Kennedy School second-grade teacher Kay Becker leads her class in doing the Kennedy Pledge by sign language on the first day of school last week. Teachers are working under last year's contract until a new one between the school district and Lawrence Education Association is finalized.

A million dollars apart.

It sounds like a caveat that would hinder a deal and signal that some bitter teacher negotiating sessions are ahead.

But negotiating team leaders with the Lawrence school district and the Lawrence Education Association were more optimistic last week that a settlement could be reached despite the differences in pay issues. They resume discussions Wednesday after a three-week break in talks.

Tentative agreements have been reached on some issues such as creating committees to study the early-retirement system and elementary teacher planning time.

Here is what’s still at issue:

What were the last offers?

LEA negotiators have suggested adding $2.1 million into the salary schedule. Kelly Barker, a Southwest Junior High School teacher and LEA’s lead negotiator, said the offer would keep pace with districts in Johnson County and Topeka. The offer is based on an $1,800 raise for a teacher who has served 15 years and has a master’s degree plus 10 more credit hours.

“We’ve been pretty adamant throughout these negotiations that the amount that career salary goes up is on the higher end,” Barker said.

District negotiators last offered about $1.4 million. It also includes fringe benefits and the cost of early retirement for current teachers. Adding those costs to the teachers’ offer makes the sides about $1 million apart, said Kim Bodensteiner, the district’s chief negotiator and chief academic officer.

District negotiators say they have increased salaries 15 percent during the last two years and that they are restricted on what new funding from the state can go to salaries. School board members have tried to address other issues, such as providing full-day kindergarten at eight schools and hiring more teachers to lower class sizes. With the current offer, the district’s salaries would still be about 3 percent to 6 percent below market value, based on other competitive districts, Bodensteiner said.

District negotiators say its current early retirement package places it above market.

“We’ve made a choice through our negotiating process to put money at the end of the career, and so when we do that, it means we have less dollars for now to put money into salaries,” Bodensteiner said.

What is the philosophy for each side?

LEA negotiators said that in the last two years the district played catch-up after being ranked in the state’s lower third on teachers’ salaries.

“The bottom line is we lost hundreds of teachers, and the floodgates slowed down when we were able to increase salaries the past couple of years, and I’d hate to see that floodgate open back up even a trickle,” said Adela Solis, LEA’s president.

But Bodensteiner said the district has looked at the reasons teachers left during that time.

“If they’re leaving because a spouse is moving, or those kinds of things, I don’t think we can equate that to being because of the salary schedule,” she said.

Both sides have said the disagreement to this point comes from looking at the budget numbers and what can be spent on salaries. District leaders have said they have about $2 million to negotiate with teachers and also later with classified staff members. Negotiators have said the $1.4 million offer is the end of their authority.

Solis said the crux of the disagreement is how restricted funds can be used, because the LEA negotiators have said the district’s spending authority increased by $8.1 million, which is how it bases its offers.

According to Kansas Association of School Boards data for last year, Lawrence ranked 54th in average teacher salary, 53rd in starting salary and 26th in its 20-year earnings capacity out of nearly 300 districts. Shawnee Mission, Blue Valley and Olathe districts ranked in the top 11 in all categories. Johnson County districts also have access to sales tax funding, at least through the end of next year.

But Jim Hays, a KASB research specialist, said school boards have to think about providing other services. Lawrence also has access to a quality talent pool based on Kansas University being in the city, which can affect the market, he said.

“I suspect that the people of Lawrence want their school district to have a lot of different stuff,” Hays said. “They want the curriculum particularly at the high schools to be pretty plentiful, and in order to do that, that requires more employees to have than if you were adopting a more spartan approach.”

Classes started last week. What does this mean for teachers working without an agreement?

It means they are working under last year’s pay scale for now. If and when an agreement is reached and approved, the teachers would receive retroactive pay.

Bodensteiner said the two sides have settled on fringe benefits.

“That hasn’t prevented people from being able to make decisions about their health insurance and dental insurance,” she said.

The negotiations have reached into the school year at least the last three years because state legislators have dealt with school funding late into their session, Barker and Bodensteiner said.

What happens when the negotiators reach an agreement?

The teachers must vote and approve it, and school board members must also vote to ratify it.

So what may be the key to getting a settlement at this point?

Leaders of each side say that’s up to the collective-bargaining process, but they seemed optimistic that talks would be productive.

Wade Anderson, director of negotiations and research for the Kansas National Education Association, said he could see the district trying to sweeten some areas already tentatively agreed to. He said the district might try to promise working toward other issues in the future, such as more elementary teacher planning time, to “ease the pain” associated with a lesser salary increase.

“There are some things in there that have some promise,” he said, “but they haven’t found them in there yet.”