Teachers kick off contract campaign by targeting corporate tax dodgers

April 18, 2017 by

“Public schools belong to everyone in a community. So everyone who’s present in that community should contribute their fair share,” Jenna Styles Spooner, a kindergarten teacher at Riverview School of Excellence said at a rally kicking off the SPFT’s contract campaign.

 

Anticipating negotiations with a school district that seems perpetually short on resources, St. Paul teachers launched their contract campaign today – Tax Day – by calling on the city’s wealthiest corporations to pay their fair share toward local public schools.

St. Paul Federation of Teachers Local 28 kicked off its contract campaign early this morning with a rally outside U.S. Bank’s operations center. Located across the Mississippi River from downtown St. Paul, the site was developed by the city using tax-increment financing – an arrangement that exempts U.S. Bank from paying about $1 million in property taxes to the St. Paul Public Schools annually, Local 28 President Denise Rodriguez told about 50 members and supporters at the rally.

SPFT President Denise Rodriguez delivers an invoice to U.S. Bank CEO Richard Davis.

“While our schools are facing a budget deficit, the CEO of US Bank earns $83,800 a day,” Rodriguez said. “When I think of what that could fund in our schools alone, that’s why we’re standing here today.”

Rodriguez and other teachers called out Wells Fargo and Ecolab for dodging their fair share in local taxes too, but big banks and corporations, they added, share responsibility for the district’s budget shortfalls with huge, tax-exempt organizations – hospitals and private colleges – that sit on massive endowments or foundations.

Nonprofit health care corporations like Allina Health and Health Partners “have $1 billion invested in stocks, hedge funds and private equity,” Rodriguez said. “Does that sound like a nonprofit to you?”

After the rally, Rodriguez and other teachers entered the operations center to deliver an invoice to U.S. Bank seeking the funds it’s avoided paying into the St. Paul Public Schools.

“I just want to say to U.S. Bank, Wells Fargo, if you disagree with any of my facts, please call me,” Rodriguez added. “I would love for my people to sit down with your people.”

Filed Under: Union Events Tagged With: , , , , ,

St. Paul teachers answer Trump’s divisive rhetoric with wall of support for immigrant students

January 20, 2017 by
Leah Adair, a teacher at Crossroads Montessori in St. Paul, holds a sign reading "You are welcome here and safe here" in Karen.

Leah Adair (L), a teacher at Crossroads Montessori in St. Paul, holds a sign reading “You are welcome here and safe here” in Karen.

 

Teachers, parents and community members lined the walkway outside LEAP High School in St. Paul yesterday, forming a protective wall around students at the school for new immigrants as they walked to their buses after dismissal.

Organized by the St. Paul Federation of Teachers on the day before Donald Trump’s inauguration, the public action was a pointed rejection of the new president’s anti-immigrant rhetoric – and a call for district leaders to make school the one place students don’t have to worry about their skin color or immigration status.

“We want to unite against the threat of deportation, we want to unite against racism, sexism, all the ‘isms’ that are going to be coming out of DC for the next four years,” SPFT President Denise Rodriguez said. “And we want billionaires to pay their fair share of taxes so we can fully fund our schools.”

 

St. Paul school board members will vote Tuesday night on a “sanctuary school” resolution. Supporters want the district to protect students from deportation raids at school and adopt a policy against sharing student information with immigration agents.

All children deserve a chance to succeed at school, but middle-school English teacher Leah VanDassor worries that fear and uncertainty will create barriers to success for her undocumented and immigrant students.

Leah VanDassor

Leah VanDassor rallied in support of her undocumented students.

“I want to let them know that they’re safe with us, they’re safe in school and they’re supported,” VanDassor said. “These opportunities at our public schools are here for everybody.”

Since his election, Trump has vowed to deport 2 to 3 million undocumented immigrants. That pledge, along with his baseless claim that immigrants crossing the border with Mexico tend to be violent criminals, has trickled down into St. Paul classrooms, students and teachers said.

Amy Hewett-Olatunde, an English teacher at LEAP and winner of the state’s Teacher of the Year award, called the day after Trump’s election “the worst day of my teaching career.”

“We answered questions that we’ve never had to answer,” she explained. “Our students had a really difficult day, and they’ve had more difficult days since then.”

“Some of my students are feeling like their family might be deported, or someone in their family might be deported,” VanDassor said. “That puts them under a lot of stress, and it makes it hard for them to learn.”

