On October 13, the Teachers’ Union and the District reached a tentative agreement over this year’s contract. SMUHSD Teachers’ Association Vice President and Aragon teacher Carlo Corti explained that the three most important parts of the agreement were:
- teacher salary will stay at the levels they were at in the previous contract,
- healthcare insurance will continue to be covered in certain circumstances, and
- many worker quality issues, such as class size and employment procedures, will stay unchanged
According to Corti, the District is offering teachers two options for healthcare under the new contract, the Kaiser option and the Healthnet option. The Kaiser plan offers full coverage for the individual and his or her family. The Healthnet plan, on the other hand has both a high and a low plan. Teachers with the low plan will have their coverage provided for by the district, but if a teacher chooses the high plan, part of the cost much come out of his or her pocket. However, the low plan carries a higher co-pay than the high plan, which Corti explains as,“[meaning] that if you get the low plan, you would pay more money each visit to the doctor’s office than if you had gotten the high plan.”
He further added, “The tentative agreement is pretty down the middle. Neither the Teachers’ Union nor the District are particularly thrilled with it, but I don’t think that either side can be overly disappointed in it, either. The Teachers’ Union pushed for the District to cover the high plan, but the District wanted to keep healthcare costs low. On the issue of wages, I don’t know if we were expecting increased compensation realistically, and the District certainly wasn’t offering it.”
The contract lasts for this year and next year, expiring on June 30, 2012. In February or March of 2012, a new round of negotiations will start.
