ShawneeDispatch.com

Marjorie Kaplan

Cooperation on teacher contract negotiations in Shawnee Mission USD 512 was the key to coming to a timely agreement, Superintendent Marjorie Kaplan said Monday.

The Board of Education and the Kansas National Education Association of Shawnee Mission last week agreed on a two-year contract for the 2008-09 and 2009-10 school years.

This year both sides presented proposals outlining what they were looking for out of the bargaining process. At the first negotiation meeting Feb. 6, both sides presented their top issues, and scheduled what they would discuss at the following negotiation meeting. Both negotiation teams had the same top priority — they wanted to come to an agreement sooner.

“In this approach we asked for the teacher’s association, and they were really cooperative, to kind of really zero in and focus on what they actually wanted to talk about and what they were looking for so I think that made the process a lot shorter,” Kaplan said.

The agreement, which is not final until ratified by both sides, would give teachers a minimum 3.5 percent raise each year. When combined with additional compensation components like moving along the salary schedule or additional education, the overall increase is 4.7 percent.

In 2007-08, the average teacher salary in the district was $54,600, not including benefits. The salary increase to the base and increments will cost the district $5.9 million.

The agreement covers about 2,200 employees including classroom teachers, nurses, music, art, physical education, reading, counselors, special education, physical therapists, speech pathologists and social workers.

Sheryl Siegele, president of KNEA Shawnee Mission, said her team was pleased to reach a settlement in a timely manner.

“Probably the most important thing was the very positive atmosphere in our negotiation,” she said.

Key parts of the agreement include a change to the temporary leave policy, one-time sick leave buyback and an administrative study of teacher planning time and workload.

In the temporary leave policy, teachers will be allowed to use any of their 10 days of leave for personal days or sick days. In the past, only three days could be allotted for personal leave.

“One of the comments a teacher said during a ratification meeting when I said temporary leave the teacher said ‘Oh my gosh, I feel so much more like I am being treated like a professional,’” Siegele said.

Teachers who accrued more than 50 days of temporary leave will be able to sell back any portion of that leave for $50 a day in 2009. Also starting next year will be the ability to sell back any part of the current year’s unused leave for $50 a day.

When the administration and KNEA Shawnee Mission discussed planning time for teachers, a solution was to conduct a study of teacher workload and planning time with the help of Siegele.

“The year 1991 was the last time that planning time has been increased in the teacher’s day,” Siegele said. “We have tried to alleviate it by putting half-day workdays near progress reports, but those mostly help the secondary schools. Elementaries are the ones that are really feeling the pinch during planning time. The administrative study is designed to take a look at what time during the day do we have for teachers to do their work that isn’t with the students.”

Although there is no plan for negotiations next year due to the two-year contract, Siegele said there is a possibility that planning time could be added to next year’s portion of the contract if a positive solution, such as more time, is found.

If not addressed then, planning time would be addressed in 2010 along with a provision for rewarding teachers for national board certification.

The Board of Education ratified the contract at its regular meeting Monday and deputy superintendent for operations Bob DiPierro said he believed KNEA Shawnee Mission planned to ratify the contract May 29, so the district could issue contracts to teachers May 30, their last day of the current school year.

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