Members of the St. Paul Federation of Teachers gave up some of their salary increases and accepted larger class sizes in exchange for dozens of new hires in special education and English language instruction, according to contract agreement details made public Thursday.
Laurin Cathey, the district’s human resources director and lead negotiator, said the teacher agreement stayed within the two-year, $4.1 million budget the district had set last fall. That amount would have been enough to raise teacher pay by 1 percent this school year and next.
However, to help pay for other priorities, union negotiators agreed to make their first 1 percent increase effective Jan. 6 instead of the start of the current school year, Cathey said. That freed up just over $1 million, although the savings to the district won’t carry over to future years.
In addition, the agreement increases the class-size ranges by one or two students in the middle and high schools, Cathey said, saving the district an additional $500,000 to $2.5 million each year.
Although secondary classes will have more students on average, the district agreed to hard caps so that no single class is way over the average.
“It will catch those outliers,” Cathey said.
The payoff for the union is an increase in the district’s monthly health plan contributions — $15 more for individuals and $40 for families — and more staff for some of the district’s most vulnerable students.
“Our priorities were primarily making sure we had our needs met for our special education and EL students,” union president Nick Faber said Thursday.
The district agreed to add 15 English learner teachers in 2018-19 and 15 more in 2019-20. That should help St. Paul address shortcomings identified in a state compliance review last school year.
The contract also includes a memorandum of understanding that the district will boost special-education staffing, another union priority. Cathey said they will hire 13 educational assistants and 10 other paraprofessionals, “as soon as we can.”
The two sides also agreed to work together to recruit students, seek more revenue from corporations and nonprofit hospitals and colleges and lobby for special-education funding.
The agreement itself has not been made public but negotiators said it includes a number of smaller items. They include money for Hmong Dual Language staff who spend extra time translating curricular materials; a promise to provide students whose lunch accounts are overdue with a full lunch instead of a substitute cheese sandwich; and enough time for elementary school students to both eat lunch and play at recess.
The district also clarified that all 12 schools participating in a restorative practices pilot will be funded for three years. And Faber said the district will pay the restorative practices coordinator’s full salary instead of splitting costs with the union.
The district also pledged that Tier 1 teachers — those with a bachelor’s degree but no teacher training — can compose no more than 2 percent of teachers in high-poverty schools districtwide.
Union members will vote Feb. 22 on whether to ratify the tentative agreement reached early Monday. The deal followed seven straight days of mediation and forestalled a labor strike.
“We’re walking out of this negotiation feeling really good about where we moved the district,” Faber said.
Besides the 1 percent raises, the deal honors salary increases based on experience and education. Over two years, those steps and lanes will cost the district about $17 million, Cathey said.
