Since June 30, teachers have been working without a collective bargaining agreement. This means that their previous contract has expired, and they have to go through negotiations for a new contract. A contract lasts for five years, so that the teachers and community can reevaluate it due to changes over the years.

Teacher contracts cover their salary, healthcare, paid time off, sick days and other topics that would affect their jobs and daily lives. The goal during contract negotiations is for the teacher union and school board to create a fair deal for both parties. To ensure a fair contract is created, both parties create small teams that are dedicated to negotiating the contract on behalf of their party.

This year, the Chief Negotiator for the school board is Ms. Sharon Geibel, and Chief Negotiator for the Teacher Association is Mr. James Culler. The chief negotiators are in charge of coordinating meetings for both teams to attend, as well as being the representative for both teams during meetings. Taking a different approach this year, the chief negotiators decided to build relationships with each other. This helped to gain an understanding of both sides before negotiating on the contract.

“My approach was that I was trying to build relationships with the school board members,” Culler said.

Each meeting, it would be either the Teacher Association or the School Board’s turn to present a topic to negotiate. Culler’s approach was to start with smaller topics, such as pay for class coverage, before jumping to the big things like salary and healthcare. The big topics of debate for this contract are salary and healthcare. The issue with these topics is that they are important for teachers, but they are very costly.

“Our goal is to reach a fair and sustainable agreement that values the hard work of our teachers while also protecting the district’s ability to provide quality education and remain financially responsible to the taxpayers,” Geibel said.

The negotiation teams have met around 20 times since January to work on the contract. There are different ways that meetings can be held, though. There are formal meetings that include the District Solicitor as well as the Teachers Association State Union Representative. There are also meetings called ‘local efforts,’ where only the negotiation teams from each side meet to better understand each other.

Negotiations will continue until both parties are satisfied with a contract and teachers have had a chance to ask questions and vote on it. Negotiations can stretch on for as long as needed. If there is an extended amount of time without a contract, mediators can be brought in to help move negotiations along. If mediation does not help, teachers have the ability to strike. This means that teachers have the ability to protest working without a contract. A strike is always a last resort due to the disruptions for students.

Currently, contract negotiations are ongoing. Both teams will continue to meet and come up with a tentative contract that is fair and agreeable to both sides. Significant progress is being made; however, there is still work to be done before the voting process.