An agreement on a new contract between the Kent School District and the teachers union could come this week and is expected by Aug. 30 at the latest.
Negotiators from both sides are scheduled to meet in a marathon session Tuesday, Aug. 23 in an effort to reach a settlement. The current two-year contract expires Aug. 31. School starts Sept. 1.
“We’re going to meet and work to get through business and get to a settlement,” said Connie Compton, president of the Kent Education Association that represents more than 1,700 members, about the Tuesday session.
School district officials expect a settlement by Aug. 30 at the latest.
“They are in negotiations and we hope to complete (talks) by Aug. 30,” said Chris Loftis, spokesman for the Kent School District. “All reports are talks are going smoothly. They are in the nitty-gritty stage. The sense I got is it could take until the deadline so we could go right up to that.”
Teachers are scheduled to vote on the new contract in a general membership meeting Tuesday, Aug. 30 at Kentwood High School in Covington.
A teacher strike after talks broke down in 2009 delayed the start of school by about three weeks before a settlement was reached on the current two-year contract.
“There is not tension in talks or bad news but there is a lot to go through with the budget cuts at the state and federal levels,” Loftis said of the anticipated settlement right before the current contract expires.
Union officials hope to have a contract settlement in time for the Kent School Board meeting at 7 p.m. Wednesday, Aug. 24. The board will vote on the 2011-12 budget at the meeting.
“We hope to take an agreement to the school board Wednesday night,” Compton said.
Both sides agreed negotiations have gone well.
“I’m just really hopeful,” Compton said. “We’ve had good conversations and discussions. I think there is a lot of potential to make this happen.”
While a few school districts in the state have brought in mediators to help reach contract agreements, Kent talks have not reached an impasse during negotiations this summer.
“Our teams have been meeting,” Compton said. “We have felt no need to go that direction at this point.”
The Legislature slashed $5 billion from the state budget, including a 1.9 percent cut for teacher pay. Since teachers negotiate contracts with individual districts, it remains to be seen how the Kent district and union will handle that cut.
Compton said she did not want to discuss publicly any details at this time about whether the district and union had come to an agreement about the 1.9 percent pay cut by the state.
An estimated 30 employees – including as many as 15 teachers – could lose their jobs because of the loss of federal and state funding to the district.
School district estimates in April indicated as many as 110 employees would be cut, but that was before the Legislature had adopted its final budget in May.
The state cuts to the district turned out to be about $5 million rather than $6 million, which means fewer job cuts in a total annual budget of $325 million.
The district employs about 3,300, including more than 1,700 teachers.
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