Rye School District Reaches an Agreement with Teachers Union

After working for nearly three years without a contract, the Rye Teachers Association has finally reached an agreement with the Rye City School District.

The agreement, which was dated June 9 and released today by the school district, will be ratified within the next month by the Board of Education and the Teachers Association. It is retroactive, meaning its terms begin on July 1, 2007, the day after the teachers' original contract expired, and ends on June, 30, 2013.

The agreement includes salary increases for every year of the contract, including a two percent increase for the 2009-2010 school year, a one percent increase in 2011-2012 and another two percent increase in the last year of the contract.

The agreement also includes a stipulation that teachers will contribute more to their health insurance premiums. That contribution will jump from 12 percent this year to 14 percent for the 2010-2011 and 2011-2012 school years. In 2013, teachers will have to contribute 15 percent.

The agreement also includes a retirement incentive in the form of a $15,000 contribution to teachers' 403-b plans. To be eligible, teachers must have served a minimum of 10 years in the district. Between five and 20 teachers have to retire within a given year in order for any of them to qualify for this incentive.

Rye Board of Education president Josh Nathan said in a prepared statement that he was pleased with the agreement and the union's willingness to collaborate and compromise with the district.

"I want to thank the teachers and their negotiating committee for working collaboratively and directly with the Board to reach an agreement that significantly slows the growth of the school budget, creates needed flexibility in the scheduling of professional development time,  provides a fair total compensation package to our faculty during a challenging economic period, and enables the District to retain the number of teaching positions necessary to maintain class size guidelines and support our excellent educational program, " Nathan said.

Jaime Zung, president of the Rye Teachers Association, said the teachers agreed to a modest salary increase because of the current economic climate. 

"The RTA was never asking for more than a fair and equitable contract that was on par with other similarly performing Westchester schools.  We have settled for a contract that recognizes the current financial situation of the community with the knowledge that it will leave us, one of the best ranked school districts in the entire country, among the lowest paid teachers in Westchester County," Zung said.

Today's agreement puts an end to negotiations that began in 2007. Negotiations between the school district and its teachers became contentious because the district felt teachers weren't making enough concessions, while teachers felt their salaries did not reflect their worth.

In September 2008 and June 2009, Nathan sent letters to the community expressing his frustration at demands put forth by the Rye Teachers' Association.

"The RTA has also suggested that because Rye's taxes are among the lowest in Westchester County relative to home values, we should just raise taxes to meet the cost of the RTA's demands," Nathan wrote in 2008. "This logic is troubling. That we have managed to retain one of the lowest tax rates in the county is because of good fiscal management, not because our teachers' salary and benefits package is deficient."

But teachers argued that the lack of a formal contract was affecting the quality of education offered in Rye and its ability to attract the best teachers. They argued that their salaries were the lowest in Westchester, though the school district, which includes 2,400 students, will spend more than $40 million this school year on employees salaries, a two percent increase from 2009.

"This terrible situation is demoralizing the wonderful teachers that work here," said Lisa Jenner, a middle and high school Latin teacher, at a Board of Education meeting in April.

The agreement with the teachers union comes nearly three months after the district reached an agreement with the Rye Administrators Association, which includes all principals, assistant principals, the Director of Physical Education, Health and Athletics and the Director of Special Services. That contract, which also expires in 2013,  includes a 7.5 percent salary increase over the life of the agreement and an increase to health insurance premiums of 17.5 percent.

To read the full agreement with the teachers union and statements from Board of Education President Josh Nathan and the Rye Teachers Association, click the PDF documents to the top right of this article.