Here’s our update from negotiations today. We presented our counter proposal on wages and parental leave, holding on other items where we are awaiting a response from the district. We’re asking for a 24% raise and two new steps for clerks (the district is offering 12% plus two steps), a 24% raise plus a $5,000 adjustment for paras (the district is offering 12% plus a $4,000 adjustment), and a 20.5% raise for educators alongside a 1.5% increase to contractual time (the district is offering 12% alongside a ~3% increase to contractual time). Our presentation from today demonstrates how these raises compare to a living wage, surrounding districts, and previous proposals. For parental leave we are asking for six weeks of paid leave and six weeks paid at 75%, with the option to supplement with accumulated leave.

Unfortunately, the district has not made any more movement on language proposals. This means there has been no movement on proposals for educators and paraprofessionals since May. We need to fill City Hall for the school committee meeting on 10/9 (7 pm) and the negotiating room on 10/16 (4 pm) with CTU red! On October 9th we will be delivering our petition to the school committee. 

The district is holding hostage responses on language proposals because they feel we are too far apart on wage proposals. They also misrepresented proposals we’ve made on sick bank language, such as shared representation with the district and the union, which makes movement towards their proposal. Somehow they do not consider a proposal to increase time on learning to be making movement on their proposal for more required contractual time.

The district has made no movement on:

• Paid parental leave – they have offered only two weeks for this year and three weeks for next year
• Coverage pay for clerks working two jobs at once
• More steps for paraprofessionals
• Pay for paraprofessionals toileting and diapering students
• Class size and caseload caps
• 30 minutes for lunch
• Using sick time to care for family members
• Additional lanes and steps for educators
• Access to sick bank for family members
• Increased vacation time for clerks
• Additional lanes for educators
• Fewer PD days
• Implementing the multilingual stipend this year
• Increased longevity for educators
• Clarity on open houses and family-educator conferences
• Quarterly work from home days for school psychologists
• More instructional time for students
• Eliminating department meetings
• Increased union time for the president and vice president

Once again, this feels like a long list because it is. The district has made no movement on 31 of our proposals since May. We had hope for tonight and they disappointed us. We came to the session trusting them to answer reasonable questions, and walked away with a speech about potential layoffs that called an extra 50 minutes of work per week a “minor increase.” 

Now we need to trust that we will show them this is unacceptable. 

We need your continued support at the table and through the petition, already signed by over 70 percent of the membership. Please RSVP to join us on October 9th so we can show the school committee what the district is rejecting at the table, and RSVP to join us at the table on October 16th so we can hold them accountable to movement!

We have repeatedly shown that we are interested in settling the contract as soon as possible, so long as the terms are good for our students and our members. We look forward to the district demonstrating the same urgency.