Mt Vernon Community School Corp discusses tentative one‑year teacher contract; board to ratify Oct. 20

Mt Vernon Community School Corp board members discussed terms of a tentative one‑year collective bargaining agreement for the 2025–26 contract year and scheduled a final ratification meeting for Monday, Oct. 20, at 5 p.m.

Mr. Smedley, a district staff member who presented the agreement to the board, said the district and the Mount Vernon Certified Teachers Association used interest‑based bargaining to reach a settlement. “This is our third year of using this process called interest based bargaining,” Mr. Smedley said, describing it as “a very collaborative process” that included mixed small groups of teachers and district leadership working to build consensus on options.

The tentative agreement pools $995,000 in new state funding for distribution to the bargaining unit, an amount Smedley said represents about 60% of the new money the district received. He said that new money derives from a net enrollment increase of 234 students and a per‑pupil funding increase compared with last year; Smedley cited a 3.9% per‑pupil increase earlier in his remarks and later compared the settlement to a state funding increase he referenced as 3.29%.

Under the tentative agreement, the district condensed the teacher salary schedule from 38 steps to 34, applied a base increase for all teachers and granted an additional step to returning teachers who earned either a “highly effective” or “effective” evaluation in 2024–25. Smedley said the average raise for teachers under the deal is $2,235 and that “the overall raise to this year's bargaining equals 3.75%.”

Extra‑curricular assignments (ECA) were also renegotiated. The ECA committee recommended raising the ECA base by $2,245 so that the ECA base and the teacher base are the same, Smedley said. The bargaining team added positions and stipends the district described as responses to program growth and operational needs: a tutor coordinator and math bowl position at the intermediate school, a paid unified track position, assistant boys and girls track coach stipends to support a program that grew from about 92 athletes in 2022–23 to roughly 148 this past season, a girls wrestling coach stipend, an esports coach at the middle school, four special‑education team leads at elementary/middle levels to create K–12 parity, and 10 additional flex club stipends across schools.

On insurance matters, Smedley said the district negotiated a 4.6% increase in premiums for the 2026 plan year and built a $125,000 insurance reserve into that renewal. He described changes to how premium increases will be split: for PPO plans the increase is shared 67% district / 33% employee; for HSA Plan 1 the increase split is 70% district / 30% employee; for HSA Plan 2 the split is 75% district / 25% employee. The district also increased its HSA matching contribution by $250 at each level.

Contract language changes were limited, Smedley said. One explicit language change provides a $100 addition to base salary for teachers who hold a literacy endorsement on their license; proof of the endorsement must be submitted to human resources by Aug. 1, 2025 to be applied for this contract year, he said.

Smedley thanked bargaining facilitators Amy Matthews and Becky Slayton and members of the bargaining teams from both the association and the district. He said the Mount Vernon Certified Teachers Association ratified the tentative agreement on Oct. 2 with a 97% approval rate. The board did not vote to ratify the contract at this meeting; instead, Smedley said the district will reconvene for a final ratification vote on Monday, Oct. 20, at 5 p.m.

Procedural business at the meeting included routine motions: the board approved the meeting agenda and later adjourned; both motions passed on voice/raise‑hand votes recorded as 5–0.

Board members and district staff framed the tentative agreement as aimed at teacher retention and attraction and emphasized the collaborative bargaining process. No final board action on the contract occurred at this meeting; the board is scheduled to take a formal vote at the Oct. 20 meeting.

The presentation covered funding and program changes that would affect teachers, extra‑curricular staff and health‑benefit plan participants across Mt Vernon schools pending the board’s ratification of the tentative agreement.