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The Association of Pleasanton Teachers and the Pleasanton Unified School District agreed to terms on a tentative agreement with an overall compensation increase of 13.22%, among other provisions, to end months of tense negotiations, the district announced late Monday night following a marathon bargaining session.
Key elements of the deal – which still needs to be approved by union membership and PUSD’s Board of Trustees – include 10% in an ongoing salary increase staggered throughout current 2023-24 school year, full Kaiser single health coverage, upticks to teacher stipends, credit for years of service and reduction in high school class sizes, the district said on its negotiations webpage.
“This is an increase to the District’s prior offer and exceeds the recommendation brought forward by the Factfinding Panel,” PUSD officials said. “We are pleased to have reached a resolution that represents how we value our certificated team members and the work that they do with students. Thank you to the members of both negotiating teams who dedicated so much time and effort to making this happen.”
APT president Cheryl Atkins confirmed to the Weekly that a deal was reached and would be going to union membership for a ratification vote.
“We came to a tentative agreement and have avoided a strike,” Atkins told the Weekly late on Tuesday. “While we didn’t get everything we wanted, we were able to get an agreement that supports our guiding principles of APT — best class sizes and caseloads, best resources and supports and best educators, which will help to give our Pleasanton students the best. We thank our community, parents, and students that reached out to the schools board and district management to support our efforts.”
The two sides had been at odds over this year’s contract for months, with the standoff primarily centered around how far apart the union and district bargaining teams were on salary increases.
APT declared an impasse with the district amid stalled talks last October, with members participating in several large-turnout rallies locally and regionally to bolster public awareness and solidarity during the ensuing months. Union membership cast a near-unanimous vote in December to authorize their leadership to call a strike if necessary during the negotiations.
Meanwhile, PUSD’s cabinet and trustees have been grappling with harsh budget forecasts for next school year and beyond based on state funding projections, including signing off last month on a plan for staffing reductions for 2024-25 – with approval of final layoff notices still pending.
The union and district bargaining teams advanced to the fact-finding stage of the process, with the two sides sitting down with a third-party panel on Feb. 26 to no avail.
After the fact-finder’s report was released to the parties in recent days, APT accepted PUSD’s invitation for a special negotiation session on Monday. District officials announced publicly heading into the meeting that their side was prepared to offer a deal in line with the fact-finding report’s recommendations, which included a 9% salary increase and Kaiser health coverage, among other provisions.
The two teams met for 14 hours on Monday before the tentative agreement was solidified late into the night, according to PUSD.
“This is very good news for our community,” PUSD Superintendent David Haglund said in his 5th annual State of the District speech at the Firehouse Arts Center on Tuesday where he broke the news of the agreement to the audience. “None of us were looking forward to the other opportunity that could have presented to ourselves.”
One of the main terms is a 10% cumulative salary increase for APT members, which would be implemented in staggers: 4.5% retroactive to the start of the 2023-24 school year on July 1, 5% retroactive to Jan. 1 and 0.50% effective on May 1, the district said.
Specifics about other provisions of the deal were not immediately revealed.
“I want to publicly say thank you to both negotiating teams and their willingness to stick at it until they got to a solution yesterday,” Haglund said in his speech. “It was a long day for everybody, but we got the settlement and we’re very proud of the work that the negotiating teams did.”
Great news for our teaching staff! Is the cabinet getting these raises as well? That would be sad news for all of us.
Once again, the Weekly gives us no helpful info. We need to know the existing pay range, what the new pay range will be and how much all of this will cost taxpayers. Median pay before and after proposed hike would also be helpful.
Also, what is “full Kaiser single health coverage” and how much will that cost annually.
Thank you for the feedback. Those are among the questions we’re working to answer for future coverage of the deal, full details of which have not been released publicly yet. But that doesn’t mean we don’t go forward with a breaking news story on what has been disclosed so far about the agreement. In fact, I’d argue readers have a right to know what we know so far — so they (and we) know what questions to ask as the subject evolves.