After a yearlong battle, the teachers union has a ratified and
board-approved contract that includes a furlough equivalent that
will save the kindergarten class size reduction program.
After a yearlong battle, the teachers union has a ratified and board-approved contract that includes a furlough equivalent that will save the kindergarten class size reduction program.
“We’re relieved,” Federation President Donna Ruebusch said. “It’s a very long process, and we had been hopeful that we could have finished sooner.”
The district’s 430 teachers have spent almost the entire 2008/09 school year working under a contract that expired in June. Negotiations began in September, and frustrated teachers have complained that district officials aren’t negotiating in good faith, don’t respect them and have stonewalled their efforts to negotiate.
The teachers will not take a single day off, but will instead partake in five fewer hours of staff development for a savings of about $177,000, Ruebusch said. This savings will be put towards the kindergarten class size reduction program. In April, the Board of Trustees approved elimination of the program in an effort to save $260,000 by laying off eight probationary teachers. Since Tuesday, those teachers have had their layoff notices rescinded, Assistant Superintendent of Human Resources Jay Totter said.
The new union contract now has added language specifying the district’s responsibility to provide packing materials to teachers who are involuntarily transferred after the school year begins, and other measures that will make such moves more seamless for teachers and students.
The district and the union continue to work on bringing teacher evaluations to the state standard.
The contract rift reached its peak in November, when more than 100 teachers picketed in front of the district office before a Board of Trustees meeting. Dozens of teachers approached the board throughout the school year, urging board members to get involved and push school district staff to settle.
In the end, Ruebusch said she thought trustees’ involvement made a difference in getting the contract finally settled.
“We began to see some more active involvement by the school board and we were able to reach an agreement,” she said.
One issue has not been settled via contract negotiations, though. Federation officials say a Public Employee Relations Board hearing has been set for June 10 to discuss an unfair labor practice complaint the federation filed last April. Federation officials said they agreed to put the complaint on hold in hopes of settling the dispute during contract negotiations, which was the district’s desire.
However, Totter said the district was unable to negotiate the items.
“The district did not agree with the proposals on the table. Fundamentally, they didn’t change their proposals from last spring,” Totter said, repeating an oft-repeated district statement that the union originally submitted seven complaints to the relations board, three of which union officials removed and two of which were found to have no merit by the board.
Union officials’ standard defense to this statement is that these seven were the first complaints filed by the union in decades.
The contract runs from July 1, 2008 through June 30, 2011. No raises were granted and a provision was added to restrict the number of years of prior experience that count toward the salary schedule, which will result in a savings to the district’s general fund, Totter said.
