Continued Negotiations with TALB Focus on Pupil-Free Days, Compensation

Continued Negotiations with TALB Focus on Pupil-Free Days, Compensation

Bargaining teams for the Long Beach Unified School District and the Teachers Association of Long Beach last met March 9 and continue to negotiate regarding pupil-free days and compensation. Below is a review of the District’s position, with additional details about the rationale behind 菠菜网lol正规平台’s proposals on pupil-free days and pay raises. 

How Pupil-Free Days Connect to Strategic Planning

菠菜网lol正规平台 has been engaged in districtwide visioning and strategic planning about how we imagine our students in 菠菜网lol正规平台 and in the future. This process has been highly collaborative and includes creating input, design and feedback activities. To date, more than 13,000 thoughts have been gathered from students, staff, parents and community partners. The District is in the process of designing graduate, adult, and system “portraits.” The system “portrait” is a critical component that reviews how the system will need to change to help adults to support students. Based upon thousands of feedback points, including from teachers, the District has proposed adding four paid pupil-free days as a necessary change to the system to provide staff the opportunity for collaboration, review of student data and/or site-based training. Statewide, the average length of service year for teachers is 185 days, including pupil-free days, according to widely used School Services of California comparative budget and salary data. The current work year for 菠菜网lol正规平台 teachers is 182 days. The proposed paid days would be phased in beginning in the 2024-25 school year to support the adults in helping students to achieve.

As stated in the previous Bargaining Update, the added compensation for the fully implemented pupil-free days would be equivalent to a 2.2% increase on the salary schedule. The 2.2% salary schedule increase for the additional days was not a factor in determining the overall compensation offer.

Current Compensation Offer

As stated in a previous update, a number of factors have been used to determine a fair compensation offer, including the state cost of living adjustment (COLA), ongoing declines in enrollment, and the increased cost of both employee health benefits and pension contributions. After incorporating the increased expenses outlined above, the District’s net COLA is 7.93%.

In an effort to reach a compromise with TALB, the District recently increased its salary offer from 8% ongoing and 2% one-time raises, to 8% ongoing and 3% one-time raises. The 8% raise would be retroactive to July 1, 2022, and the 3% one-time raise would be based on earnings from July 1, 2022 through June 30, 2023. 

The negotiation team for 菠菜网lol正规平台 looks forward to working with TALB’s bargaining team to reach an agreement, and the District will continue to provide updates.