A former Long Beach Unified superintendent is pushing a potentially controversial idea for the state to speed up school reopenings by taking control of labor negotiations between local districts and their employees.

In an article published Thursday on the education news site EdSource, ex-superintendent Carl Cohn argued that Gov. Gavin Newsom should bargain directly with statewide unions for teachers and classified staff, simplifying a tangled process of reopenings across the state that currently involves individual districts negotiating with their employees unions.

That would mean temporarily suspending local collective bargaining, a radical step, but one that’s needed, Cohn argued.

“Schools aren’t going to reopen anytime soon across the state if the details and agreements on in-person instruction have to be reached through local collective bargaining agreements and memoranda of understanding in more than 1,000 school districts,” he wrote.

The local teachers union, Teachers Association of Long Beach, didn’t immediately respond to questions about their thoughts on Cohn’s plan.

The LBUSD has previously said it’s had productive negotiations with TALB and its other unions about reopening requirements, but no final agreements have been inked.

Cohn was known for pushing the envelope during his time running the LBUSD from 1992 to 2002, and he’s apparently continuing that trend in retirement.

A native of Central Long Beach, Cohn said he wrote the piece because of a deep-seated worry about the health and safety of California’s children, not just the widely-documented challenges of distance learning. He cited the recent shooting deaths of three teenagers in Compton as well as 14-year-old Arthur Touch in Long Beach. He also pointed to a steep drop in reports of child abuse becuase teachers aren’t in the classroom where they can notice signs of a dangerous home life.

“We’re running the risk of losing a whole bunch of kids that we all care about, whether it’s through depression, gang violence, domestic abuse, or child abuse,” Cohn said in an interview with the Post. “I’m not suggesting that you put the health of teachers or other people who work in schools at risk, but we’ve got to find some common ground among the adults to find the will and the way to get schools open again.”

Cohn still volunteers in the classroom in North Long Beach’s Colin Powell Academy. In addition to running the LBUSD, he also previously worked as superintendent of San Diego Unified and was the executive director of the California Collaborative for Educational Excellence.

Cohn said he consulted with an education lawyer before penning his EdSource column and was told that the governor has “extraordinary and expansive” power to take dramatic steps in the middle of a health crisis.

In the piece, he emphasized that several of the steps taken during his tenure in the LBUSD were also seen as radical ideas at the time they were implemented.

“I remember back in the ‘90s working with the Long Beach school board on improvements that were designed to improve the school system in a community that was threatened by economic collapse and permanent gang warfare,” he wrote. “We were often met with, ‘you can’t do that in the public schools.’

“Whether it was required school uniforms, single-gender instruction or ending social promotion, the constant refrain was that we could not do any of those things in the public schools. It turns out that we could, and we did and—as they say—the rest is history, with Long Beach ultimately winning the Broad Prize as the best urban school system in America.”

Cohn’s EdSource column dovetails with the objections recently made by superintendents in seven of the state’s largest school districts who wrote a letter criticizing Newsom’s school reopening plan. Current LBUSD superintendent Jill Baker was one of the signatories of the letter, which warned that underserved students would be left behind under the governor’s proposal.

Like Cohn, the superintendents urged the state to take more control and mandate that districts reopen once local coronavirus infections subside to a manageable level.

“Once the state COVID standards for safety are met, schools then should be required to be open for in-person instruction,” the letter says. “No local stakeholder—whether a superintendent, school board, labor partner or community organization—should have an effective veto over the reopening of classrooms.”

While superintendents have not openly called for Newsom to take over bargaining with the statewide unions, some have signaled they want Newsom’s administration to take on more of a leadership role in the conversations.

After Cohn’s article published, Paul Meyers, the superintendent of the Bakersfield-area Standard School District, tweeted, “Carl, thank you for saying what many superintendents are feeling across the state!”

Cohn said he penned the column in the hopes of pushing forward the conversation about school reopenings.

“A lot of people feel like Newsom is just flailing,” Cohn said. “… You have to take some chances and I don’t think he’s doing that.”