We're Getting Close!! Next Meeting, 10am Monday, June 16.

Contract negotiations began at 10am Monday morning (June 2) and ended at 4pm. The day began with a set of counter-proposals from LNEA, then the board’s team took a 3-hour caucus to craft a counter-proposal. We took a long lunch to discuss the possibilities, came back to the office at 1:30 and heard their counter-proposal. We took about a 45-minute caucus and presented another counter. The board at that point suggested that we schedule another meeting for 10am Monday, June 16, to give Kevin Gullett an opportunity to attend a school finance workshop in Topeka. Kevin is hoping he will learn how to squeeze a few more dollars out of the budget for teachers, so we believe it’s to everyone’s advantage to wait.

Here’s the good news:
**The board has dropped its proposal to do away with binding arbitration of grievances.
**The board has also dropped its proposal to do away with the early retirement policy by 2010, in favor of our suggestion to form a committee to study the possibility of a phase-out program that would keep the health insurance benefit intact, and shift the current 5-year payout to a 403b contribution to occur during the teacher’s employment.
**We have tentatively agreed to add 15 minutes to the teacher work day for the purpose of lengthening the instructional day and building in some inclement weather days. (We have also tentatively agreed that this is enough time built in so that the first 3 days missed would not have to be made up.) In trade for working the additional 15 minutes, the length of the teachers’ contract will be reduced from 189 to 186.5 days. In addition, there will be some kind of salary increase yet to be determined. The board’s last offer was ever so slightly more than 4%. We aren’t finished discussing the salary increase.
**Several stipends have been added to the supplemental pay scale, the most significant of which is a tentative agreement to add speech pathologists and occupational therapists to the list of those who are paid for a 30-minute extension of the duty day (just over $3k). This is currently extended to social workers and school psychs. More on the other additions to the supplemental scale later.

We have tentatively agreed to several minor changes to the negotiated agreement – changes in deadlines for application for lateral movement, changes in how the actual physical contract looks, an addition of a separate contract for supplemental duties, as well as a minor change in wording to the evaluation policy and inclusion of the evaluation tools used for teachers, counselors and librarians to the appendix of our agreement.

Here’s what we’re still working on:
In addition to continuing to work on salary, we are also still trying to hammer away at increasing elementary planning time. Non-working days for the 09-10 and 10-11 school years are yet to be determined as well.

Please know that we are continuing to work for a better contract for you, and we will meet at 10am Monday, June 16 at the board office. You are welcome to attend. We appreciate your company.

If you have any questions, please email us at lneanews@gmail.com.