School board approves contract

The Coeur d’Alene School Board approved a teachers contract Friday, ending months of negotiations.

The contract, which gives the district’s 560 teachers and certified employees a 3.25 percent raise, goes into effect immediately and is retroactive to Sept. 1.

The starting salary for a teacher with a bachelor’s degree is $25,224, under the new contract. At the other end of the salary scale, a teacher with 15 years’ experience and a doctoral degree would earn $54,862.

The retroactive pay owed to teachers from the start of the school year will be paid in a lump sum, said Judy Drake, the district’s director of staff relations. That money will come out of the general fund budget, which is typically adjusted throughout the year to accommodate expenses like new programs and hires.

Another major issue was modifying schedules to give elementary school teachers daily preparation time. Each school will decide how to implement that policy. In the previous contract, teachers were only guaranteed preparation time three days a week, when their students attended music, art and physical education classes.

The issue of recruiting and retaining special education teachers was also brought up during contract negotiations.

Most special ed teachers are in the profession because they want to work with children, said Kristi Nivette, president of the Coeur d’Alene Education Association, which represents school staff. But, she said, “They end up doing tons and tons of paperwork. … They find themselves spending less and less time with students.”

The contract has allowed for those teachers to be on an extended contract, like counselors are, to take care of paperwork before school begins in the fall.

Teachers, who ratified the contract on Thursday, have reacted positively to its terms, Nivette said. “It’s not just that they were happy to get it settled; they were happy with it.”

Joann Harvey, an elementary PE teacher and former union president, said the salary raise was important.

“That was a big concern because cost of living is very expensive now,” Harvey said, citing raises in utilities, gas, mortgages – and even the cost of college credits teachers take periodically to recertify.

Harvey said the uncertainty that comes with an unsettled contract was a constant weight on teachers’ minds – except when they’re with students. “It’s always with you. It’s a distraction to what you do,” she added.

And although most people support teachers, Harvey said, she acknowledges that there are critics.

“A living wage is really important and we do have a right to bargain. People should not come (down) hard on teachers.” Harvey invited people to visit the schools to see what kind of work teachers and other staff members do.

Eric Louis, an English teacher at Coeur d’Alene High School, said he was pleased with the contract. Louis was one of the teachers who appealed to the school board during their meetings to approve a higher salary increase – the district had initially offered 2 percent.

At a November meeting, he reminded board members of the important role teachers play when levies are on the horizon, and that their satisfaction with a contract is important.

The district intends to ask voters in March to approve a levy to build and remodel several schools. The price tag was initially set at about $50 million, though district officials say now that it will be lower than that.

Teachers participate in phone trees and encourage people to become informed on the issues and vote, Louis said earlier this week. His message to the board, he said, was that he doesn’t know how receptive teachers would be to putting in that effort if they had bad tastes in their mouths after a long negotiation process.

“We all want to be on the same page,” Louis said. And after reaching a settlement, he added, “I think we’re on the same page again.”