Gilroy
– A new tentative agreement has been reached by teachers and the
Gilroy Unified School District.
More than 86 percent of the district’s teachers came out to cast
their votes on the new contract last Thursday and Friday at
multiple school sites. About 65 percent voted in support of the new
contract, easily gathering the majority of support needed for
ratification, and it is expected be approved by the school board at
the July 7 meeting.
Gilroy – A new tentative agreement has been reached by teachers and the Gilroy Unified School District.
More than 86 percent of the district’s teachers came out to cast their votes on the new contract last Thursday and Friday at multiple school sites. About 65 percent voted in support of the new contract, easily gathering the majority of support needed for ratification, and it is expected be approved by the school board at the July 7 meeting.
The contract includes the district’s first–ever salary formula and about a 4.14 percent increase in salary and health benefits. However, should Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s budget proposals pass, that figure would shrink to 2.31 percent.
“Everybody’s waiting to see what happens in Sacramento,” said Gilroy Teachers Association President Michelle Nelson, who attributed the change as the ‘Arnold factor.’ “Both sides are going into this with a kind of anxiety.”
Schwarzenegger’s proposal would shift the responsibility of pension payments of the State Teachers Retirement System to the individual districts.
With a salary formula, the district allows for the possibility of a salary increase if more funds are allocated to the GUSD than originally expected. Because the formula is a fixed equation, if the district receives less money than expected, the teachers also share in that loss.
“I’m comfortable with the formula as an experiment,” Nelson said. “It allows for a salary increase in the budget. Before it didn’t – there was a zero next to that on the budget. (It shows) there’s a commitment from the district that we haven’t seen before.”
In the past, about 55 percent of the district’s budget went towards teacher salaries, Nelson said. That figure increases to more than 80 percent when all personnel in the district office are included.
“I’ve only been 100 percent satisfied with one contract,” Nelson said referring to the 1995 contract which included a 6 percent raise for teachers. “But there was money then, and the cost of health benefits wasn’t through the roof. It’s a different climate now.”
Teachers had difficulty deciding upon which formula to choose because of the problems they had finding a balance between the rate they wanted to receive in total salary increase and that of welfare benefits.
While the district typically sets its healthcare contributions using Kaiser as a base, the majority of GUSD teachers (60 percent) have Blue Cross. Single family carriers had to pay almost $600 in out-of-pocket expenses for their Blue Cross healthcare last year. The new contract halves that amount.
Nelson said that the salary increase is misleading. One must examine the cost of health benefits to see the whole picture.
The new agreement will last through the 2006–07 school year and includes additional wording to clarify several sections in the original collective bargaining agreement.
One section regarding teacher evaluations – a hot button issue for the GTA – resulted in a victory for the teachers.
“It’s actually in wording now that a unit member will never evaluate another unit member,” Nelson said smiling. “They were not supposed to all along, but it’s written down now.”
GUSD teachers will not participate in district walkthroughs, however, they will continue doing site walkthroughs. In the past, some teachers have expressed concern that the district was using teachers’ comments as part of district evaluations.
GUSD Assistant Superintendent Linda Piceno has denied that has ever occurred in the past. As of press time, Piceno was unavailable for comment.
The forms used in previous site walkthroughs were more open–ended. Now they include a guideline of state standards.
“We have forms that are more clear. So we have banished ‘not a good fit’ from their vocabulary,” Nelson said.
Another new change is that the Gilroy Teachers Federation, which about 21 percent of GUSD teachers are members, will now start paying dues to the GTA – something they have never done before.
The GTA is recognized by the district as the official negotiator for teachers.
While the GTF will technically still exist, teachers choosing to remain members will have to pay dues to both unions. Dues for GTA run about $800 per year.
In future negotiations with the district, Nelson will be discussing alterations to sections regarding safety, class size and hours worked. According to Nelson, safety will be addressed in two areas from the actual buildings to student behavior in classrooms.
The GTA also hopes to clarify the teacher complaint procedure.
“We’re waiting for the board to come up with a complaint procedure,” Nelson said, “because (the contract) doesn’t really match what the board has (for policy.)”
One area district officials have expressed interest in negotiating is in the wording of the academic freedom clause.
On April 13, four Gilroy High School teachers participated in a nationwide demonstration along with students called the Day of Silence, which prompted GUSD board members and Superintendent Edwin Diaz to question whether teachers should be allowed to take part in activities during class time.
The GTA does not feel the contract needs altering.
“It’s not that the contract has the problem,” Nelson explained. “They need to come up with a board policy that deals with this. I don’t think that the policy needs to be changed. It’s within the law.”
While the contract is not what either the district or GTA initially proposed, the agreement reflects a middle ground, Nelson said.
“It’s better to start the year with a contract than without,” she said.