LEAP student Nathanael Valera, whose family relocated from Mexico to St. Paul, said he knows classmates and relatives worried about “being chased by the authorities.” So it warmed Valera’s heart to see the security blanket of support outside his school yesterday.

“I have seen the worry in my classmates and relatives, but we can do something about it,” Valera said. “We can stand together as a community, raise our voices and protect and defend the rights of those who cannot protect themselves.”

The rally was one of several teacher-led events at St. Paul schools – and schools across the country – on Jan. 19, part of educators’ nationwide “#ReclaimOurSchools” campaign. Former SPFT President Mary Cathryn Ricker, currently serving as a vice president of the American Federation of Teachers, said it’s more vital than ever that teachers, parents and students continue working together to support public education.

“Let’s make sure that the energy of this rally is carried forward every day, so that every day students feel welcome … and every day students feel the power of the partnerships we as adults are creating to meet their needs,” Ricker said. “Let’s do this together. Let’s reclaim our schools.”

Filed Under: Community, Politics Tagged With: , , , , ,

Union plumbers step up to keep St. Paul Schools’ water safe

November 21, 2016 by
Tom McCarthy (R), president of St. Paul Plumbers Local 34, received the thanks of St. Paul school board chair Jon Schumacher during the board’s Nov. 15 meeting.

Tom McCarthy (R), president of St. Paul Plumbers Local 34, received the thanks of St. Paul school board chair Jon Schumacher during the board’s Nov. 15 meeting.

Union plumbers are stepping up to make sure drinking water is safe for students and staff in the St. Paul Public Schools.

The district recently finished testing all water fixtures in its buildings for lead. While more than 95 percent of fixtures passed the initial test, maintenance staff identified 233 fixtures that needed replacing.

At the Board of Education’s Nov. 15 meeting, Plumbers Local 34 President Tom McCarthy informed school board members that union members had voted to donate $25,000 toward the lead-mitigation effort.

Facilities management staff members said they were inspired to conduct the lead tests ahead of schedule after reading the news about lead poisoning in Flint, Mich.

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This summer job is a crash course in construction careers

August 19, 2016 by
MN Trades Academy grads Romeo Guevara (L) of Harding Senior High and Austin Fink of Open World Learning Academy level scaffolding at the Laborers Training Center in Lino Lakes.

MN Trades Academy grads Romeo Guevara (L) of Harding Senior High and Austin Fink of Open World Learning Academy level scaffolding at the Laborers Training Center in Lino Lakes.

 

One by one Friday, graduates of the inaugural MN Trades Academy stepped up to the podium inside IBEW Local 110’s union hall and offered their three favorite construction crafts.

Welding was a popular choice – not surprisingly, given the teenage demographic – but there was something for every one of the 20 graduates, who spent nine weeks this summer working as paid interns, touring the apprenticeship centers of 16 local Building Trades unions.

At the IUPAT District Council 82 training center in Little Canada, apprenticeship instructor Kerry Gallagher offers tips on filling in the color wheel to Randy Cuate of Minneapolis Roosevelt.

At the IUPAT District Council 82 training center, apprenticeship instructor Kerry Gallagher offers tips on the color wheel to Randy Cuate of Minneapolis Roosevelt.

In other words, finding a construction craft they like was their summer job.

“Knowing all the trades gives them insight into all the opportunities available out there,” Como Park Senior High shop teacher Bob Prifrel said. “Now it’s up to them to take advantage of it.”

Prifrel led one of two crews of interns participating in the inaugural MN Trades Academy. His consisted of students from the St. Paul and White Bear Lake school districts; another included students from Minneapolis Public Schools.

Interns worked 30 to 35 hours per week and earned $9 per hour. On workdays they bused to local technical colleges and apprenticeship centers for crash courses in various crafts. They also completed the OSHA 10 training.

Although in its first year, MN Trades Academy has been more than a decade in the making. It grew out of forerunner programs like UnderConstruction, a summer program that provided urban youth with work experience on a construction job site.

Launching MN Trades Academy took a great deal of collaboration between the school districts and Building Trades unions, as well as contractors, public agencies and community groups like Greater Twin Cities United Way, all of which provided logistical or funding support.

Organizers say the program is in line for a funding boost that will enable it to increase enrollment next year, creating more summer jobs for young people that, down the road, might spark interest in a career.

So beyond welding, what crafts did the graduates enjoy most?

