Mount Horeb Teachers Bargain Model Contract

By Terry Lawler

"Forget the QEO, and let’s bargain a contract.”

When the Mount Horeb School Board and Mount Horeb Education Association decided to take that basic approach to negotiations this summer, the results were quick and impressive.

Mount Horeb Education Association negotiator Will Janssen, MHEA President Patty Schlafer (center) and Southwest Education Association UniServ Director Joyce Bos helped bargain a 2003-05 contract that serves as a model for other local associations throughout the state.

The two sides reached agreement this fall on a contract that provides salary increases of 3% per cell and makes no changes to the employee health plan. The contract terms exceed WEAC’s Statewide Bargaining Goals, and school board members have said they are pleased with the results.

It’s a contract that WEAC negotiations specialist Greg Spring said will “serve as a lighthouse settlement for others in the area and around the state.”
Mount Horeb, a small-town local with 167 members, is in many ways representative of many WEAC local associations.

Such an outcome for 2003-05 seemed unlikely after an acrimonious bargain for 2001-03 that included months of job actions by Mount Horeb teachers. Teachers “wore informative buttons, held gatherings before school board meetings and voiced their concerns to board members at those meetings,” said Will Janssen, a music teacher at Mount Horeb High School and lead negotiator for MHEA. That contract was finally settled in July 2002, one year after the previous contract had expired.

MHEA braced itself for another long ordeal when new contract talks began earlier this year.

But the board surprised the teachers by taking a much more reasonable approach this time around, basically setting aside the provisions of the Qualified Economic Offer (QEO) law and opting instead to engage in meaningful bargaining.

Spring applauded the district’s attitude “that QEO-type settlements do nothing to improve the educational system.”

“The board made a complete package offer – for the first time in a long time – in mid-June,” Janssen said. “We countered about two weeks later, and the board and MHEA reached agreement three weeks after that.” The contract was ratified by the teachers on August 26 and by the board on September 2.

The quick settlement “has left everyone here with a good taste in their mouths,” Janssen said.

One of the most important facets of MHEA’s counter-offer was asking for a 3% raise per cell. That means each employee receives a 3% salary increase even if they do not move up the salary schedule for experience or advanced credits.

Joyce Bos, UniServ director for the South West Education Association (SWEA), said this was a change for the the Mount Horeb board, which usually talks in terms of “total package dollars,” an approach that can be deceiving in terms of how it portrays salary increases.

Mike McNett, WEAC’s collective bargaining director, said per-cell increases show the actual value of the salary increase and “avoids the deceiving nonsense of QEO costing, which includes ‘phantom’ teachers, insurance hikes, and experience steps that were already promised.”

Furthermore, the teachers’ health plan remains unchanged. And if insurance increases fall below the anticipated rises in the second year of the contract, the excess will go into the salary schedule.

Also important to Janssen is language regarding PI 34, the state’s new teacher licensing law.

“We looked at the board policies regarding mentoring, adopted some of their proposals and added to it,” he said. As a result, teacher mentors are guaranteed pay for their work, and dialogues between mentors and new teachers are confidential.

The mentoring portion of the package was added as an addendum rather than being included as part of the main contract.

“We’ll have two years to work with our teachers and the board on the mentoring program,” said MHEA President Patty Schlafer. “MHEA will be very involved in scrutinizing the program and making it more of a negotiable issue for the next contract.”

Janssen and Schlafer are very pleased that flex time has been implemented in the district. “We have an eight hour school day, but teachers will be able to choose their starting and ending times from a staggered schedule,” Janssen said. Bos said that “flex time shows respect for the Mount Horeb teachers’ professionalism.”

Janssen and Schlafer believe that keeping in touch with the teachers was a critical factor during negotiations.

“Our teachers are really pleased with the package and the MHEA’s communication with them along the way,” Schlafer said.

“Our members received the complete language changes including history and rationale one week before they took the ratification vote,” Janssen added.

Evidently, the board was pleased with MHEA also. “One board member commented that the MHEA requests were realistic, given the financial situation, and that the language requests were reasonable,” Janssen said.

Bos gives Janssen much of the credit for MHEA’s success. “Will is very organized, structured and prepared. He always speaks clearly and calmly,” she said.

Janssen is already looking to the future. “We want to restructure our salary schedule,” he said.

Perhaps what pleases Janssen the most are the “intangibles” that come with a fair contract settlement. “Our working atmosphere in the district is incredibly positive. Conflicts in negotiations impact the classroom. But you can see and sense in our schools the impact this new contract has had,” he said.

He feels that during the discussions between MHEA and the Mount Horeb board “each side treated the other as equals.”

Bos and McNett said the Mount Horeb settlement serves as a model for other locals in the SWEA and in the rest of the state. McNett said it not only exceeds the cost-of-living increase, but begins to recapture some of the money lost to inflation since the inception of the QEO in 1993.

“It demonstrates that the WEAC bargaining goals can be achieved,” McNett said. “And it shows that member involvement and high expectations at the table are factors that lead to successful settlements.”

Posted October 24, 2003