BUFFALO, N.Y. — At the end of the 2017 school year, the Buffalo Teachers Federation and the school district agreed on a one-year trial for submitting teacher transfers. It included requiring electronic form submissions using an online portal, and teachers meeting with principals at “open houses.” This would all finish with “transfer days,” where teachers found out their new assignments.

When it was all said and done, the teachers union submitted a laundry list of problems they had with the new method.

"We've been working with the district since June to have the problems corrected, each time they've come to us and said, ‘let's do it again, let's do it again’ I say, ‘no not until the problems are corrected,’" said BTF President Phil Rumore. 

He says despite not having an agreement to use the method again, the district has accepted electronic submissions and held the open houses.

He says both are a violation of the teacher contract, and if the union files a grievance and wins, the district will have to re-do the transfers even if it’s in the middle of the school year.

"These people are all in place and then they will have been found to violated the contract and the only way to cure that is to have the teacher get the position they were supposed to in the first place," said Rumore. 

Jamie Warren, an associate superintendent with the district, says she’s attempted to resolve the BTF's issues with the process. She says the open houses and electronic submissions are now voluntary, which is not a violation of the contract.

"If they sent it via fax, via email, if they hand walked the document in or via mail, I accepted any manner that any teacher submitted a transfer request. The portal was an enhancement to use an online system instead of bringing a letter here," said Warren. 

But without the union’s permission, Warren cannot host the “transfer days” that allows for transfers to be streamlined over the course of a couple of days opposed to a couple of months.

"We will go backward, because I'll have to adhere to the contract language, we'll go backward to making individual phone calls to teachers where they'll have four days to make a decision which takes our children back to not knowing their assignment at the end of the year, our teachers not knowing their assignments," she said. 

Warren says the BTF has rejected her requests for a face-to-face meeting.