Strife Between PVUSD and Teachers Union

By Jon Chown

WATSONVILLE — With funding flowing in to the Pajaro Valley Unified School District, workers’ salaries are set to rise.

The administration and classified employees have agreed to a 7 percent raise, but the district is still negotiating with the teachers union on a raise. The Pajaro Valley Federation of Teachers complains that the district’s offer of 7 percent does not go nearly far enough — failing to provide retroactive raises and pay, raises in future years, doesn’t reduce class sizes for enough grades, and reduces prep time for teachers.

McFadden blamed the teachers’ union for demanding too much, but said salaries did need to go up for everyone in the district.

“We are losing people over the hill because they can make $10-15,000 more. We wanted to do something to stop that,” McFadden said. “But the teachers union has not agreed to that yet. They are asking for even more.”

McFadden said the state had not given any direction on how to spend the money, yet, so the district still needs to be somewhat cautious.

“We budgeted and have a sizable reserve, and we know we are going to get this increase in funds over seven years, so we can afford to address some of the district’s needs, but at this point we have no clear guidance from the state,” McFadden said.

Jack Carroll, executive director of the Pajaro Valley Federation of Teachers (PVFT), said the district isn’t being fair.

“They (PVUSD administration) have consistently refused to present what their revenue stream is going to be under this new budget proposal, but it hasn’t stopped them from spending it,” he said.

Carroll said that, while the teachers are asking for more than just a one-time 7 percent raise, the main sticking points are the reduction in prep time for teachers and the district’s lack of an immediate plan to reduce class sizes in grades K-3.

“Salary is only one of these three items we are looking for. Yes, we were offered a 7 percent raise, but prep time was reduced and the only class size reduction that was suggested was for first grade,” Carroll said.

Carroll said the administrations song and dance is becoming predictable.

“In the springtime they assured me they were just waiting for the legislature to finalize what the budget is going to be and they could sit down and talk to us,” Carroll said. “Now, I’m hearing they still aren’t prepared to do that and are waiting for some sort of rules to be created … and after the rules are created, I can just predict that they will need time to interpret them and a make a plan. So, now it looks like there won’t be any progress until 2014-15 at the earliest — and that’s a problem.”

Despite the stagnation in negotiations, Carroll said any mention of a strike is very premature.

“A strike is a nuclear weapon kind of word; I can’t even talk about possibilities of a strike, but there is a great deal of dissatisfaction with the lack of cooperation we are getting from the district,” he said.

Carroll said the union is planning a demonstration and will plan on what more to do in the near future.