Agreement ratified

Wednesday at the Board meeting, LNEA reported that the teachers had ratified the new negotiated agreement. Fifty-seven percent of teachers voted, and of those a majority voted yes. The Board of Education then voted to ratify. Back pay for lateral movement or longevity, and the $500 payment for teachers who were with the district in 2012-13, should be paid by April 26.

Cooperative dissolution is on State BOE Agenda

The state board of education agenda for April 8 includes the dissolution of the Leavenworth County Special Education Cooperative as a consent item. The joint petition to dissolve the coop is available by clicking here.

Agreement reached for 2013-14

LNEA has settled with USD 453 for 2013-14. We believe this is the best agreement we can make with the district for this difficult year.

Here is a short summary of the proposed changes to the agreement:

• Under Article 23, Lateral Movement, teachers WILL get their lateral movement if they took classes or earned a new degree, BOTH this year and next year. The payment for lateral movement this year will be retroactive to the beginning of the school year. Some outdated language was also removed.
• All teachers who take the district’s health insurance next year will have $390 per month paid by the district. For those taking the Single plan this is an annual increase of $1020 per year. Teachers who take the Employee + 1 plan will have $660 more per year paid by the district.
• Under Article 26, Salary Schedule, the salary schedule will not be altered this year. Teachers who have been with the district long enough to earn longevity pay WILL get that pay, retroactive to the beginning of the year. Longevity pay will be guaranteed for next year also. Teachers who should have received movement this year will get a one-time payment of $500 within one month of ratification of this agreement.
• Article 24, Vertical Movement, is frozen for 2013-14.
• For teachers in Leavenworth schools, this agreement extends the school day without extending the duty day, in order to make up lost time.

USD 453 teachers should have received a Surveymonkey link to place a ratification vote. If you did not receive this message, please first check your junk mail or spam folder. If the message is not there, contact lneanews@gmail.com. Give your name, teaching assignment, and email address. All current teachers are eligible to vote except those who are retired through KPERS.

Comments can be left below, with a Google log-in or an OpenId account.

Negotiations meeting today

The LNEA team made two new proposals at today's negotiations session.  The first proposal asked for vertical movement for all teachers who continue with the district in 2014-15, with back pay paid as a lump sum.  The district's response was that "if the co-op doesn't dissolve we would be required to give step movement and we don't have that authority."   They also stated that assuming they agreed, the money they've been budgeting for increases next year would be gone at the beginning of the year with the lump sum payment.  They reiterated their offer of a one-time $500 payment.

In the interest of settling this so that we can begin work on next year's agreement, we made a final offer that would give all teachers a one-time $500 payment immediately.  At the beginning of 2014-15, teachers who should have gotten movement in 2013-14 would get step movement and start getting paid for it next year.  Teachers who have earned lateral movement would receive back pay. There would be no back pay for vertical movement; the step would begin in the fall of 2014.

The district's response to this was again, "The issue with it is that if the co-op doesn’t dissolve we do not have authority from the SAB to move [teachers] up automatically a step. The SAB has specifically instructed us that they do not want special education teachers moved up a step because that would require them to match it next year if the coop dissolves and pay them at that level.  If the coop doesn’t dissolve, the district is charged under this to move the step up which costs more in the next budget and then we have basically usurped our powers under the co-op agreement."

We have asked them to present this offer to the SAB.  We have been told they are budgeting to pay for increases for next year and this proposal does not exceed that.

The LNEA team is exasperated by feeling as if we are bargaining with the superintendents of 6 school districts instead of the Board of Education of USD 453.

However, as the district's negotiator said, "We are stuck by certain confines. If we had a crystal ball and knew that we were going to get approval, that is a huge factor that is off the table."

LNEA team met on snow day

     LNEA wants to thank teachers of USD 453 for the patience you've shown throughout the negotiation process.  We know it's sometimes difficult -- in many ways -- to continue putting forth maximum effort when we don't have a contract for 2013-14.  We regret that we were not able to warn you last spring or even in the fall that this would be a possibility.  We certainly didn't foresee that the co-op budget would be as problematic as it has turned out to be, and the dissolution had not been proposed when we started negotiations.
     We have worked very hard trying to generate creative solutions that satisfy the interests of our teachers, the board of education, and the co-op board, but up to now the district has not been willing to compromise.
     All year, the district has been telling LNEA it can't give movement to teachers because there isn't enough money in the special education co-op budget to give movement to special education teachers.  We finally decided we had to stop expecting all teachers to sacrifice because of this issue.  The proposal we made last Thursday may seem radical but please believe we tried everything else first. We believe it would be better for teachers in Leavenworth in the long run than simply accepting their one-time offer.  And please know that we didn't like having to make it, but we must work within and between the barricades that the district and special education cooperative have erected.
     Here is what we proposed in discussion with USD 453 administrators last Thursday.

• Lateral movement now for all teachers who have earned additional degrees or credit hours and filed their paperwork with the district.
• $500 now for all teachers paid from the special education budget.
• Vertical movement now for teachers not paid from the special education budget.  For those whose movement gives them less than $500, we proposed they receive the difference (so no one would lose out by getting movement instead of a one-time $500 payment).
• For special education teachers who continue with USD 453 into next year, we suggested salary schedule movement and back pay (minus the $500) as they enter into the 2014-15 school year.

     This may not seem fair to our out-of-district teachers who will not be with USD 453 next year, but in fact, most of them appear to be getting a fair offer from the school districts they are going to. In general, the neighboring districts are making sure the special ed teachers don't lose pay, and LNEA has learned that some teachers are even being offered $2000 to $5000 more each year than they currently make.
     The first question the district raised during our conversation was whether this is legal.  KNEA has assured us that it is.  Associations bargain for different things for different groups of teachers within their bargaining units all the time.  In Abilene, for example, there are two completely different salary schedules--one for teachers who started before 2005 and another for teachers who began later. 
     Our goal here is to do the best we can for our teachers, and the district insists that $500 per teacher is the best it can do for teachers paid by the special ed co-op at this time, because the Superintendents' Advisory Board (SAB) will not "authorize" more.  So, we proposed that special ed teachers get the $500 the SAB has authorized and that the rest of the cost of movement be postponed and offered only to the SpEd teachers who will continue with USD 453 once they are known. Those are the folks who won't benefit from the offers being made by other districts.  There will be no need for authorization from the SAB once the co-op dissolves.  There will be a need to do the right thing by our special education teachers, especially with higher salaries being paid by our neighboring districts.
     Did we want to make a proposal that separated teachers by whether they teach special education or not? Unequivocally, no. But the district created a division by its handling of this issue from the beginning.
        The district has agreed to meet with us again on Thursday, March 6, at 4:30, at the district office.  If we cannot reach an agreement, the factfinding session is scheduled for 9 a.m. on March 17. We would very much like to hear your comments, either here on the blog, or by email at lneanews@gmail.com.  Thanks for all you do for our students!