LEWISTON — The city’s 439 public school teachers have a new, three-year labor contract that’s being praised by the teachers’ union and school officials.
Lewiston Middle School teacher David Martel, co-president of the Lewiston Education Association, gave the contract an A-plus.
“We are very pleased with this contract,” he said, adding that elementary teachers are especially happy about receiving half a day every Wednesday, beginning in 2016, for planning and professional development.
Lewiston teacher, union co-president and chief negotiator Stephen Belleau described the contract as “fiscally responsible to the community and teachers. The process went well,” he said.
Negotiations began in January and the contract was approved by the School Committee Monday night.
“We’ve never had a contract in hand” when school got out for the summer, Martel said.
The benefits of the contract to students are “enormous,” said Paul St. Pierre, chief negotiator for the School Committee.
One big change is the half-day Wednesdays, which will happen without student dismissals, St. Pierre said.
During negotiations, “one of the big issues was the stress teachers are under because of all the new initiatives, proficiency-based learning, new alternative programs, everything we’re going through,” St. Pierre said.
“Month after month, there’s something new they have to tackle,” he said. “We were losing teachers that we had trained because of all the stress of these new initiatives. There’s been serious morale issues.”
During half-day Wednesdays, teachers will work on the new initiatives, which will directly affect lessons, St. Pierre said. Providing weekly preparation time will help teachers and help morale, he said. “The teacher optimism now is at an all-time high.”
The annual cost of the contract, which is covered in the budget, will be about $600,000 for 2 percent annual raises for teachers, Superintendent Bill Webster said.
Beginning teachers with four-year degrees earn $33,500; their pay will increase to $34,500 next year. A teacher with 25 years plus experience and a master’s degree would see their annual pay go from $63,579 to $65,120.
Both sides praised a new style of negotiating introduced by Webster: interest-based problem-solving.
Instead of the union coming in with high demands knowing they won’t get all they ask for, and instead of the administration coming in with low numbers knowing they’ll have to go higher, both sides acknowledged what was possible and worked “as equals,” Webster said. “We’re able to identify issues and talk about solutions.”
Interest-based negotiation “creates healthy relations with teachers, the School Committee and administrators,” he said.
That trickles down to classrooms in the form of good morale, Webster said.
The contract also is changing pay increases from “steps” to “levels,” with groups of years clustered in levels instead of annual step raises. There will be 20 levels next year, 21 the year after and 22 levels the third year.
The change will allow better pay to teachers in the middle, a range that was not competitive with area school systems, Webster said.
Health care benefits in the contract stayed the same; teachers with families pay 20 percent of their premiums and taxpayers, 80 percent. Single teachers pay 15 percent and taxpayers pay 85 percent.
The three-year contract begins on the first day of school this fall, which this year is Sept. 2.
bwashuk@sunjournal.com
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