EUCLID, Ohio — The Euclid Teachers Association and the Euclid Board of Education have reached a tentative agreement on their labor dispute, the teachers association announced in a press release.
RELATED: More local coverage from WKYC
According to the release, the agreement comes after 17 hours of negotiations that lasted from Wednesday, January 26 and into the early hours of Thursday, January 27. A vote to ratify the agreement by ETA membership will soon be scheduled. Details of the agreement will not be made available to the public until it is ratified.
Later on Thursday, Euclid Board of Education President Kathy DeAngelis released the following statement: "The Euclid Board of Education is pleased to have reached a tentative agreement with the Euclid Teachers Association (ETA) on a contract proposal. While negotiations have been lengthy and, at times, trying, both sides have worked hard – and long into many nights – to reach a tentative agreement. Union leadership has indicated that a vote to ratify will be scheduled soon, and the Board is prepared to do the same in short order."
The agreement between the two sides comes after the ETA issued a 10-day strike notice on Friday, Jan. 21. The ETA said that it had been working without a contract in place for more than 130 days and that contract negotiations started between the two sides last spring, but hit an impasse when the Euclid Board of Education demanded that the teaching staff give up its long-held contractual rights that were implemented to ensure student success and "are viewed as models throughout the state."
“The Board of Education seeks to strip teachers of their right to remain in their classrooms and teach the content and students they have devoted their lives to teaching,” the ETA said in a press release. “The Board demands that administrators have the power to remove teachers from their classrooms and reassign them at any point in the school year to any classroom of the Board’s choosing as decided by a revolving door of administrators who rarely remain in the district for more than a few years before leaving for better paying or easier jobs elsewhere.
"The ETA holds that this language would destroy the teacher-student relationship which is an important foundation for learning, particularly for low-income students and students of color, both of whom are significant groups served by Euclid teachers. This example highlights some of the anti-student, radical agenda pushed by the Board of Education under the guise of contract ‘modernization.’”
Following the ETA's strike notice, the Euclid Board of Education issued the following statement:
We are disappointed that the Euclid Teachers Association (ETA) has decided to issue a 10- day notice of its intent to strike. This only redoubles our commitment to continue bargaining in good faith to reach a contract settlement that is fair and equitable for all parties. Our number one priority remains our students. The Board is seeking changes that promote student success. The Union is fighting to keep contract language dating from the 1950’s in place, even though changes in education over the past seven decades necessitate modernizing our contract to better ensure student success as they prepare to enter today’s world, not that of our grandparents. Since we began negotiations, we have offered our teachers one of the biggest salary increases and largest financial packages among any school district in Ohio. We have done this in an effort to take care of our teachers and provide economic stability in this unprecedented pandemic-driven environment. Inexplicably, this is still a point of contention with the ETA. With this substantial wage increase, Euclid teachers’ salary will be competitive with districts in Northeast Ohio and across the state. In addition, the ETA wrongly states that the board of education “seeks the power to arbitrarily reassign teachers to different classrooms or different teaching assignments at any point in the school year for any reason.” In fact, we are talking about the ability of a principal to assign a small portion of high school teachers within their building – fewer than 20 teachers out of teaching staff of 120 – to courses within the department they currently teach in a collaborative process taking into consideration teachers’ preferences, rather than the union’s unilateral control over all course assignments. This suggested language supports the district's broader goal of improving student outcomes while honoring teacher choice. For example, a teacher hired to teach Social Studies may be assigned to teach American History instead of Government after a teacher-principal collaborative process. Over the last ten months, we have taken important steps toward providing a more progressive and successful education experience for our students and parents, including reorganizing our school district, addressing the learning challenges our students experienced amid the COVID pandemic, improving mental health services and special education, bolstering career pathways for our students and more. We must continue this positive momentum, and we are taking all steps necessary to assure that we will continue to help our students succeed academically and in life after graduation. We appreciate the community’s support, and we look forward to reaching an agreement with our teachers.
