The Vancouver Education Association reached a tentative agreement on a new three-year contract with Vancouver Public Schools late last week, according to union leaders and a district official.
“Our members are in the process of reviewing the language prior to our general member meeting on Thursday, at which point our vote will launch,” Union president Jamie Anderson said this morning. “Final vote results should be available early next week.”
The tentative agreement is not a guarantee that a strike will be avoided, but it is a major step that typically results in contract approval, based on negotiations in other nearby school districts in recent years.
“We are very hopeful this means we’ll be able to have an uninterrupted start to our school year,” said district spokesperson Jessica Roberts.
The union’s full membership will meet Thursday to begin voting on the agreement, which union leadership finished reviewing Tuesday evening. If ratified, the agreement will need to then be approved by the school board.
Anderson said that voting on the package would continue through Saturday, meaning that voting results won’t be available until Sunday at the earliest.
She added the union’s executive board passed a “do pass” recommendation on the agreement package as presented Monday, which assures members the deal is one union leaders feel strongly about.
The union’s current contract expires Saturday night, which is why schools in the district started on time this morning, even without a contract for the school year in place.
Proposed contract
The union shared a copy of the tentatively-agreed-upon contract in its newsletter Tuesday evening.
The proposed contract maintains several class size limits established in the 2021-2024 contract and introduces new periods of non-instructional time for planning and collaboration with other staff – two items that Anderson said last week were top priorities in bargaining.
Kindergarten classes will be capped at 24 students and be limited to 22 by 2027; first through third grades will be capped at 25 and limited to 24 by 2027; fourth and fifth grades will be capped at 28 and lowered to 27 by 2027.
Teachers will be paid an extra $9 per student per day should classes exceed those limits.
Anderson, an elementary school teacher, said earlier this summer she had seen district proposals for elementary school class sizes of more than 30 students, which she deemed unsafe.
The proposal also bolsters language on special education to protect support professionals from being overburdened and ensure student individualized education plans are met by the district. Staff across the region have reported problems with both issues frequently in recent years.
Union members are also guaranteed that their salaries will increase every year of the contract based on an inflation metric that adjusts salaries of public officials annually. The third year of the deal will also include an additional raise to be negotiated in the future.
The base salary for a new VEA member with a bachelor’s degree in the 2023-2024 school year was $54,471. The proposed base salary for a new member with the same qualifications in the 2024-2025 school year would be $56,486.
