The Alachua County School Board approved the collective bargaining agreement between the district and the Alachua County Education Association, the district’s teachers union, Wednesday afternoon, securing salary increases and workplace protections for district employees after many negotiations since July.
The board voted unanimously to adopt the collective bargaining agreement, which adds a minimum 4% raise for educators who earn $75,000 or less, labels educators rated “effective” or “highly effective” as eligible for rehire, establishes a May 5 deadline for nonrenewal notices and protects teachers’ weekly planning time.
Board member Sarah Rockwell said she appreciates the collaboration between the union and district reaching a consensus on issues.
“I know that this took a lot of work on both sides, and it’s always a lot of compromising on both sides to get things done,” she said.
Salary increases
The board approved the Alachua County Education Association’s proposed salary increase, raising pay by at least 4% for educators making less than $75,000.
This is the second consecutive year the district has approved a 3% to 4% raise for educators.
“Thank you from our very first meeting [for] really making a priority for the raises for teachers and our staff,” Superintendent Kamela Patton said. “It’s two years in a row that we’ve been able to do that.”
Following last year's bargaining cycle, Alachua County climbed from 45th to 42nd out of Florida’s 67 school districts in average teacher pay. Still, the district was roughly $4,000 below the state average.
The raises come as the district faces a decrease in the general fund budget, a portion of the district's budget that pays for expenses like instructor salaries and benefits. The decrease comes amid declining enrollment in Alachua County schools.
Workplace protections
The agreement also creates protective clauses for educators who receive an “effective” or “highly effective” evaluation. The collective bargaining agreement labels these instructors as eligible for rehire, meaning they can’t be nonrenewed or barred from interviewing at other schools in the district if there are no roles available at their current school.
In April, some teachers on annual contracts were nonrenewed and blocked from reapplying to teach in the district for a year regardless of their performance.
The ACEA also secured an earlier deadline for nonrenewal letters, mandating the notifications be sent out 10 days sooner.
The contract also addressed educators' concerns about a possible expansion in teacher workloads.
After the union pushed back, the district bargaining team withdrew a proposal to increase secondary instructional contact time by 20 minutes per day. The union was concerned the proposed language could have led to the creation of a mandated seven-period day.
“I’m assuming the union fought for this part, but thank you again for the district agreeing to making sure and making really explicit that collaborative planning does not count toward teacher planning time and that teacher planning time is still protected,” Board Chair Thomas Vu said. “I even just know, me as a teacher, that one hour goes by so quickly, and it feels like 10 minutes.”
The approved salary adjustments will go into effect immediately, and employees will be paid retroactively for the earlier months of the school year.
Contact Ray Garcia at rgarcia@alligator.org. Follow him on X @raygarciafl.
Ray Garcia is a first-year Philosophy, Politics, Economics, and Law and Public Relations double major at UF, serving as this fall's K-12 education reporter. This is Ray's first semester at The Alligator. Outside of writing for The Alligator, you can often find him spending time with friends, reading, listening to music, or sidequesting around Gainesville.
