photo by: Rochelle Valverde

Representatives of the Lawrence Education Association meet with school district leaders as part of teacher contract negotiations on Tuesday, June 28, 2016, at the district offices, 110 McDonald Drive.

Educators district-wide can expect to see a raise in pay next school year as a result of teacher contract negotiations for the Lawrence school district, which concluded Tuesday.

The agreement reached Tuesday by negotiators for the district and its teachers union includes a 1.5 percent salary increase for all teachers. Though the pay increase was less than half of what the Lawrence teachers union originally proposed, union leaders weren’t displeased with the outcome.

“Considering the way that the state is doing things for schools these days, that’s about as good as can be expected,” David Reber, lead negotiator for the Lawrence Education Association, said following the meeting.

Union leaders and district administrators negotiate annually to update the district’s master teacher contract. Tuesday’s meeting was the sixth since March between district and union negotiators.

In May, the LEA proposed to raise every teacher’s base pay by $250 per year, as well as fund regular pay increases for additional years of service and higher education — commonly referred to as “vertical and horizontal” raises because of the how they are displayed on the district’s pay schedule.

The district and the union ultimately agreed to a $100 raise in base pay per year for teachers, in addition to funding pay increases for service and education levels. The raise comes at a cost to the district of $711,689.

For example, under the 2015-2016 salary schedule, a teacher with a bachelor’s degree would receive a starting salary of $37,630 and receive an average annual raise of about $600 for each year of service until that teacher’s 13th year. After the 13th year, that teacher wouldn’t receive any increase in pay without a raise in base pay or additional higher education.

Negotiators also agreed to add two days of planning time for elementary school teachers, an addition that Reber said was also noteworthy.

“I’ve been involved in negotiating for about 10 years or so, and elementary plan time is always a big issue,” Reber said. “They have significantly less plan time than other grade levels.”

In their final meeting Tuesday, negotiators met for three hours, most of which was devoted to adopting temporary language regarding changes to teachers schedules at Liberty Memorial Central and South middle schools. The language added to the contract specified that 75 percent of teachers need to agree to any schedule changes before they are finalized.

“We just really feel like it has to go through the proper process and channels and be bargained in rather than kind of doing an end run around the contract,” Reber said.

A committee of teachers and administrators will be formed next school year to further discuss changes to the middle school schedule, which could then potentially become part of teacher contract negotiations for next year.

All changes to the teacher contract that were agreed upon will be final once the school board and LEA ratify them at their upcoming meetings.