Never say never—that’s what we’ve learned from the salary negotiations between Orcutt Union School District and the Orcutt Educators’ Association (OEA).
After months of discussion, a seeming stalemate, and intervention from a state mediator, the district and OEA finally reached an agreement on April 13: The district will grant its faculty a 6 percent pay raise—double its previous offer, despite District Superintendent Debbie Blow’s statement to the Sun earlier this month that “we just can’t offer them more.”
The permanent pay raise comes in two parts: a 4 percent salary bump and a 2 percent added compensation to cover additional teacher collaboration time, totaling a 6 percent on-schedule salary increase. OEA members will also receive a one-time compensation bonus of 2 percent for the 2015-2016 school year.
Blow said that by adding the extra teacher collaboration time into teachers’ contracts permanently, the district was able to up its salary increase offer. OEA members are generally pleased with the compromise, according to association President Monique Segura.
“The association is happy with the settlement,” Segura said. “We feel like it’s a fair deal.”
Prior to their April 13 agreement, the OEA was requesting a 9.5 percent raise, while the district was stuck at its offer to increase salaries by 3 percent. But after two meetings with a state mediator, the parties were able to meet somewhere in the middle.
“I feel like the district really came in on Wednesday ready to negotiate, and that’s when things started rolling,” Segura said of their most recent state mediator meeting. “We really appreciated that.”
According to a district news release, the district found the funds to expand beyond a 3 percent raise from state supplemental funding, which is “provided to support services and additional work aimed at increasing student learning.” The district will fund the additional 2 percent bonus through one-time money granted “for one-time expenditures such as technology, equipment, facilities improvements, instructional materials, classroom supplies, and one-time bonus payments.”
The negotiations also reached an agreement to reduce class sizes to 27 students for transitional kindergarten through third grade. The class size reduction will come into effect in the 2017-2018 school year.
Finally, the district and OEA settled on a three-year collective bargaining agreement, aimed to help the parties “with the stability of a longer-term contract.” But every year, the two parties will revisit the topic of teacher compensation, and each party will be able to select two additional aspects of the contract to renegotiate.
“I’m just really glad we were able to come to an agreement and work together,” Blow said. “This will be nice, because it’ll help us focus the remainder of the year on closing out the school year and doing our best for the students.”
This article appears in Apr 21-28, 2016.