ANOKA, Minn. — Some teachers in Minnesota's largest school district, Anoka-Hennepin, walked out of school again on Wednesday – something they've been doing now for weeks.
The teachers at several schools, including Anoka High School and Wilson Elementary, are bringing attention to contract negotiations at a time when the process is moving unusually slow for districts across the state.
The walkouts, though, are not impacting classroom time.
"We're all together in this," said teacher Natasha Brown-Guhin, who is also the union representative for the high school. "We're all showing up."
She says their contract expired six months ago, much like other districts that renegotiate every two years.
"The last few negotiation rounds, it was a quick settlement, but sometimes they're not as quick, so it just depends," said Brown-Guhin.
The statewide teachers union, Education Minnesota, says at this same time four years ago, 185 districts had settled. That number dropped to 155 in 2021 to now just 98 – or 30% of the state's 330 public school districts – have settled.
It's perplexing experts, especially given the legislature backed billions of education dollars this past session.
"We just want that passed on so that we can continue getting quality teachers into the classrooms, have reasonable class sizes and teachers with the credentials they need to be in the classroom," said Brown-Guhin.
The district says the negotiations process has included eight meetings to date and that the union has provided two financial proposals, while the district has countered with two financial proposals.
- The most recent proposal from AHEM: 18.61% increase (K-12) and 20.86% (ABE/ECFE); $66 million in new money. Increases in salary range from 8.34% to 31.61% over 2 years. (October 2023)
- The most recent proposal from the district: 8.17% increase (K-12) and 8.9% (ABE/ECFE); $29.6 million in new money. Increases in salary range from 4.81% to 17.2% over 2 years. (November 2023)
The district also says it used additional resources from the state legislature as described below for this school year:
- $7.2 million to fund 96 full-time additional teacher and paraeducator positions for special education support.
- $5.3 million to add academic intervention, behavioral and social emotional support for students at all levels in the system. (elementary, middle school, high school).
- $1.3 million to fund 10 additional teacher positions to support English language learners.
AHEM filed for mediation with the Bureau of Mediation Services on Nov. 22 and the first session is scheduled for Jan. 3, 2024 – both sides committed to avoiding a strike.
"No one wants that, we want to just have this you know, timely and fair, so we can just continue to do what we love to do and that is teaching and focusing on children and educating them," said Brown-Guhin.
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