Stewartville teacher negotiations head to mediation after 10 sessions; district stays under 7% bandwidth

The Stewartville Public School District’s negotiation team told the school board it has held 10 bargaining sessions with Stewartville United Educators and on Jan. 20 filed a petition for mediation with the Bureau of Mediation Services.

Negotiations lead Miss Selfridge presented the district’s current offer (labelled District 6B) and the union’s most recent counteroffer. The district proposal would increase the salary schedule in year 1 by roughly $425 on many cells (an average of about 0.5% on lower cells), add a step to the schedule (raising the cap to 16 steps), and apply a 2% increase on several upper steps; overall the district said the package totals about 6.998% over two years and would cost the district just over $973,000 across that period.

The teachers’ proposal shown to the board totals about 7.277% over two years and would cost slightly more than $1,000,000. The district negotiating team said the board has set a bandwidth cap “up to 7, but not over 7,” and that the team declined higher increases to stay within that limit. The presentation included a color‑coded salary grid noting roughly 110 teachers would gain more under the district proposal while about 34.5 would see a greater increase under the union proposal.

Miss Selfridge told the board mediation is a free, nonbinding service; if mediation does not resolve outstanding matters the process could move to binding arbitration. The district will cover substitute costs for teachers who attend mediation sessions per contract provisions. The negotiation team indicated it has provided comparative data to the union team and will await a mediation date from the Bureau of Mediation Services.

Board members asked for additional clarification about which cells and individual teachers would benefit from each proposal and encouraged the negotiation team to continue sharing the comparative data with teacher membership.