PACCD Statement on PERB Proposed Decision on Academic Calendar: PERB Decision Wrongly Decided and District Intends to Appeal

The Pasadena Area Community College District has reviewed the proposed decision of the state Public Employee Relations Board (PERB) administrative law judge on the issue of the PCC academic calendar.  The PACCD expresses its strong disagreement with the proposed decision as wrongly decided and insupportable.   The District believes the proposed decision ignores well-established legal precedent and misconstrues the facts of the case.

The PERB process allows for the filing of an appeal to the proposed decision and the District intends to do so.  Such an appeal will take an extended period of time.

For PCC students, registration for the spring semester that begins on January 13, 2013, will continue as usual.  Spring registration is now more than 70% complete.  The District anticipates maintaining the current academic calendar pending appeal.

The PACCD has made many proposals to the PCC Faculty Association at the negotiating table to resolve the dispute over the academic calendar.  The facts are that the vast majority of California community colleges—87 of 112—do not have a winter intersession.  The recently released data on PCC student persistence and completion since the adoption of the three-term calendar also showed marked improvement.  From the outset, one fundamental problem for students created by the creation of the winter intersession in 2003 is that the number of weeks in the spring semester was reduced from 17 to 16 without also reducing the number of seat-time hours from 54 to 48.  This created a logjam of overlapping course start times that still makes it very difficult for students to obtain a full and convenient course schedule.  The facts are that during the ten years of the winter intersession, the state Chancellor’s Scorecard showed that most PCC student success outcomes declined, especially for historically underrepresented students.

All of these issues related to the academic calendar have been before the District and the PCCFA at the negotiating table for over nineteen months.  The District strongly believes, and has believed from the beginning, that the issue of the academic calendar is a matter for negotiation and not the law courts.  On November 6, 2013, the District made another new contract proposal to the PCCFA.  To date the District has received no response or offer to negotiate.

The District has always been open to negotiating on all matters related to a new collective bargaining agreement, including the academic calendar.  The PACCD urges the PCCFA to return to the negotiating table to conclude a new contract agreement, including the resolution of the academic calendar, for the good of all faculty, students and the college.