Laborers instructor Darrell Jones (R) works with Highland Park student Akshay Schneider.

Laborers instructor Darrell Jones (R) works with Highland Park student Akshay Schneider.

“My favorite was commercial painting,” Nicholas Eichrodt of Minneapolis said. “I just love how you’ve got to do it specifically right, or you’ve got to do it all over again.”

Austin Fink of St. Paul liked the trip to Operating Engineers Local 49 best. “We got to sit in all the big, heavy machinery that we wanted to, and we learned a little about each one,” he said.

“I like the hands-on experience we got at IBEW, the wiring we did,” Randy Cuate of Minneapolis said. “I also really like math, so it worked out.”

Como Park student Lah Htoo took to crafts like tiling and bricklaying. “You get to make stuff that people will actually see,” he said. “It’s like a work of art.”

Chris Sheffield of St. Paul isn’t afraid of heights. He was the only intern to put the visit to Ironworkers Local 512 at the top of the list.

“It’s something I’ve always wanted to do since I was little,” Sheffield said. “I want to be that guy standing 100 stories up on that high beam, getting to see the whole town.”

Romeo Guevara offers his top three trades during graduation.
Da’Shawn Gordon
The Minneapolis crew works on color wheels.
Representatives of the White Bear Lake School District pose for a photo at graduation.
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Colleagues, labor community mourn Teamster fatally shot during traffic stop

July 7, 2016 by

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Philando Castile, the man fatally shot during a traffic stop in Falcon Heights last night, was a cafeteria supervisor at J.J. Hill Montessori Magnet School in St. Paul and a member of Teamsters Local 320.

Officers of Castile’s union today expressed grief at the sudden loss of their union brother, “an amazing person who did his job at St. Paul Public Schools because he loved the children he served,” Local 320 President Sami Gabriel said.

Grief gave way to frustration today, as hundreds gathered outside the Governor’s Residence in St. Paul to remember Castile and demand justice for his family. Classmates and colleagues from the school district took the microphone to express anger at seeing another interaction with law enforcement turn fatal for a person of color.

St. Paul Federation of Teachers Local 28, which represents teachers and support staff in the St. Paul district, released a statement calling Castile’s shooting “unjustifiable” and urging members to attend a vigil for his family at J.J. Hill, 998 Selby Ave., at 5:30 p.m. tonight.

“Structural racism is real and present in our country and our community,” SPFT’s statement said. “We are horrified by the number of black citizens and youth dying as a result of police shootings. These are incidences our students are watching and living daily. We can, and must, do better.”

‘Enthusiasm and fist bumps’

Castile, who was 32, began working for the St. Paul school district in 2002. A graduate of St. Paul Central High School, he was well known among students and staff at J.J. Hill, Principal Fatima Lawson said in a letter to the school’s families and staff.

“He welcomed students to the lunchroom with enthusiasm and fist bumps,” Lawson wrote. “Teachers and staff loved working with him and he frequently greeted former colleagues with a smile and a hug. This is a tragic loss for our school, our staff and his family. Our hearts go out to all who knew him and we will definitely miss his presence this fall.”

Minnesota teachers asked for a moment of silence to remember Castile during the National Education Association’s assembly in Washington D.C. this morning, joining teachers from Louisiana who mourned the loss of another black man, Alton Sterling, shot by police Tuesday in Baton Rouge. (Video)

Central High School teacher Kimberly Colbert asked delegates to “send prayers and healing thoughts” to St. Paul. “Please remember him, as we remember all the victims of the horrible violence that’s been going on in our country,” she added.

Demonstrators gathered outside the Governor's Residence in St. Paul today to call for justice in the shooting of Phil Castile.

Demonstrators gathered outside the Governor’s Residence in St. Paul today to call for justice in the shooting of Phil Castile.

A double standard

The shootings of Castile and Sterling drew nationwide attention, including condolences from the nation’s highest-ranking labor leader, AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka.

“Philando Castile was a union member, and so his family is our family,” Trumka said.

Earlier this year the AFL-CIO brought its Commission on Racial and Economic Justice to the Twin Cities, and both Trumka and Minnesota AFL-CIO President Bill McCarthy reiterated their commitment to dealing with racism as a labor issue.

“Labor cannot and will not sit on the sidelines when it comes to racial justice,” Trumka said. “It is not enough to simply say ‘Black Lives Matter.’ We must and will continue to fight for reforms in policing and to address issues of racial and economic inequality.”

