I have heard from many constituents regarding UESF’s grievance with the school district on the implementation schedule of wage increases agreed-upon as part of the three-year contract expiring June 30, 2017.
Good news: the school district and UESF have agreed to accelerate the schedule of raises so that all educators represented by UESF will receive a five percent raise starting with their first regularly-scheduled paycheck after July 1, 2016. Here is the Superintendent’s announcement:
We are all so deeply grateful for the powerful and critically important work our teachers, counselors, paraprofessionals, and other UESF members do every day for our students. That is why I wanted to take this opportunity to share some great news with all of you, even though it directly impacts only UESF members.
SFUSD and UESF have reached an agreement today to move the original January 2017 raise to the beginning of the 2016-2017 school year. Given this decision, every UESF member will receive a 5% raise at the start of the school year, effectively moving the planned second salary increment of 2.25% up by six (6) months. The raises will be implemented in the first paycheck of the school year for all UESF members, both classified and certificated. Originally, the contract called for a 2.75% raise for the pay period starting in July 2016 and a 2.25% raise for the pay period starting in January 2017.
. . . The agreement effectively settles the existing grievances related to the timing of the second salary increment to the mutual satisfaction of both the Union and the District.
As the school year comes to a close, SFUSD was able to find cost savings and wanted to contribute these savings to as many employees’ salaries as possible. This agreement will, in effect, result in 6 more months of increased salaries than previously planned.
We know this is a challenging time to afford living in the Bay Area. The staggered pay schedule that has been in effect for more than 20 years resulted in confusion this winter as some UESF employees received their raises in January and some in February. Unfortunately, this placed added stress on those teachers who thought they would see their increase earlier in the calendar year.
In addition to helping our valued current UESF members start next school year with a higher base salary, we hope this pay increase acceleration will also help us address our projected recruitment challenge due to the national teacher shortage. Higher bottom line salaries for UESF members starting in July 2016 will hopefully entice more teacher candidates and others as they explore their options.
Rachel Norton 