In the Classroom
What Birmingham Public Schools has promised teachers in their classrooms, how those promises connect to the way teachers are evaluated, and why classroom conditions are the upstream lever for student learning and safety.
PAACT believes the classroom is where student outcomes are made or lost, and that the conditions a teacher can hold in a room shape what every student in it receives.
Many of those conditions are already in writing. The agreement between Birmingham Public Schools and the Birmingham Education Association is a public document, and it sets out what teachers are owed in class size, discipline support, and safety. This page lays out those commitments in plain terms, shows how they connect to teacher evaluations, and explains why parents have a stake in whether they are met.
Teacher working conditions are student learning conditions
When a class is sized so a teacher can reach each student, when a teacher who sends a disruptive student out for help gets real backing, when a teacher who is threatened gets a genuine safety response, the whole class benefits. When those things break down, every student in the room absorbs the cost in lost instruction, divided attention, and a less safe space to learn.
PAACT's view is that supporting teachers is not separate from helping students. It is the same goal, addressed one step upstream. Get the classroom right and the student outcomes follow.
What teachers are owed in their classrooms
Several articles of the BEA-BPS agreement describe what a teacher should be able to count on. Below are the ones that matter most for what students experience day to day.
Class size Article IX
The contract sets class size maximums and the points at which the district is to provide relief. These are the district's own stated limits, not an outside benchmark.
| Grade | Class size maximum | Relief provided at |
|---|---|---|
| Junior Kindergarten | 18 | 17 |
| Kindergarten | 28 | 27 |
| Grade 1 | 28 | 27 |
| Grade 2 | 29 | 28 |
| Grade 3 | 30 | 29 |
| Grade 4 | 31 | 30 |
| Grade 5 | 31 | 30 |
| Middle & high (most classes) | 35 | 33 |
Middle and high school teachers are also capped at 160 total student contacts per day. When a class runs over the limit, the contract lists relief options that range from balancing sections and adding staff to compensating the teacher per student.
Discipline support Article XIV
The contract states that the district recognizes its responsibility to give teachers reasonable support and assistance in maintaining control and discipline. When a student's severe behavior is keeping the rest of the class from learning, the district commits to taking reasonable steps to help the teacher resolve it.
It also addresses what happens when a teacher's judgment is overruled. If a teacher's recommended disciplinary action is reversed, the teacher is to be consulted on the final outcome, with a real chance to offer alternatives and have them considered.
Safety and response to assault Article XIV
If a teacher is physically or verbally assaulted while doing their job, the contract requires prompt reporting, access to legal counsel, and immediate removal of the student from the teacher's classroom or caseload. It calls for a threat assessment that includes the teacher's own input. If the student is to remain, the district is to work with the teacher to build a written safety, intervention, or restorative plan with procedures for the teacher's protection.
Job protection Articles VI & VII
Teachers are covered by just cause discipline and by tenure, seniority, and recall rights. A teacher cannot be removed without cause. Separately, a public employee who associates with a parent group on their own time is exercising protected activity. A teacher does not lose these protections by supporting school improvement work.
Conditions and evaluations are two halves of one system
Teachers are evaluated under Article VIII on a scale that runs from highly effective to needing support, with consequences that can reach an individual development plan and, over time, job security. The conditions in Articles IX and XIV are what make good outcomes possible in the first place.
A teacher graded on classroom results is depending on the district to deliver the class sizes, the discipline backing, and the safety response it promised. When those are missing, a teacher can end up measured on a foundation the district did not provide.
The contract already accepts this logic in one place. Under Article XIII, a teacher's compliance with the district's pacing guide cannot be used in their evaluation. The principle is in writing, in the district's own agreement: teachers are not to be judged on things outside their control. PAACT's interest is in seeing that principle applied consistently across everything a classroom depends on.
The classroom is the upstream fix
Two more parts of the district's own system run straight through the classroom.
First, the Code of Conduct asks administrators to weigh seven restorative factors before imposing discipline, and one of them is a student's disciplinary history. That history only exists if classroom incidents are recorded consistently. When documentation is uneven, a repeated pattern can be treated as a first incident, which weakens both accountability and the support a struggling student may actually need.
Second, class size, discipline backing, and a safe room all feed directly into how much learning happens for the other students present. A classroom that supports the teacher is a classroom that protects instructional time for everyone in it. Supporting the teacher is how the district reaches the student.
Questions worth asking
These are the questions that connect the district's written commitments to what is actually happening in our buildings. PAACT raises them as open questions, because the answers are where the real picture lives.
- Are class sizes in our buildings within the limits the contract sets, and what relief is provided when they are not?
- When a teacher sends a student out for serious disruption, what backing does the teacher actually receive?
- How are classroom incidents documented, and does that record follow a student so the restorative factors can be weighed accurately?
- When a teacher is threatened or assaulted, is the contract's safety process followed and the teacher's input included?
- Are teachers ever evaluated on outcomes shaped by conditions the district did not provide?
A partner, not an opponent
PAACT raises this work as a partner. Every standard on this page is the district's own, written into its agreement with its teachers. PAACT's aim is to help the district meet the commitments it has already made, because classrooms that work for teachers are classrooms that work for students.