New contract with Manchester teachers union up for vote

Jun. 27—Manchester school board members are expected to vote Monday night on a tentative two-year agreement with the city teachers union that includes salary increases, one-time retention bonuses and added instructional time during the school year.

The tentative new deal with the Manchester Education Association (MEA) is among several items on the agenda for Monday's Board of School Committee meeting, slated to get underway at 6:30 p.m. at City Hall. This is the final scheduled school board meeting until early August.

If approved, the agreement will head to the Board of Mayor and Aldermen for a vote next month.

The tentative agreement would kick in July 1 and run through June 30, 2024.

The proposal would increase the teacher hiring rate to $42,435, with all certified teachers starting at Step 1 at $41,000 plus a 3.5% hiring bonus for a total annual wage of $42,435. In the second year the base salary increases to $43,495, including the 3.5% hiring bonus.

The contract would also use ESSER funds to provide one-time retention bonuses between $2,000 and $3,000 in FY'23. The bonuses would be reduced to between $1,250 and $1,500 in FY'24.

The agreement contains changes in health insurance benefits expected to result in $540,000 in district-wide savings.

The estimated cost to the school district is pegged at $4,463,345 in school year 2023 and $4,273,970 in school year 2024, for a total cost of $8,737,315 over the two-year term of the deal.

Supporters of the tentative agreement say the new pay rates will help the Manchester School District (MSD) be more competitive in the tough labor market for new teachers.

"This contract shows the depth of collaboration that MEA and MSD have," MEA President Sue Hannan said.

"Both parties had the same goals in creating a competitive salary scale that would attract and retain quality educators, and we believe that we achieved that goal given the parameters we faced. We are very proud that we were able to create an agreement that significantly improves language in the collective bargaining agreement, while meeting the goals of both the MEA and the BOSC. This contract provides a platform to allow educators to be agents of change in education."

Hannan said negotiations officially started last November.

"We met sporadically at the beginning, but then created fairly regular meetings where we took the time to hear each other's needs and goals," said Hannan. We did have some full day meetings that helped to make great strides in our work."

Hannan said recognizing that city teachers "kept the doors to all schools open over the past two years" was important to both sides as talks progressed.

"Throughout the pandemic, we have covered for colleagues when they or their families had COVID, couldn't be in school for health reasons, and were out for the regular reasons like other illnesses and professional learning," Hannan said. "If we didn't step up, give up prep times, cover two or more classes at once, most schools would have had to close at multiple points in the past two school years."

She said ESSER grants are being used to recognize these efforts.

MEA has held four membership meetings since the tentative agreement was completed, Hannan said, to review changes to the collective bargaining agreement and answer questions from members. Voting on the contract will conclude Monday afternoon prior to the school board meeting, Hannan said.

"We are very proud of what we have accomplished with this contract, and our negotiations team unanimously supports it," said Hannan.

The contract contains language addressing issues with the number of sick days teachers have taken in the Manchester school district in recent years.

"Excessive teacher absences impair the continuity of instruction and degrade the overall quality of the education the students of the district receive," the contract states.

"The district and the association hereby pledge their joint commitment to reducing excessive absenteeism."

School administrators and MEA officials have agreed to develop joint messaging to teachers no later than Aug. 1, 2022, reflecting that effective teaching requires continuity of instruction and the elimination of excessive absenteeism is a "shared goal."

Both parties will review reductions in sick leave from Sept. 1, 2022, through March 15, 2023. If a minimum of a 5% reduction in routine sick leave (non-FMLA etc.) as compared to the same period in the prior school year is achieved, then both sides will continue efforts to reduce excessive absenteeism through messaging during FY'24.

"If the routine sick leave use does not drop by a minimum of 5% as set forth above, the district shall have the right to reopen the contract relative to cost items and sick leave," the agreement states. "Given the importance of minimizing excessive absenteeism, it is agreed that employees deemed to have abused sick leave may be disciplined."

A report released by the Manchester School District in 2020 showed 62.5% of teachers at Manchester High School West were absent 10 or more times in the 2018-19 school year. At Parkside Middle School, 57.7% of teachers called in 10 or more days. At Green Acres Elementary School, the rate was 54.8%.

The Education Department defines chronic teacher absenteeism as 10 days or more.

For the 2016-2017 school year, 70.96% of teacher absences across the district were attributed to sickness. At the high school level, 69.62% of absences were for sickness and in middle schools, the number was 73.17%.

The report showed that from July 2016 to June 2019, teachers were most likely to be absent on Fridays, regardless of the reason — 24.14% in the 2016-2017 school year, 24.16% in 2017-2018, and 23.79% in 2018-2019.

The tentative agreement will extend the student instructional day by 10 minutes per day, a change equal to approximately 4 1/2 extra school days of instruction over the course of an entire school year.

The school calendar has five days-worth of extra time built into it to cover five snow days. City teachers have agreed the first three snow days will be non-instructional days, but any snow days thereafter may include remote instruction. The change will gain back two more instructional (although remote) school days (this item is weather dependent).