McCarthy, meanwhile, called for a thorough, impartial investigation of Castile’s death, while acknowledging a troubling “double standard” African Americans face in dealings with police.

Castile is the 136th black person fatally injured by law enforcement in the U.S. this year, according to The Guardian, which tracks people killed by U.S. law enforcement agencies on its website. Blacks and Native Americans have been much more likely to be killed by police in 2016 than any other ethnic group, according to the site.

“Whether the bias is intentional or not, too many African American men find themselves on the receiving end of deadly force,” McCarthy said. “There are no quick and easy solutions to this all too familiar incident. These are complex problems that will require tough conversations and decisions.

“Minnesota’s Labor movement remains committed to helping address the racial inequalities, in both the economic and criminal justice systems, that continue to persist in our state and nation.”

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In new report, St. Paul teachers give ‘cookie-cutter’ policies a failing grade

August 7, 2015 by
Panelists at the SPFT event yesterday included (L to R) Michael Diedrich, Caitlin Reid, Zuki Ellis, Steve Marchese. SPFT political organizer Patrick Burke moderated.

Panelists at the East Side Freedom Library yesterday included (L to R) Michael Diedrich, Caitlin Reid, Zuki Ellis, Steve Marchese. SPFT political organizer Patrick Burke moderated.

 

There is no one-size-fits-all solution for improving under-performing schools, according to a report issued yesterday by the St. Paul Federation of Teachers. To achieve lasting improvement, district leaders must engage a school’s surrounding community and address the unique, underlying challenges in students’ neighborhoods, homes and lives.

That’s the conclusion policy researcher Michael Diedrich, author of the SPFT report, reached after a deep analysis of efforts to turn around one under-performing school in the St. Paul district, Frogtown’s Maxfield Elementary.

Diedrich discussed his report, “Capacity, Context and Community: Learning from School Improvement Policy at Maxfield Elementary,” at the East Side Freedom Library yesterday with teachers, union activists and two labor-endorsed candidates for school board, Zuki Ellis and Steve Marchese.

The panel also included Maxfield Elementary teacher Caitlin Reid, who began teaching at the school shortly before it received a three-year federal School Improvement Grant (SIG) to address “widespread misbehavior” resulting from “layers of dysfunction” inside and outside the building, according to Diedrich’s report.

The additional funding from 2010 to 2013 allowed Maxfield to add teachers and support professionals, invest in technology and extend students’ learning time. “Incidents of misbehavior dropped, and the responses to the remaining incidents were more thorough and constructive,” Diedrich’s report said.

With more support staff, students received more individual or small-group attention for everything from reinforcing a lesson to addressing misbehavior. But when the three-year grant ran out, Reid said, many of those support professionals disappeared.

“We saw a lot of cuts early on after the SIG,” she said. “The biggest cuts that affected us were some of the staff who did math and reading support.”

Now behavior issues are on the rise at Maxfield again, and the school has been designated a “priority school” under the Minnesota Measurements Rating system. The SIG, Diedrich said, “didn’t work very well for producing long-term change” at Maxfield.

Report author Michael Diedrich, a former English teacher at Brooklyn Center High School, is an education policy researcher.

Report author Michael Diedrich, a former English teacher at Brooklyn Center High School, is an education policy researcher.

Why not? And what can the district learn from ongoing attempts to turn Maxfield around? Panelists laid out three key responses during their discussion yesterday.

• Underlying factors behind a school’s performance matter, and policymakers who ignore those unique factors will most likely fail.

“We don’t want another cookie-cutter solution because it’s not going to work,” Reid said. “We’re not the same as every other school” that is under-performing.

Ellis said she hopes to change the St. Paul Public Schools’ approach if elected to the board. Rather than handing down policy directives without seeking input from “any parent or any teacher in that building,” Ellis said she would engage teachers, parents and community stakeholders “more thoughtfully and effectively,” asking them, “What do you need and how can we support that?”

• Engaging parents and involving the school’s community are critical to improving student performance.

“Public schools are meant to serve their communities,” Diedrich said. “One of the best ways we do that is by involving the community in making our school better.”

Reid said several Maxfield teachers have visited students’ homes as part of the union’s Parent Teacher Home Visit Project, and it’s led to greater parental investment in Maxfield’s programming. “We’re building that community of parents and teachers working together to address issues,” she said. “For me, it’s been career changing.”

