Negotiations between the RSU 12 Board of Directors and the district teachers’ union came one step closer to completion when the board voted unanimously to approve a new teachers’ union contract Thursday, Aug. 11.
The contract must now be ratified by the teachers’ union before it goes into effect, Superintendent Howard Tuttle said. Ratification is expected in early September, Tuttle said – the current contract expires Aug. 31.
While unable to release the details of the contract prior to its ratification, the negotiating team spent a significant amount of time discussing the salary and benefit package for teachers, Tuttle said. The new union contract also updates and clarifies some of the language in the contract that is about to expire, he said.
RSU 12 employs an “interest-based bargaining model” to negotiate its contracts. The model stresses collaboration and approaches negotiations as a shared problem-solving exercise that brings everyone together at the table, board members have said.
The interest-based bargaining model was adopted when RSU 12 was formed and charged with developing a single contract for several school districts that consolidated into one, Tuttle said. In RSU 12’s early years, negotiations were taking an extensive amount of time and the board and union were stuck, prompting RSU 12 to adopt interest-based bargaining, Tuttle said.
The tone of the current contract negotiations was collaborative, Tuttle said. “We tried very hard to come up with solutions for the problems and interests that folks had,” Tuttle said. “For the most part, it worked out very well. As with anything, we get stuck on some things, but we worked through it. I’m very impressed with both sides and how they were able to negotiate.”
Negotiations began in January and the board and union representatives met biweekly, Tuttle said.
“I really want to thank the members of the board that were on the negotiating team,” Tuttle said. “It took a lot of time.”
The union contract for RSU 12’s support staff does not expire until August 2017, and negotiations are expected to begin later in the school year, Tuttle said.
