Visalia teachers got a big win to kick off summer vacation and it starts with more money.
They also succeeded in ensuring smaller class sizes and strong health benefit plans.
At the June 13 board meeting, Visalia Unified Teachers Association and Visalia Unified School District came to an agreement on the 2017-18 school year contract.
"We had a very productive and collaborative session," said Tamara Ravalin, assistant superintendent. "We met four times and talked about a variety of issues, many of which you don't see in this large tentative agreement but are things that we agree to keep on discussing and collaborating on in the future."
For teachers, three of the biggest concerns included class sizes, maintaining a competitive salary and health benefit plans, said Greg Price, Visalia Unified Teachers Association president.
"It was a very good year for both the district and the teachers," Price said. "While there are still some people who are not completely happy with some of the little things, overall, it was a pretty fair deal."
Teachers will receive a 2.5 percent pay increase for all salary schedules, according to the agreement.
Teachers have received consistent pay increases for the last few years, Price said.
"We're trying to attract excellent teachers to Visalia," Price said. "That would be hard if neighboring districts are paying their teachers more."
The pay increase will be funded by the district.
The base salary for Visalia teachers is $51,193 and maxes out at $95,695, not including benefits or special pay for advisers or special activities.
Class size ratios of students to teachers will also be lowered in grades K-3 from the current 30-students-to-one teacher ratio to 28.75-students-per-one-teacher. That decrease will continue into the following school year, with the ratio dropping to 27.5, Price said.
The teachers union is also pleased the decision to keep the district’s total annual contribution and the employee’s total annual contribution toward health benefits per plan participant. There are no changes to current benefit plans, according to the agreement.
Additionally, the district and union agreed to change language regarding hours of employment, transfers and reassignments, leaves, association rights, and full-time adult school teacher sick leave, according to Visalia Unified officials.
To make sure all 1,326 Visalia teachers are represented, Visalia Unified Teachers Association sent out a survey at the beginning of the school year. The survey was used to identify what teachers wanted to bargain for.
Once Price and his team knew what Visalia teachers wanted out of the agreement, they met with Visalia Unified administrators. After several days of negotiations, both sides came to a tentative agreement, which was then voted and agreed upon by school board members and Visalia Unified teachers.
"One of the interesting things to note in our agreement is that we've agreed to collaboratively go through interest-based bargaining training next fall. So, we'll do that with both teams," Ravalin told board members at the meeting. "We've also agreed to meet and discuss issues throughout the year and not wait until bargaining season so that bargaining teams have a deeper understanding of issues when we do come to the table."