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The District and EEA have just finished three full days of joint bargaining in the last two weeks. The District and EEA have both put all their interests on the table, and now we are in the process of trying to come to agreements and bring you a contract you can be proud to ratify.
Honestly, progress has been very slow. When talking about monetary issues, the District’s approach has been to look at how they can use “current resources in a different way” instead of adding additional money into the contract. The EEA team addressed this issue with the District and let them know we are aware of the District’s financial situation and have made some adjustments to our expectations; however, we still expect some additional money to be put into our contract, especially given that the District is running a $7 – 8 million dollar levy in August. One important monetary item of note is that indications are that we will be successful in maintaining mid-point for our members. The District has some ideas about the timing of the payout of mid-point that might be helpful for them in budgeting, and EEA has said we are willing to look at and discuss those ideas.
We are close to agreement on several issues, mostly language issues. We are close on some issues concerning insurance, substitutes, reducing itinerancy during the surplus process, specialist schedules, planning time, and the 504 flow chart. Most of our “meatier” items and monetary items are still in early stages of discussion. We have 4 days of bargaining scheduled on June 22nd – 25th, and hopefully we will make good progress on those days. Stay tuned for another bargaining update near the end of June, and mark your calendar for the General Membership meeting at 5 p.m. at EWHS on Monday, August 30th. |
