Bethel Park teachers agree to 5-year contract
Bethel Park School Board and the district’s teachers’ union signed a new contract Jan. 24, in a scene vastly different from the last time the two sides negotiated a labor agreement.
The last contract, which was approved in 2013, took three years of negotiation, a six-week teachers’ strike, arbitration and two state fact finder reports. This time, negotiations took some time – the union and school district agreed to extend the old contract by a year while they negotiated – but both sides said the talks were relatively amicable.
A contract negotiation “is a naturally adversarial process,” school Director Jim Means said. “But, I think the give and take that we saw here was very constructive. We didn’t get everything we wanted and I don’t think they got everything they wanted.”
The five-year collective bargaining agreement will run from July 1, 2017 through June 30, 2022. Teachers will see raises of $800 for each of the first three years, a $1,100 raise in the fourth year and a $1,000 raise in the final year. Employee contributions to health care insurance will stay the same.
Bill Wells, president of Bethel Park Federation of Teachers, thanked the board and his fellow teachers “for working cooperatively to get this done.”
Both sides wanted to avoid a strike.
“Needless to say, we are extremely pleased,” board President Donna Cook said. “This represents a sincere effort on both sides. We both knew what needed to be done. … It was important to put students first.”
Starting salary for a first-year teacher with a bachelor’s degree will increase from $49,475 in the first year of the contract to $52,375 in the final year. Teachers with a doctoral degree at the top of the salary scale will earn $105,429 by the end of the contract.
For health insurance, teachers on steps 1-16 of the salary scale will continue to pay 10 percent of their premium and those on steps 17 and higher will pay 12 percent.
An additional workday will be added to the teacher calendar in the final two years of the contract, bringing the total workdays to 193.
The agreement may change the daily schedule for teachers in grades 7 through 12. Teachers will teach five periods a day, the same as it is now, but they will all have an opportunity to teach a sixth period and half of the staff will be able to teach a seventh period. Teachers who teach the extra periods will be paid stipends of $1,500 for each extra period, each semester. Previously, three-quarters of secondary school teachers taught a sixth period and no one taught a seventh period.
The contract covers 363 members of Bethel Park Federation of Teachers, which includes teachers, nurses, counselors and psychologists.
The district is still negotiating contracts with paraprofessionals, secretaries and custodians. Those labor agreements expired last year.