San Ysidro teachers have approved a two-year contract that secures essentially the same salary increase as the contract first offered to them before they voted to strike.
The San Ysidro Education Association and the San Ysidro School District came to a tentative agreement late Sunday. Teachers will met Monday morning at San Ysidro Middle School and ratified the contract.
The agreement includes a 1% salary increase plus a one-time 1% bonus, according to Carol Wallace with the San Ysidro Education Association.
Before teachers began the strike on Oct. 8, the district offered the union a 1.5% percent increase plus a one-time .5% bonus for 2014-15.
Under the approved contract, full-day Kindergarten begins in November and teachers will not have to work five minutes extra a day as first proposed by the district.
In 2015-16, SYEA teachers will have a professional development day but it won’t be added to the calendar. Instead it will replace an existing prep day.
The proposal was apparently good enough for most teachers but still a concern for others.
"It definitely isn't what I think we stood out there and fought for," said Tina Bernard, 6th Grade teacher at Ocean View Hills School.
"At some point we had to say enough is enough, we need to be with our kids, we need to be in our classrooms."
She said the proposal didn't touch on the benefits concerns that she had going into the strike.
Because the teachers will not be paid retroactively for the three days of the strike, they lost 1.5 % of their salary for the school year.
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San Ysidro teachers said they were facing a 6.5 percent pay cut and some of the worst health benefits in the county. They're also calling for smaller class sizes and more manageable workloads.
However, district officials countered, saying they are dealing with a financial crisis.
Interim Superintendent George Cameron, Ed. D., says the district is in negative certification, meaning its finances are so bad that the San Diego County Office of Education has to oversee its spending.
Overall, the strike cost the district a net total of $200,000 including salary for substitute teachers plus security, loss of Average Daily Attendance funds (ADA) minus the salaries they didn't pay the teachers for three days.
Student attendance fell to 60% on the first day of the strike and then dropped to just 44% by Friday, he added.
"It really created a more financial hardship for the school district obviously," Cameron said Monday.
On Friday, children were caught up in a chaotic scene at the SYSD offices when a group of striking teachers and supporters pushed their way into the building. There were no arrests or injuries.
Substitute teachers were brought in so classes could continue while teachers were on the picket lines.
The teachers accused of the district of lying about its budget and even bullying them. The district argued that it respects and supports its teachers, but needed to face financial reality.
According to Transparent California, the median teacher in the San Ysidro Elementary School District received $80,259.86 in total pay and benefits in 2013.
