Contract round up: Sacramento, Baltimore County, Billings and Laramie
December 19, 2014
After a
brief hiatus, we’re pleased to announce the return of our “Catching up onContracts”
series. Once a month, we report on notable changes, or
the lack thereof as the case may be, in some of the new teacher contracts in
NCTQ’s Teacher
Contract Database.
Sacramento City Unified School District (CA), July 1, 2014 – June 30,
2016
After a rancorous negotiation process, Sacramento
City USD reached a tentative agreement in September. It doesn’t appear,
however, that peace between the Sacramento City Teachers Association and the
district has been restored, as the Association filed an unfair labor practice with
the California Public Employee Relations Board (PERB) over a unilateral
decision to switch health insurers. Just this week, PERB called for the
district to enter mediation on the issue. But we digress; here’s a look
at the major changes from the district’s former contract to its new one:
Longer school day for
kindergartners:
A new provision allows individual schools to elect
to extend the kindergarten day from 200 minutes to 255, just 30 minutes less
than the primary teachers’ instructional minutes. This change can only happen
if at least 80 percent of all full-time, unionized teachers in the school vote
in favor of the change.
If a school elects to implement the extended
kindergarten day, teachers may opt to “self-surplus,” meaning that the district
would find placement in another school for these teachers if they opt not to
participate.
Reduced class sizes in
high-poverty schools:
Teachers of
grades K-3 in schools with more than 75 percent of students eligible for
free and reduced-price lunch will see class size limits reduced. The class size
limit will gradually drop from 32 in kindergarten and 31 in grades 1-3 to 29
and 28, respectively, by 2015-2016.
Longer school year:
With the restoration of two furlough days during
the recession, the teacher work year has increased from 182 to 184 days.
Increased teacher salaries:
There is a 2 percent
increase in teachers’ salaries in 2014-2015 and a 1 percent increase in
2015-2016.
Baltimore
County Public Schools (MD), July 1, 2014- June 30, 2017
In
Baltimore County, the latest teacher contract only made changes to its teacher
evaluation process. Teacher salaries will be flat from last year to this year. Interestingly,
while the biggest difference in teacher evaluations was introduced in 2013-2014
when the state required the use of student growth as a significant factor in
evaluating a teacher’s performance, the contract makes no mention of this. The
contract only covers those evaluation policies related to teacher practice. The
previous and new contracts are not vastly different from each other, but there
are a few developments:
Less frequent evaluations for
tenured teachers:
Most significantly, the district now follows a
three-year evaluation cycle for effective, tenured teachers whereas it was formerly
a two-year cycle. There is a summative evaluation once every three years with
formative evaluation in the off-years. As
before, tenured teachers who were rated effective or better have the option of
choosing an alternative evaluation that allows observation of practice outside
of a classroom setting (i.e., peer coaching, conducting seminars, portfolios)
in addition to a classroom observation.
Formal observations for
non-tenured teachers:
Teachers in the formative years now must now
undergo one classroom observation each year whereas, previously, instructional
performance was presumed to be satisfactory based on the teacher’s previous
summative evaluation.
Increased number of evaluation
ratings for observations and final evaluation ratings:
In accordance with state law, the performance
ratings have changed. The previous contract called for a binary rating system
of satisfactory and unsatisfactory for a teacher’s overall final rating. We now
see three levels: highly effective, effective and ineffective. On the classroom
observation rubric, there are now four ratings.
Billings Public Schools (MT), July 1, 2014 – June
30, 2016
Billings’
new contract brings few changes. Actually, most remarkable is the lack of
change. The contract continues to require that tenured teachers be evaluated at
the discretion of the administrator or upon the teacher’s request. Board Policy
has gone one step further to require evaluations once every three years. However,
even with that, requirements are much less rigorous than what most other
districts require. (Seventy-three percent of districts in the Teacher Contract
Database require tenured teachers to be evaluated more frequently than once
every three years).
Increase in Pay:
The only actual change we can
report is an increase in pay for teachers. Billings’ teachers will receive a 2
percent across-the-board increase this year and again in 2015-2016.
Laramie County School District One (WY) – July 1,
2014 – June 30, 2015
Billings’
neighbor to the south, the Laramie County School District, also stuck with the
status quo in its latest contract, except in salaries:
Cost-of-living increase:
Laramie teachers will receive a 2.1% cost of living increase to their
pay this school year.
