September 7

Today, we offered compromises that would both reward our educators and further our students’ success.

We were able to raise our compensation offer substantially. Our offer today would give educators a 4% cost-of-living increase in the first year of their contract, followed by 3% increases in the second and third years. This increase, along with a previous offer to raise starting salaries, would make our starting educators the highest paid teachers in the metro area's six largest districts. We also added a new, $3,000-per-year stipend for special education teachers, including school psychologists, speech-language pathologists, and other special education professionals. Our educators have requested more teacher-directed planning time, and we were able to offer an extra day of that as well.

We are not there yet, but we are committed to the hard work of finding common ground. We were grateful to hear PAT President Angela Bonilla voice the same desire to reach a settlement at the September 5th Board meeting. With that agreement, and a shared commitment to student success, we remain hopeful that we can keep our schools open this fall.

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Supporting documents:

• PAT response on permissive subjects
• District response to PAT on permissive subjects  
• PPS Proposals
• PAT Proposals - part 1, part 2