Contract Settled, School Tomorrow

Dear PPS Community,

After months of negotiation, we have tentatively agreed to a contract with the Portland Association of Teachers (PAT), the union representing our educators. Union members will need to ratify the terms, and our school board will also need to approve the full contract at their Tuesday meeting; but this paves the way for students to return tomorrow (Monday, November 27). School will start two hours late.

We are relieved to have our students returning to school and know that being out of school for the last three weeks – missing classmates, teachers, and learning – has been hard for everyone. We thank our students, families, and community for your patience and perseverance through these protracted negotiations. We also want to express our deep appreciation for our educators, who are the backbone of our district, and who enrich the lives of our students.

As a district, we want to maintain our momentum increasing our students’ learning and graduation rate, so we have agreed to make up our 11 lost instruction days on the following days:

1. December 18

2. December 19

3. December 20

4. December 21

5. December 22

6. January 26

7. February 19

8. April 8

9. June 12

10. June 13

11. June 14
    

Families can expect report cards no later than Friday, Dec. 8, and your educators or school leaders will be in touch about making up family-teacher conferences.

You can read all tentatively agreed articles here. This contract:

• Provides educators a 14.4% cumulative cost of living increase over the next three years. In addition, roughly half of all educators will earn an additional 10.6% increase from yearly step increases.

• Replaces mandatory minimum student suspensions with trauma-informed processes that get students the support they need

• Creates some new class-size thresholds and processes for resolving class size concerns that involve impacted educators, school leaders, and parents

• Provides all middle school students with a seven-period day to expand electives and help drive down class sizes

• Commits $20 million in capital funds for temperature mitigation and to maintenance issues prioritized by educators

• Maintains student instruction time and adds 15 minutes to the school day for elementary and middle grades beginning next school year

• Increases minimum planning time by 90 minutes every week – from 320 minutes to 410 minutes – for elementary and middle school educators while also adding planning and grading days for all levels

• Triples the district’s Rapid Response Team to support mental and behavioral health needs in school communities.

• Expedites our hiring process so we can be more competitive against other regional districts

This contract will cost roughly $175 million over the next three years, and this process has brought sharp attention to the state’s underfunding of quality education. As we have said before, it will involve making significant cuts during our spring budget process for the upcoming school year, and we will handle those as with all budgeting – with input from our community. We will also turn to our community for future advocacy in Salem, and support for the levy in May which directly supports PPS educators.

Our whole school community is excited to welcome our students and educators back tomorrow.

Sincerely,

Guadalupe Guerrero

Superintendent

Portland Public Schools Board of Education

• Gary Hollands, Chair
• Herman Greene, Vice Chair
• Julia Brim-Edwards
• Eddie Wang
• Andrew Scott
• Patte Sullivan
• Michelle DePass