San Benito High School teachers were angered this week after
hearing from their union officials that a long-awaited counteroffer
from the district, received Tuesday, was lower than a previous
offer the district made in June.
Hollister – San Benito High School teachers were angered this week after hearing from their union officials that a long-awaited counteroffer from the district, received Tuesday, was lower than a previous offer the district made in June.
“In my view it’s too late to be playing games,” San Benito High School California Teachers Association President Chuck Schallhorn said Thursday. “Peoples’ lives are being affected negatively, including our students.”
Schallhorn, who was not at liberty to discuss the details of the proposal because of the ongoing nature of the negotiations, called the district’s contract offer “unacceptable.”
“For teachers to learn what the offer was – that just makes them angry,” Schallhorn said.
SBHS teachers, who have been working under the terms of an expired contract for more than a year and a half, will come back with another counter offer either this week or the following week, Schallhorn said.
District officials were surprised by the reaction.
“This is not a tactic,” Chief District Negotiator Don Balfour said Friday. “We think this is a fair offer. No one should be getting angry. We’re just negotiating.”
Teachers were told the June proposal was the best the district could offer, Balfour said.
“We offered (teachers) what we feel was the best offer at the time,” he said. “Between then and now we’ve had to revise our budget to account for the school’s new schedule and the hiring of new teachers.”
The district had to hire 27 new teachers to provide adequate staffing for the school’s new eight-block schedule, Balfour said. The new schedule, which increased instructional classroom minutes and subsequently teachers’ work hours, was also the subject of an unfair labor practice charge teachers filed last week with the Public Employees Relations Board.
After the district’s June offer, which teachers rejected, Balfour declared the two sides had reached at impasse. Balfour had planned to file paper work with the Public Employment Relations Board in early July to get a state mediator to oversee the negotiation process, but after conversations between Schallhorn and Superintendent Jean Burns Slater, both sides agreed that the impasse declaration was unnecessary and returned to the negotiations table in August.
Another impasse is not expected at this time, officials from both sides said. Balfour said he hopes to conclude negotiations by the end of November.
Brett Rowland covers education for the Free Lance. He can be reached at 831-637-5566 ext. 330 or br******@fr***********.com
