The Santa Maria Elementary Education Association (SMEEA) and Santa Maria-Bonita School District reached a tentative agreement on June 1, after months of negotiations and spats over salary increases and benefits.
At a negotiating session in February—where the district and SMEEA disagreed on a number of key issues—the groups reached an official impasse, and discussions were continued through a mediator.
But a fact finding session in June proved to be successful, and the parties reached a tentative collective bargaining agreement that, if approved, would go retrospectively into effect on July 1, 2017, and last until June 30, 2020.
“I think that even though there have been some disagreements and the decision making process had its moments where both sides were tough on each other,” SMEEA Second Vice President Michael Schaefer said, “we really came together in the end to be better.”
The tentative agreement, which SMEEA posted to its website, would include a total 4.5 percent on-schedule salary increase that would be paid to each employee over the course of the agreement.
Santa Maria-Bonita also agreed to increase its benefits cap by $640 for the 2017-18 health plan year, meaning employees would each receive a reimbursement in that amount. The parties agreed to forgo a cap increase for the 2018-19 and 2019-20 plan years, according to the agreement.
The district also agreed to schedule a preparation period each month for kindergarten through sixth grade teachers, and to grant parents who are both employed by the district 18 total weeks of family care and medical leave—more than the 12 weeks mandated by law.
“That’s a pro-family decision,” Schaefer told the Sun, adding that the additional leave represents what both the district and its employees care about most: children.
The groups also compromised on class sizes and agreed to calendars for the 2018-19 and 2019-20 school years.
SMEEA members approved the tentative agreement in a landslide vote on June 12. More than 98 percent of SMEEA members voted in favor of the contract, and Santa Maria-Bonita School District’s Board of Education ratified the agreement on June 13.*
“We are very pleased, and we hope that both the membership of our union and the school board will ratify the agreement,” Schaefer said.
* Editor’s Note: This story was updated to reflect the results of the vote after the Sun’s June 14 press time.
This article appears in Jun 14-21, 2018.