Anoka-Hennepin Teachers To Vote on Tentative Contract Deal Feb. 14-15
Teachers in the Anoka-Hennepin School District can expect a raise if their tentative contract agreement with the school district is approved.
Union teachers in the district have been working without a contract since July.
It took months of negotiations and two mediation sessions to hammer out the tentative agreement.
But teachers and the Anoka-Hennepin School Board have to approve the contract before it’s a done deal.
According to Anoka-Hennepin Education Minnesota President Val Holthus, the agreement gives teachers a five-percent raise in the first year of their two-year contracts. They get a three-percent raise in the second year.
Teachers would also receive a $750 bonus check under the new contract.
“We came down and the district came up,” Holthus said.
Meanwhile, early childhood family education teachers would be brought onto the same salary schedule as the rest of the teachers in the district.
The union was not able to negotiate a maximum caseload for special education teachers, but got “extra paid-time for our case managers to work on the due process paperwork,” Holthus said. “And it’s a lot, so we were happy about that.”
Teachers in the Anoka-Hennepin School District attend a rally in December. The teacher’s union and the school district have negotiated a tentative contract agreement.
‘However They Vote Is However They Vote’
Holthus did not speculate as to whether the union rank and file would support the agreement.
“They’re going to vote on February 14th and 15th, and we are going to get out a lot of information about all the things we bargained [for],” she said. “We’re a democratic organization, and however they vote is however they vote.”
If the union votes down the contract, they’ll have to head back to the bargaining table.
But the decision isn’t there’s alone.
The Anoka-Hennepin School Board — which did not agree on a permanent board chair earlier in January — will also have the chance to vote on the agreement.
