§ 1981. Definitions

As used in this chapter unless the context requires otherwise:

(1) “Administrator” means any person so licensed by the Vermont Standards Board for professional educators, the majority of whose employed time in a school or a school district is devoted to serving as superintendent, assistant superintendent, assistant to the superintendent, supervisor, principal, or assistant principal.

(2) “Professional negotiations” means the meeting, conferring, consulting, discussing, and negotiating in good faith between a school board negotiations council and a teachers’ organization negotiations council or an administrators’ organization negotiations council to reach agreement.

(3) “School board” means the board of school directors of a school district or its equivalent in any independent elementary or secondary school.

(4) “School district” means any public school district or any independent elementary or secondary school within the State that directly or indirectly receives support from public funds.

(5) “Teacher” means any person licensed employable as a teacher by the Vermont Standards Board for Professional Educators who is not an administrator as defined in this section.

(6) A “teachers’ organization” or an “administrators’ organization” means an organization, committee, council, group, or separate unit thereof in which teachers or administrators participate and that exists, in whole or in part, for the purpose of professional negotiation.

(7) “Agency fee” means a fee deducted by an employer from the salary or wages of an employee who is not a member of an employee organization, which is paid to the employee organization that is the exclusive bargaining agent for the bargaining unit of the employee. The agency fee shall not exceed 85 percent of the amount payable as dues by members of the employee organization and shall be deducted in the same manner as dues are deducted from the salary or wages of members of the employee organization and shall be used to defray the costs of chargeable activities.

(8) “School board negotiations council” means, for a supervisory district, its school board, and, for school districts within a supervisory union, the body comprising representatives designated by each school board within the supervisory union and by the supervisory union board to engage in professional negotiations with a teachers’ or administrators’ organization.

(9) “Teachers’ organization negotiations council” or “administrators’ organization negotiations council” means the body comprising representatives designated by each teachers’ organization or administrators’ organization within a supervisory district or supervisory union to act as its representative for professional negotiations. (Added 1969, No. 127, § 2, eff. Sept. 1, 1969; amended 1989, No. 118, § 3; 1991, No. 24, § 11; 2005, No. 25, § 1; 2005, No. 214 (Adj. Sess.), § 4; eff. July 1, 2007; 2007, No. 82, § 29; 2009, No. 153 (Adj. Sess.), § 13; 2013, No. 37, § 10; 2013, No. 56, § 24, eff. May 30, 2013; 2013, No. 92 (Adj. Sess.), § 304, eff. Feb. 14, 2014; 2017, No. 74, § 22; 2019, No. 131 (Adj. Sess.), § 89.)