Centralia High School teacher Mitchell Smith applauds the Centralia School Board’s decision to approve the teacher contracts Wednesday evening in Centralia.
Centralia High School teacher Rebekah Barnes asks the Centralia School Board to approve the teacher contracts during the public comment section on Wednesday evening in Centralia.
Centralia teachers finally have their contracts.
The Centralia School Board approved the collective bargaining agreement between the Centralia Education Association and the Centralia School District at its regular board meeting on Wednesday evening.
“It feels good to have the contract passed,” said Centralia School Board president Amy Buzzard. “I’m looking forward to healing and moving forward as a district.”
Centralia teachers wore the red “Centralia Strong” shirts they sported throughout the negotiations that lasted roughly five months and almost every seat at the Centralia Middle School Commons was full.
Before the school board reached its action items, there were about ten public comments from teachers, parents, community members and Centralia School Board member Jami Lund. Most of the comments were from teachers, asking the school board to approve the contract.
“Unless you have no confidence in your superintendent and his ability to negotiate a fair contract, what is the tentative agreement for?” asked Lauri Johnson, one of two CEA co-chairs during the public comment section. “What’s that process? Why would we have stopped bargaining? Why would we have brought this to a closure if you felt that it was not finished, Jami?”
Johnson’s pointed comment to Lund was in reference to his letter to the editor published in The Chronicle on Sept. 25. In the letter, Lund said the collective bargaining agreement was unfair to new teachers.
The collective bargaining agreement was not available to the public until Tuesday morning, when the CSD published it with the school board meeting agenda. Neither the CSD, nor the Washington Education Association chose to share the agreement. The agreement is now public record.
The largest changes in the agreement are in regards to salaries. In the collective bargaining agreement that the district approved, the minimum a teacher can make (with both base salary and TRI) is $46,017. The maximum is $94,955.
During the public comment section, Lund discussed the McCleary case and said the plaintiffs in the case documented that it was wrong for local levies to fund salaries for basic education.
“They want levies out of the business of enhancing pay,” Lund said during the public comment section. “Levy-funded salary was prohibited in RCW 28A.400.200. Yet this proposal spends all the state’s $65,216 on teacher salary and adds another $8,686 per teacher.”
The state minimum allocation is $65,216 per teacher for the 2018-19 school year, which is more than the $59,333 for the 2017-18 school year. This information resides in the state budget.
Lund also said that the 1.25 percent enrichment stipend in the new contract is in violation of the statute that prohibits supplemental salary. At this point, audience members began shouting “lie.”
That 1.25 percent enrichment stipend is under the “responsibility” portion of TRI, which stands for time, responsibility and incentive. Teachers previously had 16 TRI days under this section.
When the agreement came to a vote, Kim Ashmore recused himself from voting on the contract because it would affect members of his family. Lund made a motion that the school board table the contract and get a legal opinion from the auditor or attorney general. No one seconded the motion.
Amy Buzzard, Lori Fast and Bob Fuller voted in favor of the contract.
