2010 Tennessee Code
Title 49 - Education
Chapter 5 - Personnel
Part 6 - Education Professional Negotiations Act
49-5-601 - Short title Statement of purpose.

49-5-601. Short title Statement of purpose.

(a)  This part shall be known and may be cited as the “Education Professional Negotiations Act.”

(b)  (1)  It is the purpose of this part to prescribe the legitimate rights and obligations of boards of education and their professional employees and to establish procedures governing relationships between them that are designed to meet the special requirements and needs of public education.

     (2)  Boards of education and their professional employees have an obligation to the public to exert their full and continuing efforts to achieve the highest possible education standards in the institutions that they serve. This requires establishment and maintenance of an educational climate and working environment that will attract and retain a highly qualified professional staff and stimulate optimum performance by the staff.

     (3)  Experience has shown that boards of education and their professional employees can best reach these objectives if each utilizes the ability, experience and judgment of the other in formulating policies and making decisions that involve terms and conditions of professional service and other matters of mutual concern. It is the purpose and policy of this part, in order to protect the rights of individual employees in their relations with boards of education, and to protect the rights of the boards of education and the public in connection with employer-employee disputes affecting education, to recognize the rights of professional employees of boards of education to form, join and assist professional employee organizations to meet, confer, consult and negotiate with boards of education over matters relating to terms and conditions of professional service and other matters of mutual concern through representatives of their own choosing, to engage in other activities for the purpose of establishing, maintaining, protecting and improving educational standards and to establish procedures that will facilitate and encourage amicable settlements of disputes.

     (4)  The terms and conditions of professional service or working conditions of professional employees are those fundamental matters that affect a professional employee financially or the employee's employment relationship with the board of education. While a board of education is not required to agree or concede to any proposal, good faith negotiations of terms and conditions of employment or working conditions of employees shall be undertaken; provided, that no proposal may directly prevent the director of schools from transferring faculty and staff to address performance and accountability deficiencies as identified by state accountability standards. Basic education policy shall not be a mandatory subject of negotiations. “Basic education policy” is defined to include such things as the content of the curriculum, teaching strategies, class offerings, student placement and other things related to the policy's effect on the school system's overall ability to meet and maintain the state's student performance standards.

     (5)  Notwithstanding other provisions of this title to the contrary, directors of schools shall have the ultimate right to transfer all professional employees subject only to §§ 49-2-303 and 49-5-510. Nothing in this section shall be construed to make transfers or assignments mandatory subjects of negotiations.

     (6)  Notwithstanding any other provision to the contrary, nothing in subdivisions (b)(4)-(6) shall be construed to prevent a board of education or professional employee organization from engaging the services of qualified individuals for purposes of advice and consultation during the negotiations process. No such individual may directly serve as a negotiator as defined in § 49-5-602.

[Acts 1978, ch. 570, §§ 1, 2; T.C.A., § 49-5501; Acts 2002, ch. 683, § 1.]