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Show Teachers, school bosiird agree on new contract by Nan Chalat After postponing teacher salary negotiations from last spring to this fall, waiting for the appointment of a new school superintendent and then suspending negotiations during the voted leeway campaign, the Park City Education Association and the Board of Education have reached an agreement. agree-ment. The terms of the agreement for the 1983-84 school year will be formally ratified at Tuesday's regularly scheduled sche-duled board meeting. Both Don Johnson, president of the Park City Education Association (PCEA) and School Superintendent Tony Mitchell said that the contract negotiations ended on a positive note. "The settlement's a good one. We really felt that the board was listening to us and that they showed more responsiveness and consideration for the teachers than in past years," said Johnson. ' As part of the agreement, the Park City teachers will receive a five percent salary increase effective in January. The increase will not be retroactive so the net gain for the teachers will be two-and-a-half percent for the entire school year. "The advantage of declaring the nonretroactive five percent increase is that it will give the teachers a stronger salary base to work from in next year's deliberations," said Mitchell. The salary increase means that the Park City School District, whose pay scale formerly ranked below average among the state's 43 school districts, will become the third highest paying district in Utah for starting teachers with bachelors and masters degrees, said Mitchell. The five percent increase was the highest salary gain for teachers in any Utah school district. "Most granted either no increase or only one percent," said Mitchell. If the present agreement, which has already been approved by the PCEA, is also ratified without change by the Board of Education on Tuesday, the teachers will also receive additional health insurance coverage and bonus payments for unused sick days. The Park City teachers are currently entitled to ten sick days per year (including two days for personal leave). If those days are not used they will be granted one tenth of a day's pay for each unused day. "The emphasis is on reinforcing teachers for being in the classroom," said Mitchell. "The reimbursement will encourage teachers to have excellent attendence and will give them some recognition for their commitment," said Johnson.. A major issue in the negotiations over the past several years has been the board's lack of policy for orderly termination of untenured teachers. "We talked a long time about orderly termination, an issue which has been stonewalled in the past, and I think we broke down some of the barriers," said Johnson. "Although we didn't get exactly what we wanted, we took some big steps in that direction." The agreement contains an interim settlement regarding orderly termination termina-tion which will be subject to further study by a task force made up of three teachers and three members of the Board of Education. The settlement represents a middle ground between the board's policy of retaining its right to dismiss untenured teachers without legal challenge and a teacher's right to know why his contract has been terminated. Until the task force completes its study in May, an untenured teacher whose contract will not be renewed will have the right to request a meeting with his principal and the school superintendent to hear the reasons for his dismissal. If he desires, a representative from the PCEA may also be present. That teacher, however, how-ever, will not be entitled to a hearing before the board nor can he appeal the board's decision. "We would still like to see formalization formaliza-tion of a policy for remediation and evaluation for all teachers," said Johnson. According to Mitchell, the task force will also study a number of current national education issues such as career ladders, merit pay, and the possibility of extending the contract year to 192 days. "I would like to see Park City become a forerunner in addressing some of the initiatives proposed by the state legislature," said Mitchell. Mitchell said that he will ask the PCEA next year to consider holding negotiations every other year instead of every year. "The negotiations take a lot of time and effort. Most major unions have three-year contracts. I would like our district to consider being the first to move in that direction," he said. "If teachers could be guaranteed that they would not lose any ground and if we could provide a formula for increasing next year's salary in proportion to the budget without annual negotiations, I think it would bring tremendous benefits to the district," he said. |