August 8th BOE Community Update on Contract Negotiations
Dear Collingswood Community,
As the Collingswood Board of Education’s Negotiations Committee, we are writing to the Collingswood community to provide an update on the ongoing negotiations between the Collingswood Education Association (CEA) and the Collingswood Board of Education (Board). In this letter, we will lay out the efforts that the Board has taken this summer to reach an agreement with the CEA, and we will explain why, despite these efforts, an agreement has yet to be reached.
The CEA and Board have been engaged in negotiations for an updated collective bargaining agreement since February 2024. As has been explained previously (Link), the CEA unilaterally declared an impasse in negotiations on May 6th. The CEA subsequently filed a request for mediation with the Public Employment Relations Commission (PERC), and the first mediation session will occur on August 14th. However, knowing that settling this contract is of utmost importance, the Board’s Negotiations Committee reached out to the CEA to meet weekly through July in an effort to come to an agreement sooner rather than later. As a result, the CEA agreed to meet on July 16th and July 30th.
During the July 16th meeting, the Board’s Negotiations Committee presented the CEA with a proposed salary guide in an effort to address the main goals that the CEA has expressed: to attract and retain teachers and school staff. During teacher contract negotiations, school districts and unions negotiate a “settlement rate,” which is an overall percentage increase to the collective salaries of all of the union’s members. Salary guides then serve as the way to determine how this settlement rate is distributed as raises for teachers and staff of different tenures and experience. We believe that our proposed salary guide, which would cover the next three years, distributes raises in a way that effectively meets the CEA’s goals in four primary ways.
First, to bolster the district’s ability to attract new teachers, our proposed salary guide increases the starting salaries and more than doubles the year-to-year salary raises of early-career teachers in their first four years at Collingswood when compared to the previous contract’s negotiated salary guide. This proposed salary guide would mean raises totaling more than 10% of their current salary over the next three years for the 25 early-career teachers currently in our district.
Second, to continue to retain teachers, our proposed salary guide provides raises totaling more than 10% over the next three years to the over 130 teachers in the first 15 years of the guide, while the previous contract’s salary guide did so only for teachers in years 6 to 10 of the guide. Knowing the importance of retaining all of our teachers, including the many who have joined the district since the pandemic, this Board’s Negotiations Committee believes that raises more equitably distributed to more teachers will help Collingswood retain both our longer tenured and newer teachers.
Third, to bolster retention of over 90 of our most experienced and longest tenured teachers in our district, our proposed salary guide provides these teachers with larger raises than they would have received in the previous salary guide. Depending on the specific tenure of these teachers, some will receive over double the raise they would have when compared to the previous salary guide.
Finally, to improve the hiring and retention of the instructional and administrative aides in our district, our proposed salary guide significantly boosts their starting salaries and provides raises to the district’s 29 instructional and administrative aides ranging from more than 10% to over 20% more than their current salary over the next three years of the proposed guide.
The Board’s Negotiations Committee believes that this proposed salary guide is a strong and fair proposal, not just because it increases starting salaries and equitably distributes raises across the district’s teachers and staff, but also because it does so in a fiscally responsible manner. This salary guide provides significant raises to many teachers and staff and does so aligned as a whole with Camden County average settlement rates. Settling the contract in line with county average allows the district to maintain the current number of teachers and staff as planned for the upcoming school year.
Regrettably, despite requests from the Board’s Negotiations Committee prior to the July 30th meeting to meet informally to discuss the technical details of the salary guide, the CEA outright rejected our proposed salary guide during the July 30th meeting on the grounds that their staff could not confirm the technical details. The CEA also asserted that they require a settlement rate significantly higher than county average. Unfortunately, as we have explained previously, because of the current difficult realities of school funding, a settlement rate significantly higher than county average would necessarily lead to additional layoffs and cuts in programming starting in the upcoming 2024-25 school year.
We are currently awaiting mediated negotiations, which will begin August 14th. The Board’s chief goal has been and continues to be ensuring that the district can meet the needs of our community’s children as best as possible within the realities of NJ’s school budget landscape. Knowing that, the Board’s Negotiations Committee has worked earnestly to meet the CEA’s goals for raises for its teachers and staff in a fiscally responsible manner that allows the district to maintain appropriate staffing levels to meet the needs of our students.
Though no agreement has yet been reached, we will continue to negotiate diligently with the CEA as we begin mediated negotiations. The Board will also continue to work to prioritize the needs of the district’s students by pursuing grant opportunities, by maintaining one of the lowest per-pupil administrative costs in the county, by advocating at the state level for a fair school funding formula, and more, as previously detailed in our July 5, 2024, letter to the editor published in The Retrospect (Link).
Finally, with the new school year starting in less than a month, we know that Collingswood families and community members may be wondering what these ongoing negotiations will mean for the upcoming school year. As fellow Collingswood residents, community members, and parents, we understand these concerns and want to make clear that the district’s previous contract with the CEA remains in full effect until a new contract is agreed upon. Teachers and school staff will continue to receive all the benefits and protections provided to them under this previous contract.
In addition, no contractual or legal barriers exist to the regular operation of the school district, including sports and extracurricular clubs. We are encouraged by the statement made by the CEA President during the June 24th board meeting that “the teachers and staff will continue to show the same dedication to our students regardless of the status of negotiations.” The Board looks forward to working collaboratively in the best interests of our students with the CEA this school year.
Sincerely,
Collingswood Board of Education, Negotiations Committee
Regan Kaiden, Christine Sheridan Celia, Roger Chu, and Matt Craig