After 10 hours of negotiations Wednesday the Oak Harbor School District and the teachers’ union failed to come to an agreement on a new contract. Teachers intend to start the school year Thursday without a contract, after the expiration of the current agreement today.
While the school district came to the table with an offer for the Oak Harbor Education Association, lead negotiator Barbara James, the human resources director for the district, did not have the authority to agree to a final set of requests that would have put a new agreement to bed, said Peter Szalai, co-president of OHEA. James told Szalai that the sticking point, about $100,000 worth of pay and benefits over the next two years, would require an authorization from either the superintendent or the school board president, and that neither official was available at the time, Szalai said.
“The association is extremely disappointed that the superintendent and the school board president were not available to provide the latitude to the bargaining team to conclude negotiations,” Szalai said.
Wednesday’s meeting had been scheduled since July 19, Szalai said.
The two sides are “$100,000 apart,” Szalai said, in the areas of supplemental payments for health care insurance and vision care benefits, and in a “decent raise” for substitute teachers.
“The association awaits the superintendent’s return and the district’s response to the latest stage of negotiations,” Szalai said. James tried to reach Superintendent Rick Schulte, “who is climbing a mountain,” on vacation, Szalai said.
“We are extremely disappointed he chose this particular time to be on a mountain,” Szalai added.
The school board approved Schulte’s vacation request for Aug. 26 through Aug. 30 at its June 11 board meeting.
During a phone call to Jones’ office Thursday, an employee said that Jones would not be back until Tuesday, Sept. 4.
Despite the lack of a final agreement after Wednesday’s negotiations, Szalai said the district agreed to some other union requests to be included in the new contract.
“On a positive note, we have made progress on a whole host of issues,” Szalai said. The district has tentatively agreed to restore teacher pay for one Learning Improvement Day, which Szalai also calls the “183rd day,” as well as offered to pay part of the health care premiums of teachers, but not “enough,” Szalai said. Additionally, the two sides have tentatively agreed on other issues such as class size and class load, personal leave, bereavement leave and personnel files.
Meanwhile, despite the lack of a new contract, “353 men and women are working to meet the needs of students,” Szalai said, as teachers prepare their classrooms for the first day of school Sept. 5.
E-mail Christine Smith at csmith@whidbeynews
times.com; call 675-6611.