• There are no quick fixes for under-performing schools, and sweeping, new policy directives every three or four years make it hard to tell what’s working and what’s not.

“That shifting of gears every three years, it’s hard on the staff, it’s hard on the kids, it’s hard on the communities,” Marchese said, adding that the school board should be “setting standards for what is expected across the system,” but giving school stakeholders flexibility in crafting – and sticking with – a plan to meet those standards.

Diedrich added: “Being able to have investment at the district level that supports you in building what works for your community is very, very meaningful. Just saying, ‘Now everybody gets an iPad!’ – that is the kind of thing that ends up being ephemeral.”

Filed Under: Organizing, Politics Tagged With: , , , , , , , , ,

As lawmakers haggle, faces behind education budget speak out in St. Paul

June 2, 2015 by

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As Minnesota lawmakers announced a breakthrough in negotiations over the state’s E-12 education budget yesterday, the faces behind the financial figures – students, parents and teachers – rallied against staff and programming cuts in St. Paul.

“We cannot nickle and dime our kids’ future,” school board candidate Zuki Ellis, the parent of a first-grader in the St. Paul Public Schools, said. “There is no excuse for that when we’re talking about a $2 billion state budget surplus.”

St. Paul Federation of Teachers Local 28 organized the rally at St. Paul Central High School after the school district, like many across Minnesota, sent out pink slips to some teachers and paraprofessionals. Districts are stuck in the difficult position of planning for 2015-16 with limited information, as lawmakers continue to haggle over the education budget.

“Budget cuts mean less people to do the work, but it doesn’t reduce the work,” Obama Elementary Principal Adrain Pendleton said. “Already, budget cuts have resulted in difficult discussions with staff.”

Parents and students at the rally worried cuts would fall mostly on support staff who “help make learning easier and who love kids,” Central freshman Kadeane Smith said. “Teachers can’t be everywhere at once.”

Kirinda Anderson talked about the progress her child, a student at Wellstone Elementary, made after working with reading and math coaches – positions that are on potentially on the chopping block. “Why are programs being taken away that are proven to work for our children?” she asked.

Rep. John Lesch (speaking) was among the St. Paul DFLers who attended SPFT's rally. Seated are Reps. Carlos Mariani, Sheldon Johnson and Rena Moran.

Rep. John Lesch (speaking) was among the St. Paul DFLers who attended SPFT’s rally. Seated are Reps. Carlos Mariani, Sheldon Johnson and Rena Moran.

Anger-intervention counselors, English Language Learners teachers and other specialists also received pink slips, speakers at the rally said, and administrators warned that class sizes could go up without a meaningful increase in the school-funding formula. That news didn’t sit well with parents like Neha Lang.

“We wouldn’t ask a baker to make a cake without providing her with the necessary ingredients,” Lang said. “Yet every year public schools are asked to do more with less funding.”

With a $2 billion surplus, Lang added, “this is the moment we do not have to compromise on public school funding. We can invest in our kids.”

Several state lawmakers from St. Paul enjoyed a front-row seat at the rally inside Central’s auditorium. All pledged to sign onto a letter urging Gov. Mark Dayton to stand strong in his fight to fund universal pre-kindergarten programming and provide adequate funding for the state’s school districts.

“Not only do I stand with the governor,” Rep. Rena Moran told parents, teachers and students, “I stand with you.”

The tentative agreement reached by Gov. Dayton and legislative leaders – which likely will result in a special session in the coming days – will not fully fund statewide pre-K programming, Dayton’s top priority in 2015. The agreement does boost new E-12 spending by about $370 million, allowing for a 2 percent increase in the state’s per-pupil funding formula in each of the next two school years.

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School board to senators: Raise minimum wage to boost student achievement

March 14, 2014 by

1911839_261359094030624_201300809_nSchool board members weighed into the minimum-wage debate this week, when all seven members of St. Paul’s Board of Education signed a letter urging state senators to help close achievement gaps in their district by supporting a substantial wage hike this session.

Louise Seeba, a board member and AFSCME Local 3757 member, spearheaded efforts to put the school board on record in support of raising the minimum wage to $9.50 by 2015 and indexing it to keep up with inflation.

Click here to download a copy of the letter, provided by Seeba.

“We realize we are not legislators, but feel it is our charge to do whatever we can to help reduce learning gaps,” the letter reads.

