June 17 Bargaining Update

HTEC Members,

Yesterday afternoon our bargaining team met with the CMO for a short bargaining session for our team to present an updated package proposal on several remaining topics (packaged proposals can only be accepted or rejected as a whole). Our team requested this meeting to ensure that the CMO has time to review and prepare a strong counter-proposal for our previously scheduled meeting on June 29.

Our bargaining team strongly believes yesterday's package proposal is a fair offer and we hope the CMO views it as being close to what a final contract will ultimately look like.

The proposal covers:
 

Employment Status & Discipline

The past week has seen parents and educators come out strongly against continuing the CMO’s practice of “at-will” employment that allows for educators to be fired without reason or with any due process rights. 

Today’s proposal remains consistent with our proposal from last week that educators who believe they were disciplined or fired unjustly be provided an opportunity to challenge their dismissal through a neutral third party. It also again includes an education industry standard two-year probationary period after which educators can only be disciplined or fired with just cause.
 

Salary

Our salary proposal addresses the CMO’s previous concerns over the total cost of a three-year contract by setting aside salary increases for the 2023-24 school year to be bargained once the state budget is known, while still keeping the across the board 10.33% increase for 2022-23 that was proposed on June 10. Currently the state projects a 5.38% increase to per pupil funding for 2023-24.
 

Hours

We still believe that protecting the right of educators to have a guaranteed lunch break is important to creating a sustainability for classroom teachers, especially at the elementary level, where teachers don’t receive a daily prep period and are required to provide more non-classroom supervision.

Unfortunately this has been an area where the CMO has been hesitant to budge, and in the interest of reaching a full contract agreement we have compromised by allowing duty-free lunch breaks to be skipped in limited circumstances. However, we proposed that elementary educators who don’t receive a lunch break or any other break during their work day should be compensated for the additional time and be provided two 15-minute breaks to address personal needs.

Our bargaining team also offered a compromise on the amount of time educators could be required to remain on campus. This proposal accepts the CMO’s maximum of 8 hours, excluding a duty free lunch, while giving directors the ability to continue allowing for flexibility in completing school-related tasks offsite outside of instructional hours. 
 

Transfers and Reassignments

We largely accepted the CMO’s last proposal on transfers and reassignments, creating a more transparent process for when vacant positions are available and giving all educators the ability to receive feedback if they are not selected for a position for which they apply. 

However, the CMO’s last proposal included a line that gave them the unrestricted ability to involuntarily transfer an educator from one HTH school or village to another. Our counter proposal on this adds the caveat that an educator cannot be involuntarily transferred to another school or village if they are credentialed and qualified to fill a vacant position that exists at their current school. We worry that a “blank check” to move people destabilizes our schools and this is a reasonable protection against just that.
 

Class Size, Leaves and Benefits

Our proposal completely accepts the CMO’s compromised class size protections and leave rights from last week’s bargaining session. It also continues benefits at the current level of contribution from the CMO as has previously been proposed by both our bargaining team and the CMO’s.