After about six months of negotiation, the Teacher’s Association of Long Beach (TALB) ratified a tentative labor agreement with the Long Beach Unified School District for the 2023-24 school year.
The tentative agreement passed by TALB members on April 21 consists of a 9% on-schedule raise and a 3% off-schedule raise for the 2023-24 school year. The tentative agreement also lowered the number of personal development days the district was mandating from four to two.
The inclusion of four personal development days was a point of contention between the district and the teachers association. According to the district, the additional days are meant to “support the adults in helping students achieve.” Teachers said they found it unnecessary and rallied against it at multiple board meetings.
During their March 25 bargaining update on their website, TALB expressed that since the summer of 2020 “every bargaining cycle has been unnecessarily confrontational and contentious.” The full contract does not need to be renegotiated every year, but there are certain clauses like compensation and contract language that are negotiated every three years or so, according to TALB Jordan Elementary Area Director Mimi Kao.
For her, the biggest issue was the lack of transparency when it came to the additional days.
“The initial proposal did not have any specific professional development attached to it. There was no teacher feedback surveyed in terms of do we need extra days? When would these extra days be? What professional development would be involved?” Kao said.
The two extra development days will be moved to the 2024-25 school year as opposed to including them in the 2023-24 school year as the district had originally proposed.
Before reaching the tentative agreement, the bargaining process had reached an impasse—which is when both parties have reached their “best and final offer”—as it appeared they would be unable to reach any sort of agreement.
The district’s highest offer was an 8.5% on-schedule raise with 3.5% off-schedule raise, whereas TALB wanted a minimum of 10% on-schedule with a 3% off-schedule. According to Kao, a day after the impasse was reached, LBUSD reached out to schedule another bargaining meeting on April 5.
The TALB and district bargaining teams reached a tentative agreement during that negotiation meeting, but TALB members still had to vote to ratify or deny it.
Out of 3,495 members, 2,310 voted on the tentative agreement. The K-12 contract received 1,726 yes votes and 435 no votes. The Child Development Center and High School contract received 143 yes votes and 7 no votes.
Kao said she voted against the tentative agreement.
“I wanted to hold out for more, I did not like the way that any of it was done. [Personally], I’d be okay with additional days, but I want to see what we’re doing,” Kao said. “And the honest truth is, every teacher is already working for free. Those days we go in early to set up the classroom, we review records, we do that on our own time so that we can be prepared. I’d like to just be paid for that.”
The tentative agreement now needs to be approved by the LBUSD board and will be voted on at their May 3 board meeting.
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