On Friday, March 15th, the Dublin Unified School District (DUSD) sent out an email to students and families, announcing they had reached a tentative agreement with the Dublin Teachers Association (DTA) regarding their negotiations for this year’s teachers’ salary, benefits, and salary schedules.
This agreement includes a 6% salary enhancement for teachers, separated into a 4.5% salary increase retroactive to the start of the 2023-24 school year, and an additional 1.5% salary increase that goes into effect starting May 1st, 2024. It’s important to note that this salary increase include a 0.5% pay increase due to the addition of five additional teacher collaboration meetings, for a total of 26, meaning the actual increase in pay per work hour is closer to 5.5%.
The tentative agreement also includes an increase in credit for years of experience, with up to eight (8) years of experience provided for teachers with previous full-time TK-12 teaching experience. Teacher salaries go up based on a “salary schedule” that takes into account the number of years worked outside and inside the district. An increase in credit for years of experience, effective for both new and existing teachers in the district, can increase some new and existing teachers’ pay by moving them up the salary schedule. Furthermore, there is an increase in provided preparation time for elementary school teachers, from 90 sessions to 108 sessions. Notably, the agreement does not seem to include any increase in healthcare benefits or other modifications to the salary schedule initially requested by the DTA.
Another point of notice is that the agreement is meant to, in the words of Superintendent Chris Funk’s email, “resolve negotiations for the 2023-2024 and 2024-2025 school years.” This seems to indicate that no further negotiations would be allowed next school year.
This move comes after negotiations between the two groups reached a standstill in late January. Later that month, the DTA announced an imminent teachers’ strike if DUSD and the DTA failed to reach an agreement that satisfied both parties. On March 11th, at the fact-finding meeting, the two groups failed to reach an agreement.
The fact-finding meeting was followed immediately by a district board meeting on March 12th in which 41 public comments by students, parents, and teachers seemed to indicate widespread community support for the DTA. On March 14th, despite a strike seeming inevitable, the District announced one more negotiation meeting with the DTA for the 15th. That same day, teachers across the district participated in a work-to-rule strike, where teachers refused to perform activities outside of their contractually required hours, including coming to school early or working during lunch. Many teachers also wore black and green, in a show of support for the DTA.
For many, the tentative agreement made on March 15th comes as a surprise after almost two months of failed negotiations. However, this agreement has yet to be finalized, as the DTA’s members must still vote to finalize it.
The DTA has not yet made a statement on the tentative agreement. The DTA still plans to meet and discuss the strike, as well as make picket signs, on March 20th. If no agreement is finalized and approved by DTA members by March 22nd, the DTA plans to go on strike.
In the event of a strike, teachers would not come to school and would instead be replaced by substitute teachers. DUSD has been offering to pay $600 a day to substitutes in the event of strike conditions, an offer they have been advertising on social media platforms such as Instagram and Facebook. Despite this offer being almost three times the regular pay offered for substitute teachers, it is still unclear whether the district will be able to hire enough to make up for the more than 700 members of the DTA.
Regardless, substitute teachers will be unable to continue regular coursework or teach students properly, and students may begin to fall behind in their classes without proper teachers. Striking teachers themselves will not receive pay while they are on strike. The DTA hopes that, if an agreement is not reached, the widespread backlash generated by a strike would be enough to pressure the district into coming to a compromise.
This is a developing story.
