Gardner Edgerton negotiators trade counters on leave and folding-in pay; board offers $500 plus step

Negotiators for the Gardner Edgerton School District met in a continuation of contract talks, trading counterproposals Tuesday on leave rules, compensation for teachers asked to absorb students from absent colleagues, and the salary schedule. The board’s negotiating team delivered a best-and-final pay offer of $500 plus a step while the union pressed for language and nonmonetary changes on leave coding and protections for staff asked to cover classes.

The union reopened three items it said were “respectfully declined” from an April package: (1) short absences and the district’s practice of folding students into other classrooms, (2) coding and conversion of discretionary leave to PTO, and (3) a supplemental pay request for competitive cheer coaches. A union representative asked the board to resend the declined statements and to share any data collected on competitive cheer so the union could understand the rationale for the decline.

The BOE team said some cheer payroll submissions reached payroll but others remain incomplete. “We have not collected all of the data,” a BOE negotiator said, asking the union to resubmit missing documentation so payroll can verify payments and the BOE can evaluate the supplemental position request.

On folding-in students, the union proposed removing a monetary ask and inserting explicit language that “a professional employee may decline the administrator’s request to supervise these classes or additional students without fear of retaliation.” Union negotiators said staff feel pressured to accept repeated coverage assignments, especially when substitute shortages are acute.

The BOE responded that it is willing to emphasize that an employee may decline in some cases but remains concerned about administrators’ ability to require coverage in urgent safety or supervision situations. As a compromise on compensation, the BOE offered to increase pay for short-absence coverage: raise the half-day supervision rate to a higher hourly equivalent and increase full-day compensation (BOE negotiators described raising the half-day equivalent to roughly 1.25 hours and full-day to 2.5 hours under the proposed column/step), and to make explicit that emergency administrative discretion remains available for dire safety circumstances.

The most contentious exchange centered on discretionary leave and how sick time is coded. The union asked that employees be able to use sick leave when genuinely ill before being required to burn discretionary days, arguing that the current ordering forces staff to choose between honest coding and preserving discretionary time for planned personal reasons. “It just gives employees a little bit more of that understanding that their administrators...respect them,” a union speaker said.

The BOE said staff coverage and classroom continuity drive its reluctance to change the existing coding order, but offered a creative counter: allow employees to access up to four banked sick-leave days and use them for discretionary reasons during the year (thereby preserving discretionary days), subject to review of related sellback and rollover language. The BOE framed the proposal as a compromise designed to address the union’s trust concerns without removing administrative tools for maintaining supervision.

On pay, the union sought larger column moves tied to education credits and steps (the union’s proposal would have translated prior retention payments and counteroffers into $1,000–$1,200 adjustments plus steps across columns). The BOE said fiscal constraints — lower net certified FTE, limited new money (about $1.3 million in the BOE’s estimate), and projected health-benefit increases — limit what it can afford. Amy D., speaking for the BOE team, said the district’s final offer is $500 plus a step and described that as the most the board can commit this year. “Our best and final is 500 and a step,” she said.

Union negotiators said they would consult their membership and could not accept the board’s salary offer that evening. Both sides agreed to continue working on the remaining language and documentation items, including a request that the BOE confirm whether competitive-cheer data and payroll submissions were received. The parties scheduled another negotiation session for mid-July to continue bargaining and to circulate requested documentation.

No formal agreement or ratification occurred at the meeting; negotiators left with a mix of tentative compromises on coverage compensation and leave-access mechanics and an unresolved salary proposal that the union will take to members.