Salem’s teacher union has agreed on a new $38 million contract with the Salem-Keizer School District, concluding several months of largely cordial negotiations that came a year after a near-teacher strike.

The agreement will give the district’s roughly 2,400 teachers a 4% raise this school year and a 3.5% raise next year.

It will also add two school days for teacher training and raise pay for some educators who take on extra duties like coaching sports or leading clubs.

READ IT: Tentative 2025-27 contract agreement

Union members will vote on ratifying the contract starting next week. If they do, it will then go to the school board for approval.

Both sides praised leaders across the table for their work reaching an agreement. That’s in contrast to last year’s often contentious and public disagreements that culminated in teachers voting to authorize what would have been the first strike in district history.

“With different people at the table on the district side, they were organized, professional and ready to actually bargain,” said Tyler Scialo-Lakeberg, the Salem Keizer Education Association president.

Bargaining began in February and concluded after a marathon late night session on June 20.

It took until this week to get the agreed-upon contract language down on paper.

Teachers’ current contract expired June 30. The new contract, if approved, would cover the next two school years, ending June 30, 2027.

“With each meeting, we were impressed by the level of preparation and professionalism that our labor partners brought to the table,” said Brad Avakian, the district’s director of labor relations, in a statement. “Throughout the bargaining process, they were focused on advocating for our educators’ need for fair compensation and improved working conditions.”

The agreement raises the school district’s contributions for employee health insurance to $1,560 per month this school year and $1,615 per month next year. Scialo-Lakeberg said that would roughly keep up with rising insurance premiums, meaning teachers would pay about the same amount of their own money for coverage each month.

There are no new agreements on educator safety, a major topic in negotiations last year. Scialo-Lakeberg said there’s been good progress on those issues and optimism about some district changes in training and responses to students who act aggressively and injure teachers.

Teacher planning and training

The use of teachers’ time when they’re not in the classroom was a key issue in bargaining this year. District officials sought more time for training as they are under pressure to boost student reading scores and are rolling out new curricula in many subjects. The union has long argued that teachers need time free of other demands where they can prepare for class and grade student work in order to be effective in the classroom.

The contract keeps an existing agreement in place for how teacher time is used on Wednesday mornings, when schools start late.

That time will be split. Teachers get half the time for their own preparation work, which can include collaborating with colleagues on lesson plans or data reviews. Half the time can be directed by the school or district for things like meetings or training.

Teachers will also have two full days of the school year set aside for training.

“There’s so much curriculum adoption coming on that it makes sense — people are going to need more training and time and it can’t just be in the summer, it needs to be in the school year more when people are there and ready to go,” Scialo-Lakeberg said.

The agreement reworks a district pay schedule which sets out how much extra teachers are paid for taking on other jobs like coaching sports teams or directing music ensembles.

Scialo-Lakeberg said the schedule hadn’t been revised in years. Some new positions, like serving as a school coordinator for the disability inclusion Unified program, weren’t spelled out, so teachers were losing extra pay despite taking on more work.

Class size

The contract sets aside more money for hiring extra teachers or classroom assistants to relieve overcrowding in large elementary school classes.

That amount will rise to $835,000 next year, up from $600,000.

This school year is the first time a committee that includes teacher and district representatives has decided how to spend that money, Scialo-Lakeberg said. Previously, it was up to district leaders.

“This year was a whole shift and it worked really well,” she said. 

The group was able to react quickly, she said, when Pringle Elementary School got an influx of new students in the winter and spring.

She said class sizes remain too high across the district, but the changes are a step in the right direction.

Contact reporter Rachel Alexander: [email protected] or 503-575-1241.

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