CLEVELAND — The Cleveland Metropolitan School District's new contract with its educators is now set to take effect after the Cleveland Teachers Union officially voted to ratify the deal on Thursday.
The two sides reached the tentative agreement last week, and this past Tuesday CMSD's Board of Education unanimously approved the pact. Teachers and other relevant employees then cast their votes over a three-day period, with CTU leadership reporting 70.49% of the more than 3,000 ballots were in favor of the deal.
"Our members saw that this was a good and fair agreement that addresses important issues," CTU President Shari Obrenski said in a statement. "This agreement provides paid parental leave, a salary adjustment for our paraprofessionals that work with our most vulnerable students, increases safety and engagement in the classroom with a cellphone ban, and will increase communications with families through a gradebook platform."
According to the two parties, key provisions of the contract include:
- Plans for a district-wide online gradebook to streamline academic monitoring and improve communication with parents.
- A new cell phone policy "aimed at minimizing distractions," coinciding with Ohio's approval of new statewide guidelines just this week.
- "Revised professional time structures to provide teachers with greater flexibility and focus on essential non-instructional tasks."
- "Significant" pay raises for paraprofessionals. Obrenski previously told WKYC the starting salary for such employees is currently around $29,000 a year.
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"This Board-approved ratified agreement marks a significant step forward in our commitment to providing a stable and supportive environment for our educators," CMSD CEP Dr. Warren Morgan wrote after the Board signed off on the deal. "It allows us to focus on long-term educational excellence and ensures that our teachers have the resources and support they need to educate the future leaders of Cleveland. This agreement embodies our promise to not only retain but also attract top talent who are pivotal to the educational journey of our scholars."
The school district is currently facing a looming $143 million budget deficit by the next academic year, and sent its reduction plan to the state in February. Morgan has not definitively ruled out possible teacher layoffs, if necessary, though Obrenski says CMSD is actually understaffed at the moment.
"We have 195 open teacher positions, we have many dozens of open paraprofessional positions," she said last week. "We currently have so many open positions that even if they were to close several of those, we still wouldn't get into our educators who are currently serving in the classroom."
The new contract will take effect on July 1.
3News' Danielle Wiggins contributed to this report.