“It’s spring time. It’s negotiations time. It’s time to show the teachers the respect they deserve.”
Those were just a few of the words expressed by Morgan Hill Federation of Teachers President Gemma Abels, directed to the Morgan Hill Unified School District’s leadership and board of education during her statement at the April 5 school board meeting.
The teachers union and district “sunshined” (brought to light for the public) their contract openers with separate public hearings in March, and have started “negotiating modifications of the (certain) articles” of their agreement that runs through 2018.
The MHFT listed eight articles it seeks to modify, including Article 4—compensation “to improve basic salary schedule in order to attract and maintain high quality teachers, nurses and librarians in our district and to improve the process for column movement on the salary schedule.”
In June 2015, MHFT and MHUSD negotiated a 3-year deal (approved by a 6-0 board vote) that included a 5 percent pay raise, which increased a first-year teacher’s salary to $50,365.35 for the 2015-16 school year.
While MHUSD’s starting 2015-16 salary was more than neighboring Gilroy Unified School District ($49,748 first year), it was lower than other local school districts in Santa Clara County such as San Jose Unified ($53,358), Eastside Union ($54,131) and Los Gatos Union ($55,053).
“The Local Control Funding Formula has improved the district’s financial outlook, but Morgan Hill remains one of the lowest funded districts in the county,” reads MHFT’s March 1 letter. “Continuing to improve working conditions and compensation will show our members that the Morgan Hill Unified School District values their employees who work directly with students and families.”
Abels, a high school English teacher who was recently honored by the California Federation of Teachers with a 2016 Women in Education Award, was demonstrative in her sentiments about increasing wages for teachers in the district.
“The district advertises its credit rating and reserve as proof of its financial stability. If the district’s top priority is serving families and educating children, its focus would also be the employees’ stability,” Abels continued. “If you want to show respect for teachers, you need to pay them enough to have their own financial stability and you need to pay them enough so families in this district and students in this district have a stable teaching force.”
In November 2015, Moody’s credit rating agency, an independent source of credit risk evaluation, upgraded MHUSD’’s credit rating from Aa2 to Aa1. That upgrade placed MHUSD into an elite group of less than 10 percent of California school districts rated by Moody’s.
In the district’s opening letter under “Compensation,” its stated interest was “to provide fair compensation improvements to the basic salary schedule.”
Other articles open for negotiation this spring are: Federation Rights, Hours of Employment, Leaves, Class Size, Preschool Teachers, Teacher Support and Contract Exceptions.
“We’ve been lucky in Morgan Hill in recent years because we’ve been able to fund many initiatives that made significant changes in education for our students and our teachers,” Abels said. “The Morgan Hill Federation has shown its commitment to the district by doing what is needed to keep this school district financially solvent. MHUSD needs to show its respect for these teachers by doing what is needed by keeping every teacher financially solvent, also.”
