District, Teachers Union Reach Contract Agreement
he Glenwood Community School District and the Glenwood Education Association, the union representing the district’s teachers, have agreed to a new contract for the 2017-2018 school year.
The two sides met for the second time last Thursday and hashed out a plan for the teachers’ master salary contract and a new staff handbook for certified staff. The two-year contract represents a 2.82 total package increase in salary and benefits for teachers. As part of that increase the district is raising its contributions to the teachers’ health care costs by $100. The district currently covers $500 of certified staff health care costs. Superintendent Devin Embray said the district’s health benefits costs will rise by about 15 percent next year.
The Glenwood Community School District Board of Directors unanimously approved the new contract and the new staff handbook at a special board meeting Monday. The GEA ratified their new contract Friday, according to Embray.
A message left for Maria Jacobus, the vice president of the GEA and its chief negotiator, was not immediately returned.
“Overall, we feel like this is the best thing that could have happened with us moving things out of a master contract and putting things in a handbook,” said Embray after Monday’s board meeting. “I think we came together at the end and we feel really, really good about it. Negotiations ended on a positive note and what we’ve been able to offer our teachers in a high insurance year and with a lot of changes in the law has ended in a deal I think both sides are happy with.”
At center stage in this year’s negotiations is that change in Iowa law, specifically Iowa’s collective bargaining law for state employees. In February, Gov. Terry Branstad signed into law new legislation that limits all public employee contract negotiations to salary only. The law prohibits negotiation on things like health care costs for employees, personnel evaluation procedures and voluntary and involuntary transfers.
As a result of the change, the district negotiated salaries with the GEA for 2018-2019 but the remaining employment issues, that in past years came under the master contract umbrella, was put into a staff handbook covering those prohibited items.
The staff handbook details all the employee items not in the master contract and not up for negotiation, including the cost and type of health care benefits, personnel evaluation procedures, staff transfers and reductions and leaves of absence for political purposes.
As part of the new staff handbook, the district also agreed to the formation of a Labor Management Committee that will be equally represented by certified staff and administrators to handle labor management and proposed changes to the handbook. Embray said that committee would begin meeting later this summer.
“We all walked away, the teachers and the board members, from the table feeling good about it,” Embray said. “If it wasn’t going to live in the master (salary) contract the fact that it still lives in the staff handbook, and it’s all still there, is encouraging to our staff.”