MINNEAPOLIS — Minneapolis Public Schools sent an update to families Saturday morning about a possible return date for students once the agreement with the teachers union becomes official.
The district said it's hoping for students to return Tuesday, March 29, however, as of Saturday afternoon, the Minneapolis Federation of Teachers had not yet signed off on the agreement. A tentative deal was announced Friday morning, but the agreement won't become official until the the teachers union signs.
Union officials say voting will take place until 9:30 p.m. Saturday and continue Sunday from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. After the voting period has ended, officials will begin counting the votes by hand. At least 50% of the ballots will need to be in favor of the new contracts for them to be approved.
According to Saturday's update from the district, Monday, which was the initial target for students to return, would now serve as a preparation day for teachers to transition back.
The announcement also outlined how students will make up for time lost during the strike. In the new plan, spring break would still take place the first full week in April (April 4-April 8), but beginning April 11, 42 minutes would be added to the end of each school day for the remainder of the year.
According to the new plan, the last day of school would be extended two weeks to June 24. Students would also have class Friday, April 1, which had previously been a record-keeping day for teachers. Instead, teachers would move that day to a Saturday later in April.
Shaun Laden, MFT President for the chapter representing Education Support Professionals (ESP) posted a video Saturday night encouraging teachers to vote in favor of the new contracts, while detailing some of the major highlights in the new agreement.
"We have nation-leading protections for our teachers to color to exempt them from excessing and layoff; we've got big wins for ESPs on wages; we've got hours, days for ESPs to bring pay up; we've got big-time, one-time bonuses," said Laden. "We got important wins on our anti-bias, anti-racist committees that is going to be in both contracts, so ESPs and teachers will be working together with the district to get at systemic and individual racism in our Minneapolis public schools. We've got a lot to be proud of in these agreements, we've got a lot to be proud of because our collective action together made things possible -- (things) that the district would never have done had we not gone on strike."