Know Your Rights

Download the printable version of this text.
Also see this handy guide to PPLCs and PPCs.

The PPC and the PPLC are vitally important committees that should operate in each CPS school. PPC stands for Professional Problems Committee and PPLC stands for Professional Personnel Leadership Committee.

The PPC

This committee is mandated by our contract. Its role is stronger in the new agreement.

Each school shall establish a Professional Problems Committee to discuss school operations, contract enforcement issues and any new BOARD instructional program or joint BOARD-UNION initiative prior to or at the time of its implementation at the local school level.

Its chairperson is the school’s head teacher delegate. There can be between three (3) and five (5) members, including PSRPs, elected by the faculty. The committee members’ names must be submitted to the principal within 48 hours of their election. The PPC should meet at least monthly. Each party should submit agenda items 48 hours before the meeting. The PPC’s purpose is to give the staff and the principal a chance to discuss and resolve issues about implementing the contract in the school. The committee also oversees implementation of new CPS instructional programs at the school level. Both teachers and the principals can bring in resource people to discuss particular agenda points where they have expertise.

The PPC can be an excellent way of resolving potential grievances in an informal way. The PPC’s new added muscle allows it to discuss and resolve potential grievances. The PPC also gives its members an opportunity to get information, which they can then disseminate to the faculty as a whole either in writing, on the CTU bulletin board, by e-mail, or at monthly union meetings. It is also a way of bringing concerns of the faculty to administration’s attention on a collective basis, making it harder for administrators to single out individuals as ‘complainers.’

The PPLC

This committee was established by Illinois State Law. In recent years, we have seen efforts by the Board to usurp the PPLC’s duties with an Instructional Leadership Team that they appoint rather than the PPLC, which we elect. We have a legal right to a PPLC and we should elect one annually. It consists of the two teacher representatives on the LSC and up to seven members elected to represent certificated staff. The PPLC’s responsibilities include reviewing and providing input for the Continuous Improvement Work Plan (CIWP). It is also supposed to help develop an expenditure plan for the school’s lump sum allocation from CPS. The principal is responsible for developing the discretionary budget in consultation with the PPLC and the LSC at your school.

The PPLC is also supposed to make recommendations to the principal regarding curriculum content and methods and the committee should meet monthly with the principal and make regular reports to the Local School Council.

Let’s set up these committees and get busy. They are vehicles for us to have a voice in what goes on in our buildings. They can only work if we make them work!