The Washougal School District and its teachers have reached a tentative contract agreement after months of negotiations.
On Monday, the two sides found agreement after more than a dozen bargaining sessions and state-mediated talks.
Details weren’t immediately available. The district announced Tuesday the two-year contract still needs to be ratified by the teachers union and voted on by the school board.
The Washougal Association of Educators will meet early in January to vote on the contract deal.
“The WAE team believes it was able to make significant inroads on long-standing problems in the contract, as well as achieving some gains that had not previously been attainable,” WAE President Frank Zahn said. “We hope that, as has been done before us, the groundwork has been prepared for future negotiators to achieve better conditions for the membership of WAE.”
The Washougal School Board, which will vote on the contract after the union, has regular meetings scheduled for Jan. 12 and 26.
Teachers have been working without a contract since Aug. 31, though their expired agreement was governing this year’s work.
Contract details are still under wraps until the deal is officially ratified due to a confidentiality agreement, though Zahn previously said compensation was a major issue.
“Increasingly, we’ve been given more to do with less money to do it,” he said earlier this month.
Bargaining began June 18. A mediator from the state’s Public Employment Relations Commission joined the talks this month at the request of the district and the teachers union.
Brooks Johnson: 360-735-4547; brooks.johnson@columbian.com; twitter.com/readbrooks
