Participants' understandings of collaboration in the negotiation and implementation of a teachers' contract in one school district

In today's era of education reform, labor relations in school districts have moved away from an obsolete, adversarial model to one that is characterized by collaborative decisionmaking and increased opportunities for teacher leadership. In the past, collective bargaining in elementary and secondary education was often a hostile process characterized by mistrust and animosity. This has changed as a new sense of shared professionalism and a culture of collaboration have emerged in labor/management relations in education.;The purpose of this study was to analyze, through a case study of one school district, the emergence of a collaborative relationship over a period of time, and how this collaborative relationship was reflected in the negotiation and implementation of one teachers contract. Many school district is, frustrated with hostile labor relations, have made conscious decisions to adopt a collaborative approach to collective bargaining. Sometimes this has involved hiring consulting firms for training in a specific model of collaborative bargaining. However, in the district studied in this research, no decision was made to adopt a new approach to collective bargaining. Rather, collaboration in labor relations emerged through a slow process that spanned almost two decades.;The research methods employed in this case study methodology relied upon interviews as the primary source of data. Individual interviews were conducted with twenty participants involved in the collective bargaining and implementation of the teachers' contract covered in this study. Documents and archival resources provided an additional source of data.;The findings indicated that the bargaining model in this district is based upon a shared understanding of mutual trust, open communication, openness to experimentation, and problem solving based on interests. It was significant that the school committee was not actively involved in the negotiations, and the support for education in the affluent community in which this district is located. Participants in collective bargaining and contract negotiation in this district had developed informal processes for the induction of new participants, reflection and self-checks on the collaborative process. Participants regarded the school committee lawyer and teachers association negotiator as potential threats, since both were considered outsiders who did not have the same commitment to this culture of collaboration.