More than 1,000 students missed their fourth school day on Monday. Negotiations continue, but the two sides say little progress has been made since last week.
The Mendota Education Association says it’s just about on the same page with the school board when it comes to base salary increases. Sticking points have been the schedule of teachers’ salaries and how much they will have to pay for family insurance. They also want specific provisions about plan time and recess duties.
The Mendota school board says it’s offering some of the highest contracts in the district’s history. It says it’s nearing the end of its rope in terms of what it can actually offer.
It includes higher base salaries and raises of over 6%. But it does ask teachers to contribute 1% more to their family insurance.
But it’s that, and the length of the contract the board offered, that’s kept a new contract out of reach.
The board offered a one-year contract to get kids back in class with the promise of working on a longer deal.
Rachel Sabin is the co-vice president of the union. She says they’re fighting to maintain the status quo.
“We want to bargain a contract that's going to give us some stability so that we're not back at the table in four months working on this," she said. "We want to get back into classrooms. We want to focus our attention on our kids and our lesson planning instead of having this hanging over our heads.”
As contract talks stall, tensions from the negotiations have started showing.
Sean Pappas is the president of the grade school board.
“It's unfortunate with some of the Facebook posts that the union is put out that they've personally attacked some of our board members and things like that," he said. "That's tough and it hurts. We've never gone out and selectively individualized any teacher in any way.”
The two sides are scheduled to get back to the bargaining table on Wednesday.