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K-12 Teacher Negotiations Roundup
Working Together for Students
K-12 teachers, school boards complete another season of contract negotiations
By Kelly Hagen, NDU Communications
Another negotiations season for K-12 teachers in North Dakota has wrapped up with relatively few dust-ups. With approximately 179 local associations recognized as affiliates of North Dakota United, there were only two locals that went to impasse on a contract. Most locals came to a tentative agreement in fairly short order. Not all negotiations have to be contentious. All stakeholders in public education – including teachers, education support professionals, administrators and school board members – are on the same side: our students! In West Fargo, negotiators work collaboratively. “We don’t do a true, hard and fast collaborative bargain,” Lisa Dullum, chief negotiator for the West Fargo Education Association, said. “It’s somewhat of a hybrid that we’ve developed.” Dullum has been part of the negotiations team for West Fargo the last 10 years and estimates they’ve used their collaborative approach for 12-14 years. “I think the benefit of it is that we both have to have that mutual interest, that we have shared goals in mind. One of the board’s goals is always to recruit and retain, and something like maternity leave definitely checks that box.” West Fargo negotiators had first begun to discuss expanded maternity leave during negotiations for the contract previous to this year’s, and was the brainchild of WFEA President Jordan Willgohs. “Someone had sent me some language from a school district in Arizona that was using a bank of leave time,” Willgohs said. “From that language, I worked with Robin Hill,
who was our head of HR, and we worked on making that language consistent with our district language and whatever coverage we needed. And then, unfortunately, we got that insurance bomb that everybody got, which was like a 15 percent increase on insurance, and so that became undoable for the last session.” Willgohs’ idea – or “his baby,” as Dullum lightheartedly refers to the maternity bank concept – was brought up again for consideration this year. Both sides signed off on the concept of establishing a maternity leave bank for the district, and then worked together to negotiate a fair compromise on what that idea would look like. By the end of negotiations, they had jointly formed a concept that the board and WFEA members voted to ratify. This bank will allow for teachers to request up to five additional days of paid leave from a bank of donated days, which is capped at 130 days and $30,000 annual budgetary cost. “I can’t remember the exact quote, but my friend said, when I started negotiating and became president, his ultimate goal when negotiating was always to have a contract that was fair to the taxpayers,” Dullum said, about the agreement. “One that was fair to teachers, and that rewarded hard work and their education. And ultimately what was best for students. He gave me that advice, and I think we’ve really stuck to that pretty well.” In Elgin/New Leipzig, one of only two school districts where negotiations ended in impasse, the story was decidedly different. When an impasse is declared by both sides, the state’s Education Fact Finding Commission is called in to host an impasse hearing in that school district. The commission’s three members – consisting of an appointee of the Governor, one of the Attorney General and one of the Superintendent of Public Instruction – hear from both sides and provide non-binding recommendations to reach an agreement. The Fact Finders held an impasse hearing on June 15, 2021, for the Elgin/New Leipzig
School District and made a recommendation that the two sides split the difference between their salary proposals. The school board proposed adding $500 to the base salary for teachers, and the Elgin-New Leipzig Education Association was asking for a $1,250 increase. Their base salary, or starting pay rate, had been $38,000 per year. The difference between each side’s proposal was calculated at being $19,019.92 apart. The recommendation from Fact Finding was to add $750 to the base, to which the teachers agreed. The school board did not, and voted to reject that recommendation. According to state law, when a contract dispute is not resolved by the Fact Finding Commission, a school board can impose a contract on teachers, however that imposed contract cannot run longer than one year. The school board voted to issue unilateral contracts with the $500 increase and struck a blow to employee morale throughout the school district. NDU field consultants are uniquely qualified and knowledgeable to assist any and all of our locals with the process of collective bargaining and negotiations. From helping to petition the school board to negotiate, counseling your negotiators on process and tactics, and assisting with research and comparisons with similar-sized districts in the state, we are always here for you! This past year, our NDU field consultants estimated that 130 of our locals actively negotiated a new contract this year. All seven of our NDU field staff worked diligently to contact all of our locals and offer assistance. Contact our office anytime at 701-223-0450 or helpcenter@ndunited.org to request any assistance you might need. Local presidents should encourage their negotiations team members to sign up for our Local Leaders Academy trainings on our website at www.ndunited.org/ for-members/local-leadersacademy.
