Rochester Teachers Agree to Freeze Salaries and Steps for a Year
ROCHESTER, NH. – The Rochester Federation of Teachers and the Rochester School Board have agreed to a new one- year contract.
Superintendent Mike Hopkins expressed pleasure that the RFT recognizes the budgetary and fiscal issues facing the school district and city this year and proposed a salary and step freeze.
“The teachers understand the current economic climate and are concerned with potential budget cuts in the school district. We recognize the challenges our families in Rochester are facing and we remain committed to working with the School Board during these difficult times,” said RFT President Peg Hurd.
The contract would be effective August 27, 2010 until August 28, 2011. The Rochester Federation of Teachers’ membership in an overwhelming vote ratified the contract on Monday, February 8, 2010 and the Rochester School Board approved the contract on Thursday, February 11, 2010.
The terms of the contract are: One year contract with no changes to current contract language except where noted below. Steps will be frozen for one year and with no adjustment to the salary schedule. No teacher will move up on the salary schedule during the next year. It is understood by the parties that the salary schedule with annual step increases will begin again in the 2011-2012 school year. All benefits, including health insurance remain the same in the one year contract.
The Rochester School Board agreed to these terms, since it saves $330,000 in the current proposed budget and caps spending on salaries for teachers for one year. This equates to saving more than four teaching positions in the District.
The City Council still must approve the cost items in this contract. The Council may consider the contract on March 16th, as part of a special meeting after a workshop session.
are there any future considerations we need to be aware of?…Doris Gates voted against it but failed to let the public know why…
Fred,
The future considerations are listed in the press release. Here they are:
It is understood by the parties that the salary schedule with annual step increases will begin again in the 2011-2012 school year. All benefits, including health insurance remain the same in the one year contract.
what is the additional HC costs for next years budget?…I’m assuming we would be paying this regardless of this deal? – Thanks!
Fred
The increase in the budget for Health Insurance is 1.4 million dollars. I agree with your last sentence. The 1.4 million dollar increase includes all staff, not just the teacher’s contract.
so it seems that instead of renegotiating their entire contract, there was a compromise that let the union and the school district claim a victory…I’d like to see this contract renegotiated with a less costly healthcare/benefit plan…most (if not all) private sector companies that offer health benefits (along with 401K or pension plans) have seized the weak economy to step plans and benefits cost down…the city of Rochester and the school district have an obligation to the taxpayer to do the same…there’s no reason that public employees should be shielded from the pain that the people paying the bill are experiencing…
I hope to see the school district keep our employees from losing their benefits. Where our school staff lose in salary, they make up in their benefits. All together, they are still not where they should be as professionals with college degrees (many of them advanced degrees).
I do not work for the district nor am I related to anyone who does. I am however, very supportive our our schools and believe that we should have the best teachers and provide an excellent education for our children.
We should not cut the budget just for the sake of cutting the budget. We need to make sure that the money we spend is just spent wisely – something we seem to be doing.
With all due respect, our teachers and other staff are very well paid and have top notch benefits at a cost most people in our community do not receive…simply paying teachers the most money and given them the best benefits does not assure we have the best teachers…the RFT contract allows good, bad and adequate teachers to all get compensated the same…I don’t want to see good teachers laid off, but when seniority prevails, we will loose good teachers that do not have seniority…the problems lies with the collective bargaining mentality on both sides…there is nothing built in to the current contract that assures excellence in education..it’s a one sided document…this needs to end and I hope what happened in RI last week is the beginning of the trend that puts kids first – ALWAYS!!!
I respectfully disagree with some of your statements.
I will never expect Rochester to be tops in salaries with respect to educational employees. You need to consider that if you want good teachers, you need to pay them. Simple as that. If we don’t pay them well (read: not tops in the state) they will use Rochester as a stepping stone to go to other higher paying districts like Dover, Exeter, Oyster River, Northwood, etc.
According to the contract w/ the RFT, there is a means to eliminate the bad teachers. THe administrators need to be in the classrooms to evaluate their staff. If they fail to do that, then you CANNOT blame the teachers. There is nothing wrong with seniority if there is an adequate means to correct those bad apples in the system and that falls on the hands of the district’s administrators.
We cannot expect miracles from teachers who have 35 children in a classroom, fail to provide them with a good salary and benefits and promote a good working environment (the latter items being two things that ANY business in the private sector would use for recruiting purposes). I am not insinuating that we should be at the top of the pay scale in the state. But, if you continually complain about children not doing well on state testing, there may be a corellation between the results and the morale in the schools (stemming from salary, benefits and working conditions)
As I said before, simply paying someone well does not ensure you get a good teacher…the current RFT contract does not include one component or measure for accountability…all that blather about stepping stone and classroom size is, well blather…classrooms in Rochester are no where near 35 kids in a classroom…in fact, there are some classrooms with 8 students…as far as the stepping stone issue is concerned, what school district is hiring right now?…the last 2 RFT contracts gave increases of 8.4-9.9 to 4.1-4.4 percent per year…this doesn’t include benefits…there is a limit and we reached it…and, if the RFT and the district do not start showing better results, then we need whole sale change…I also firmly believe that parents have to be far more involved in the solution…having said that, there are many instances around the country of real success with far less going for teachers than we have in Rochester…this all comes down to having the total committment for what’s in the best interest of the kids… “trust, but verify”
RFT Contract – http://www.nh.gov/pelrb/Contracts/Rochester%20Federation%20of%20Teachers,%20AFT-NH%202007-2010.PDF
Just cause and a grievance process to get rid of an bad teacher…layoff is first in last out…again, 47 pages of a one sided agreement that mentions nothing about educational excellence…there’s an old saying, if your given lemons, make lemonade…there is no doubt that each student brings unique challenges…being a teacher responsible for educating young people can be a tough proposition, but to not have written performance measures makes no sense at all…I believe the next contract needs to begin to incorporate measurable achievable goals for the entire union membership…nothing has to be for individuals, but we must write out goals so we are making proper advances and we know that the contract holds value for teachers and students…anything less says we are not serious about great education in Rochester…
Sadly, I know too many civil servants who were dismissed by principals and other administrators because they didn’t like them or they “rocked the boat”. To me, just cause is a safety mechanism to prevent bad administrators from making bad decisions.
Just cause is just that – an administrator must have a good reason to fire someone. Wouldn’t you want that in your job? Would you want to be fired from your job for no reason at all? That is all it is. Now the grievance process, that is another story.
I don’t have a problem with just cause, that’s why I support right to work legislation that progressives oppose…NH is not a right to work state and that excuse is used to defend the need for expensive collective bargaining units…but I must go back to my belief that if there is documented performance measurements in the RFT contract, then this not only protects teachers, but it also helps to ensure high quality education…any collective bargaining unit that refuses to be held accountable and any school board who refuse to hold a bargaining unit accountable cannot be serious about providing high quality education in my opinion…having said that, I also strongly believe that a high quality education does not rest solely on the shoulders of educators…parents and all members of any community who believe they have no responsibility toward education are as big a part of the problem, if not a bigger part of the problem…we have elected officials in Rochester who do NOTHING to improve more involvement in Rochester’s education system…as a result, I’m trying to organize an effort to change that…I want to hold my elected officials accountable for what they should be doing in concert with a grassroots movement to get people to understand the importance of their involvement in our schools…