Updated: Negri, Siegel Agree $1,000 Payments Show Support for Teachers Delivering Quality Programs

A $1,000 payment to each teacher in the school district would be "recognition of the financial strain we've been under and the loss we’ve taken as teachers," said Barbara Siegel, president of the Castro Valley Teachers Association.

The payments are part of a tentative agreement between Castro Valley Unified School District and the teachers' union, which will be the subject of a public hearing at Thursday's 7 p.m. school board meeting. Afterward, the school board will vote on whether to ratify the agreement. 

Superintendent Jim Negri said the one-time payments are intended to "... maintain quality programs and support the teachers who are responsible for delivering the quality programs."

He called the tentative agreement "a mutually agreeable resolution" to months of negotiating.

The payments will cost $483,000 at a time when Castro Valley schools are already down from three consecutive years of steep cuts in state funding, according to a staff report.

The last time teachers received a pay raise was a 4.53 percent increase for the 2007-08 school year, three years ago, Negri said. Four years ago, teachers received an 8.6 percent increase, he said.

Siegel, the union president, said: “Through loss of salary, we have tried to sustain programs in Castro Valley. We don’t feel we can see any more programs cut because we are already down to bare bones."

Meanwhile, health costs and class sizes have risen, and teachers have given up staff development days and have been forced to take furlough days (mandatory days off without pay), said Siegel, a fine arts teacher who has been union president for the past eight years.

“We’ve lost a total of five pay days over the last three years,” Siegel said.

In 2009-10, layoffs began, but all but one of the laid-off teachers were hired back, Negri said.

"The reduction of 20 teachers (in 2009-10) was due to retirements, leaves and the release of temporary teachers.  In 2009-10, the district reduced certificated staffing by approximately 10 teachers," he said.

In keeping with the times, the new agreement also calls for no new salary or cost-of-living increases and maintains the higher K-3 and certain ninth-grade class sizes that went into effect previously. Until last year, K-3 classes were limited to 20 children per teacher; now it’s 25 children.

Ninth-grade English and math classes were staffed 20:1 under the Morgan-Hart Class Size Reduction program and are now staffed at 29:1, though actual class sizes vary due to program needs, Negri said.

The district opened negotiations asking for 28:1 or 30:1 student-to-teacher ratios, Siegel said.

“Some districts around us were able to negotiate long-term contracts with colas or small increments of percentage increases over the long term. We were not able to do that,” she said.

She said parents are supportive of teachers (“We’ve got wonderful parents”), but she’s irritated by inaccurate gripes that teachers are paid even when they aren’t working. She says it’s common to find teachers’ cars in parking lots at 9 o’clock at night and throughout the summer. 

Nor do teachers receive social security in addition to pensions, she said, citing another misconception. They get pensions only—no social security.

“At this point, we are trying to help the district, but we are also feeling that we need some recognition,” Siegel said.

To see the agenda packet in detail, click here.

To see the district's press release on the tentative agreement with teachers, click .