Thousands of Miami-Dade Schools employees vote on contract for upcoming school year
After two months of negotiations, the teachers’ union and the Miami-Dade County school district reached a tentative agreement last week regarding working conditions for the upcoming school year. It includes no changes in healthcare costs, no reduction in workforce, a compensation package and a new holiday — Juneteenth.
The negotiated contract, however, does not touch on the reopening of schools come Aug. 23, an increasingly important issue as the delta variant of COVID-19 rapidly spreads across South Florida due to low vaccination rates. Both parties decided to deal with that section separately in a letter of understanding, like last year. Letters of understanding address temporary, abnormal situations.
United Teachers of Dade and the Miami-Dade County Public Schools hope to wrap up those talks as soon as possible, said Karla Hernandez-Mats, the union’s president.
“We are trying to make sure we know what the local conditions are before we make any decisions on these things, so we’re waiting,” she said. “But we definitely want to have it before the beginning of the school year. Ideally, it would be before August 18, which is when our employees go back to work.”
The 30,000 employees represented by UTD — including teachers, paraprofessionals, campus monitors, clerical workers and other staffers — started voting Thursday on whether to ratify the agreement for the 2021-22 school year. It needs a simple majority, or one vote more than 50% to become official.
The union chose the same electronic voting company as last year, TrueBallot, after trying to smooth over some of the technical issues it faced last year.
The casting of ballots ends at 4 p.m. Monday, Aug. 9, and the union will announce the results shortly after via a Facebook live video, Hernandez-Mats said.
What does the negotiated contract include?
Under the tentative agreement, all teachers would receive a one-time $1,500 return-to-work stipend. That, paired with Florida’s proposed $1,000 bonuses for educators from federal funds, means they could get $2,500.
Non-instructional, full-time employees would receive a one-time $1,500 return-to-work stipend.
All teachers would receive a pay increase of 0.57% to 0.76% from the state’s Teacher Allocation Fund.
The minimum base pay for teachers would rise from $47,500 to $47,717, complying with state law. Last year, the minimum base pay increased dramatically after the governor required it, but the increase led to salary compression of mid-career teachers.
The agreement would also allocate some of the Referendum Retirement Accruing Supplement funds for 2.22% to 3% salary adjustment for teachers, and a 2.5% increase for full-time paraprofessionals.
Despite registering a surplus of teachers wanting to return to work this year, the agreement includes a commitment from the district not to lay anyone off.
Dawn Baglos, the district’s chief human capital officer, said it will “strategically deploy” those extra teachers to schools to support students as much as possible.
The agreement also includes a commitment from the district to cover any increases in healthcare coverage, co-pays or premiums.
Nelson Izquierdo, the administrative director of labor relations with the school district, said “that was something that the superintendent said from the get-go.”
“He did not want us to provide a compensation package on one end and then on the other end increase the cost of healthcare for our employees, and then it would be a wash,” he said.
Additionally, under the tentative agreement, teachers would be off for Juneteenth, a new federal holiday commemorating the emancipation of African-American slaves on June 19 each year. Hernandez-Mats said it would be a recess day.
To read the complete tentative agreement and how it affects other personnel, click here.
Hernandez-Mats called the contract “solid.”
“It is certainly an agreement that looks at the multiple people and personnel that United Teachers of Dade represents and that is resourceful in utilizing the different buckets of funding we have access to, to really try to compensate and make people feel valued and respected for the work done, especially after the intense year that we’ve had with the pandemic,” she said.
Izquierdo said the negotiations are always challenging because they need to stay “fiscally responsible” while still treating the employees well.
“We are extremely excited and proud of the process and of the tentative agreement,” he said. “We really value our workforce, and we feel that this shows that.”
What about the reopening of schools?
Hernandez-Mats wants to include as many safety guidelines in the letter of understanding as possible, especially requiring facial coverings, she said.
Last year, even with deep cleaning, masks, social distancing and other precautions in place, the district identified more than 10,000 positive COVID cases, while the schools operated at 60% capacity, at most, for in-person learning, she said.
“Now that we’re thinking of going back at 100% capacity, we certainly need to have safety protocols in place,“ she said. “We really do find it absurd that the governor is saying we should not mandate masks, when this is being described as being the same or more contagious as chicken pox. Mask-wearing is literally going to save lives.”
Regarding the possibility of requiring vaccinations, Hernandez-Mats said she doesn’t know if “that is something that the district would want to do.”
“I don’t think so,” she added. “But we do believe that it is right. We want to respect whatever people’s personal choices are, but we are encouraging all of our folks to get vaccinated.”
On the district’s part, Baglos called the letter of understanding a “work in progress,” indicating everything remains up in the air until finalized.
Concerning a mask mandate, MDCPS spokeswoman Jaquelyn Calzadilla said “there’s a certain level about what we can and can’t do based on the governor’s executive order for students, but I think adults may be a different conversation. Obviously strongly recommending, but mandating may lead into a different conversation.”
This story was originally published August 7, 2021 at 12:56 PM.
