Just one year after the expiration of its retroactive contract, the Washington Teachers’ Union (WTU) and District of Columbia Public Schools (DCPS) finalized a tentative contract that dictates the next four years of their working relationship.
This milestone marks what’s been one of the shortest, but more tumultuous, contract negotiations between the two entities in more than a decade.
“I hope this shows that we’re able to break bad habits and know that teachers and schools are an important factor in a child’s success,” WTU President Jacqueline Pogue-Lyons said. “We work side by side with families, parents and guardians to help children be successful and that has to be honored if we want to get and keep wonderful people.”
Pogue-Lyons credited the union’s collective bargaining team for sacrificing portions of their summer vacation to create a contract that outlines the scope of teachers’ duties, leave and vision and dental coverage, a cap on class size and school start and end times, and teacher planning time, among other benefits.
Over the next week, Pogue-Lyons will meet with union building representatives, board members and the general body. The vote on the tentative contract, she said, will take place in the middle of October, thus culminating efforts to ensure a safe school environment and protect teachers’ benefits that have been in place since the 1960s.
“We just stuck with it,” Pogue-Lyons said. “We called our bargaining team to work at the table, and look at articles. Our members came out for rallies, and we involved our city council, State Board of Education leaders, and lastly the community. They were so supportive.”
WTU’s collective bargaining team had 25 teachers, speech pathologists, counselors, athletic trainers, and social workers from across the city who came together in a manner similar to how United Educators of San Francisco collective bargaining team members coalesced around contract negotiations with their local public school system.
As The Informer previously reported, negotiations started off slowly when, as union bargaining team members recounted, education officials didn’t respond for months to a campus safety memorandum that they submitted to DCPS.
Union bargaining team members later decried what they described as Chancellor Lewis D. Ferebee’s absence from the bargaining table and confusion about whether to engage DCPS or Office of Labor Relations and Collective Bargaining.
Amid DCPS’ attempt to take WTU before the Public Employee Relations Board, WTU members continued to rally in support of a new contract. They did so with members of the State Board of Education and D.C. Council. D.C. Council Chairman Phil Mendelson (D) also showed up to negotiations as did D.C. Councilmember Anita Bonds (D-At large) and members of her staff.
Last year, before the council approved WTU’s retroactive contract, Bonds, chairperson of the council’s Committee on Executive Administration & Labor, implored the teachers’ union and DCPS to jump into negotiations around the new contract more quickly, especially since the retroactive contract would expire within a matter of months.
Bonds said her main concern, in speaking with teachers, Ferebee, City Administrator Kevin Donahue and other relevant parties, centered on ensuring that the Office of the Chief Financial Officer could address the terms of new contract as soon as possible, especially since the Fraternal Order of Police and other government employees were navigating a similar process.
“It just seemed like they were bogged down on a lot of discussions and I thought that we had an existing contract that we operated under, so let’s pull out areas of discontent and address them,” Bonds told The Informer, commending Pogue-Lyons in what she described as her transparency with union bargaining team members. “They got through management authority and I’m glad we reached an area of improvement.”
Throughout contract negotiations, Bowser didn’t divulge much about what caused moments of contention between two sides. At times, however, she did place blame with WTU hindering the process. However, at the culmination of negotiations, she struck a different tone as seen in a statement released on the night of Sept. 30 that looked toward the union’s ratification, and council’s approval, of the tentative contract.
“We have the best teachers in the nation, and the agreement builds on our ongoing commitment to ensure our educators have the best compensation in the country and have the supports and resources they need to bring their best to the classrooms and schools in which they serve,” Bowser said. “This agreement shows what can be achieved when we work together with a common goal of putting students first. With this agreement, we are reaffirming our commitment to investing in our young people and making D.C. the number one city for teachers.”