Board members pointed lawmakers to several studies proving a link between families’ economic stability and their kids’ performance at school. Among them was a 2011 study by the Brookings Institution, which found gains of as little as $1,000 in annual income for low-income families resulted in significant improvements in their children’s reading and math scores.

Closing achievement gaps has long been a focus of teachers, board members and administrators in the St. Paul Public Schools, which typify the “large gaps” identified by Brookings “across groups of children defined by family income” when it comes to school readiness.

“As board members of the most diverse school district in the state and with over 25,000 students that qualify for free and reduced lunch, we feel compelled to address this vital issue,” board members said.

If lawmakers agree to raise the minimum wage to $9.50 per hour, an estimated 20,000 workers in St. Paul would see a raise, according to an economic analysis by the JOBS NOW Coalition.

“We have the opportunity to make a difference in the lives of children,” board members said. “Please stand with us and support the increase in the minimum wage (indexed to inflation) to help stabilize families income and to improve learning readiness for students.”

[Click here to tell your representatives at the Capitol you support raising the minimum wage to $9.50 and indexing it to inflation.]

Filed Under: Politics, Union Events Tagged With: , , , , , , , ,

St. Paul Schools, teachers reach tentative agreement

February 21, 2014 by
St. Paul Federation of Teachers President Mary Cathryn Ricker (left) and Superintendent Valeria Silva reviewed the contents of the tentative agreement with media members Feb. 24.

St. Paul Federation of Teachers President Mary Cathryn Ricker (left) and Superintendent Valeria Silva reviewed the contents of the tentative agreement with media members Feb. 24.

Three days before members of the St. Paul Federation of Teachers were scheduled to take a strike-authorization vote, negotiators for the school district and the teachers’ union reached a tentative agreement on a two-year contract that will run through the 2014-15 school year.

Teachers planned a ratification vote for March 4, and the union’s executive board has recommended members vote to approve.

The tentative agreement was the result of a 24-hour mediation session between the two sides that began Feb. 20. Joined by a state mediator and some members of the Board of Education, negotiators worked through the night.

After months of frustrating talks, SPFT President Mary Cathryn Ricker said, “the momentum was there the entire night, the engagement was there.”

As a result, instead of voting on whether to authorize a strike Feb. 24, teachers held a membership meeting to review details of the agreement, which Ricker said was an important step in efforts to “reclaim the school experiences that have been lost due to tightened budgets or encroaching standardized tests.”

Both the union and school administrators touted “key provisions” of the contract – and related agreements reached in bargaining – that, they say, will make progress on the teachers’ core bargaining principles. Known as “The Schools St. Paul Children Deserve,” the teachers’ guiding principles were developed after intensive outreach to parents and community stakeholders.

Chief among those priorities was lowering class sizes in the district. The tentative agreement will deliver more consistency and predictability in class sizes, while making the formula for calculating class-size restrictions more transparent, Ricker said.

The agreement also sets lower limits for class sizes in the 30 schools with the highest levels of poverty in the district, to “make sure resources get where students need them to go,” Ricker said.

The SPFT also made professional support staffing – media specialists, nurses, school counselors and social workers – a priority in negotiations, and the district committed to hiring 42 professionals in those fields.

Language in the agreement will reduce in-class time spent on standardized testing and test preparation activities over the next two years – another union priority – and calls for a “review of existing assessments for cultural relevance,” Ricker said.

Additionally, the district agreed to spend at least $6 million per school year to maintain and expand its pre-kindergarten programs for 4-year-olds.

Teachers made pre-K access a rallying cry at mobilization events in the weeks leading up to the strike vote, but SPPS Superintendent Valeria Silva said the district was always on board with increasing early-education investments. “We both needed to see it, and we got it into a wonderful agreement between the district and the union,” Silva said.

Ricker agreed the tentative agreement was a win-win for teachers and administrators. “You can’t see where the union’s proposal ends and the district’s proposal begins anymore because it’s such a blend,” she said.

The tentative agreement calls for salary and benefit increases amounting to 8.6 percent over the course of two years. Silva said the district remained “committed to providing a really competitive wage” to attract and retain teachers.

By scheduling a strike vote, the teachers’ union may have hastened the pace of negotiations. “I think maybe we were able to listen to each other a little better than before,” Silva acknowledged.

Still, at a press conference to review details of the agreement, the superintendent, union president and school board chair gave no indication the threat of strike had poisoned the labor-management relationship.

“We are nationally known for working well with our unions,” Board Chair Mary Doran said, “and we want to get back to that.”

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