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 Some outdated language was also removed.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.
These are some of the repeat questions we've been sent since this message was emailed to teachers, and the best answers we can provide.
ReplyDeleteQ: Are we getting to move down on the salary schedule?
A: No. Vertical movement is frozen for this year.
Q: Is there a chance we will get our steps back next year?
A: The negotiating team assumes teachers will want us to fight to get our steps back until we do. One somewhat encouraging development is that Mr. Roth, the new superintendent, was forced to freeze salaries in his district when the state started cutting funding, but has since made it up to the teachers there. Please don't expect immediate solutions to this district's financial woes.
Q: What is longevity pay? Who gets that?
A: Teachers earn an extra stipend of $700 after 25 years with the district. That amount goes up to $1200 after 28 years and $1800 after 31 years. This year, that could not be paid (along with column movement for additional college hours or degrees) until we settled. We've negotiated so that will not happen next year. Even if we have not settled next year by the time school starts, the district will still award the raises for hours/degrees (horizontal movement) and for longevity. Teachers who should be getting this payment should definitely verify it on Alio in about a month.
These next two questions (and the others like them) are closely related:
Q: Why is vertical movement frozen? And, please tell me the District has a plan to make it up. Even with the vertical movement, we still cannot keep up with the cost of living increases.
Q: Why is this district is having such a "budget crisis" when no one else is?
A: Kansas districts, especially those in less wealthy communities, are stretched very thin. Most weathered the initial budget cuts and while things are not easy now, they are not experiencing the immediate crisis that this district is experiencing. We believe these are some of the reasons for the crisis in this district:
First, the district did not raise the health insurance benefit for years, despite knowing the Affordable Care Act would make it necessary. Most districts have raised their benefits already, either in response to the legislation or because it was the right thing to do for their employees.
Second, the district saved $259K on in-district teacher salaries from last year to this year, because people retired and were replaced by less expensive teachers, but instead of using that money to pay for movement on the salary schedule, they spent $249K more on administrator raises and new admin positions. We've been told most administrators have two-year contracts so this won't change soon.
The third reason is the co-op breakup. Hopefully the dissolution will be approved by the state April 9. However, this also affects the district budget since the district loses its payment from the other co-op districts.
Finally, state funding of public education depends on the legislature. KNEA has spent a lot of time and effort trying to educate legislators about the needs of public schools. If you are not a member yet, you should be.
Some more questions and answers:
ReplyDeleteQ: On the last bullet, this agreement extends the school day without extending the duty day, in order to make up lost time. What exactly does this mean? We all have duty that starts at 8:00 to cover breakfast and supervision of students arriving at school. If our duty day is 8:00 to 4:00 and we are responsible for supervision of students starting at 7:50 because they are arriving ten minutes early, how does that work?
A: Teachers do not have to report to work any earlier. This is a problem for administration to sort out. Anyone asked to report for duty earlier should accept that responsibility only if they are genuinely willing to do so and should insist on additional compensation.
Q: When teachers apply for lateral movement there is a step question to fill out. So a person who put in for lateral movement and step 8 because at that point it was expected and they are ready to laterally move again next year and need to fill out the same information, do they put in step 8 again or step 9 or step 7?
A: The number a teacher enters for the step probably does not make a difference. The district has enough HR employees to sort this out. I would speculate that form was designed when step and level movement were more certain. Teachers should be sure to verify that they do get their lateral movement increase.
One small advantage of this agreement is it lets us get on with the task of negotiating next year's. That may not be any easier than this year.
Feel free to let the community know that this sort of treatment is not going to keep good teachers in this district.