11th anniversary book 114 FINAL online - Flipbook - Page 38
Our 2010-2011 enrollment was as follows:
We hired additional instructional and support staff to support the increased enrollment.
We had a challenging year internally and ultimately let some staff go who were not fulfilling their obligations
to the students or to the school, including administrators. The repercussions of this were significant.
We had to recoup funds from former administrators who overpaid themselves. This lead to restructuring and
we created an avenue for the Business Office to report directly to the Board of Trustees.
The termination of Evergreen’s administrator resulted in the formation of a union at Evergreen. Ironically,
this same union was the one that continually voted against raises for charter schools in Albany every year.
This was a new process for Evergreen and it’s Board. While contract negotiations were underway, that took
several years, no changes could be made to staff salaries, benefits, policies or related matters. This impacted
Evergreen’s ability to retain staff and to make the changes it felt were necessary for the school’s growth and
improvement.
Before the arrival of the union, Evergreen had granted teachers raises for its first two years of operations.
Additionally, it had historically valued the input of teachers to share ideas about how to improve the school,
holding meetings for this purpose.
A staff member filed a suit at the Public Employee Relations Board, PERB, about unlawful termination. A
protest was held outside the school. Staff and parents were divided. While the litigation took over a year
to resolve, eventually going to trial, Evergreen prevailed and was vindicated. The teacher was found to be
lawfully terminated for neglecting her duties to provide services for our special education students.
Evergreen Charter School staff ultimately decertified the union some years later.
Evergreen’s Board and administration were certainly challenged during this time.
2011
Additional Funding for Center Construction
Sarah Brewster and Gil Bernardino continued to work to obtain funding to build out the Center. Once again
in 2011, as mentioned before, Gil and Sarah were successful in securing additional funds in Community
Development Block Grants from Nassau County with the support of County Executive, Ed Mangano and the
Town of Hempstead Supervisor, Kate Murray to finish construction on classrooms. With these funds, Círculo
was able to complete additional areas within the facility.
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