Negotiators for the Lawrence school district and its roughly 900 licensed teachers reached a tentative agreement Monday night on a new contract that provides an average 2 percent pay increase for teachers and lets them keep most of the tenure rights for veteran teachers that Kansas lawmakers repealed from statute earlier this year.

The agreement came after a four-hour meeting that briefly became heated when negotiators for the Lawrence Education Association, the local bargaining unit for teachers, insisted on linking the issues of tenure rights and pay raises.

Lawrence school board member Randy Masten, left, shakes hands with Pat McAlister, a member of the Lawrence Education Association's negotiating team, after the two sides reached a tentative agreement earlier this month on a new contract for the upcoming school year. The school board ratified the agreement Monday night.

Last month, negotiators for the district offered a $600-per-year salary increase for all teachers and were willing to fund what are called “horizontal” step increases for teachers, which pay additional money for earning more college credit hours or degrees. But the district did not want to fund “vertical” step increases, which provides increases for each year of experience in the district.

Meanwhile, the district also offered a modified tenure process that would give veteran teachers — those with five or more years of experience — the right to appeal a firing or non-renewal of their contract directly to the school board.

Under current law, veteran teachers can appeal adverse contract decisions to an independent hearing officer whose decisions are considered binding, and the cost of that hearing process is borne entirely by the district. But Kansas lawmakers this year repealed that statute, effective July 1, as part of a larger school finance package, sparking protests and widespread criticism from teachers and public school advocates throughout the state.

On Monday, the local teachers union came back with a counter offer: a $350 increase for all teachers, plus funding for both vertical and horizontal step increases. And the teachers stuck to their earlier request to keep their existing tenure rights by putting the language of that statute directly into their master contract.

District negotiators then accepted the salary offer, which amounts to an average 2 percent increase for teachers, and a $1 million increase in salary costs for the district. But they rejected the request to restore the tenure rights that currently exist in statute.

David Cunningham, director of human resources and legal services for the district, said that would give teachers the same procedural rights that building principals and most other administrators currently have.

But the teachers union said the salary deal and tenure proposal were part of a package. And if the district was going to take away or modify their tenure rights, then they would insist on an even larger salary increase – $2,500 per teacher, plus full funding of all step increases.

“This is nonsense,” said school board member Randy Masten, who serves on the district’s negotiating team. “When you make an offer and it’s accepted, and then you come back and say, ‘You know what, we’re changing our mind,’ you didn’t make it in good faith.”

But David Reber, lead negotiator for the teachers union, said the teachers didn’t change their mind; they were modifying the package.

Reber said it was unfair to say that the district’s proposal would have treated teachers the same as administrators because the average administrator makes about $4,000 a year more than the average teacher. If teachers were going to give up the right to an independent hearing officer, it would come at a cost.

“Our bargaining unit has made it very clear that due process is very important,” Reber said.

But the flare-up did not last long. Both sides went to separate rooms to plan their next moves, and when they emerged the school district offered a compromise.

It would continue to allow teachers to appeal to an independent hearing officer, but that person’s decision would only be a non-binding recommendation to the school board, which would still have final authority over hiring and firing decisions. And it includes the $350 pay increase, plus full vertical and horizontal step increases.

After a few more back-and-forth rounds, both sides agreed to language that would assess the cost of the hearing to the non-prevailing side of the hearing process.

Reber said the contract would be submitted to union members for a ratification vote, which he said he hoped to be completed before June 30. It also must be approved by the Lawrence school board.