On the evening of Tuesday the 15th, REA members once again showed up in full force, carrying signs and reminding the District that we are united and demand a fair contract! Thank you for your support and lending your voice to the growing chorus!
The District presented their counter on Article 17: Substitute and Student Teachers, offering language seeking to clarify our concerns about members being assigned to sub (such as the amount of hours one can be asked to sub per week, long-term subbing in specialized classrooms, and not holding members accountable for job expectations beyond their control when asked to sub.) After a caucus, REA brought back even clearer language protecting our members, limiting most members to two days of subbing per week and limiting long-term subbing assignments to 15 days (rather than the District’s ask of 30 days). The district agreed with our language, making this a huge win!
REA brought our own financial package of counters to Article 22: Compensation, Article 23: Fringe Benefits, and Article 27: Class Size and Caseload. 
In response to the district’s offer of a COLA increase of 5%, 3%, 2% over three years, we countered with 7%, 9%, 8% over three years. We reminded the district that their offer fails to keep up with inflation and instead is a step backwards for our members. It’s important to note that in addition to the COLA increase, we are proposing a normalization of the salary schedule, which would create an average increase of 3.4% to our salaries in addition to the COLA increase. The increasing numbers in years two and three reflect the growing likelihood of increased funding coming from the state in the next biennium. We rolled back our previous proposal to start offering the longevity stipend at 10 years and instead chose to focus on increasing the stipend itself after it kicks in at the 15-year mark. We also increased many of the extra-duty stipends the district struck, though both sides agreed that more close scrutiny would be required to make progress in that area. 
In our counter to Article 23, we sought to increase the proposed insurance roll-up from 3% to 4% or to increase the insurance pool amount from $350,000 to $400,000. We believe that either of these actions would protect our members from rising insurance costs.  Finally, in Article 27, we unstruck the district’s strikes of our class size and caseload ratios and accompanying overage pay. We requested the district cost our proposal using this year’s staffing levels, in order to give us a clearer picture of the impact this proposal would have. The issue of growing class sizes and caseloads is not going away and we feel we need to better understand the impact of our proposal before we can continue to negotiate.
In the end, the district did not come back with a new counters to 22, 23 or 27. However, in addition to tentatively agreeing to Article 17, the district agreed to break free Article 26A from their “financial package” in order to TA that article. This is also a win, as it shows the district is willing to shift their expectations in order to make progress.
Another topic that came up is the possibility of signing a one or two year contract on financials and reopening a few articles once the state’s funding proposals are clearer. This will require more discussion.

Our next bargaining session is an all-day closed session on October 29th. We hope to make more progress and will keep our members up to date.

​Thanks!
-Your bargaining team