye opening to see how much work goes into preparing for a contract negotiation. The work up front (ground rules) seems to be the major piece that will help the negotiation process go smoothly. Thinking about who should be there, what should be researched before, and even where to meet are all very important, but at least in my experience in my district, seems to be a piece that was not handled correctly. My guess is that if the ground rules were set in the proper time frame (1 year out) we wouldn't have taken 9 months past the expiration date of the old contract to ratify. I also learned quite a bit about IBB, and I believe that philosophy and training should be one that I learn more about.