Strongsville Teachers, School Board End Talks with No Deal

UPDATED 10 PM:

An eight-hour negotiating session between the Board of Education and Strongsville Education Association failed to produce a contract agreement, meaning a strike is likely Monday.

The School Board has posted its last best offer on the school district's website. Click here to see it, or see below for some of the highlights.

UPDATE: The board has also posted the SEA proposal. Click here for the teachers' requests.

The 383-member SEA will meet at 5 p.m. Sunday to take a strike vote.

"The Strongsville Education Association is extremely disappointed by the Board’s decision to abruptly end bargaining by issuing a Last Best Offer at today’s afternoon negotiations session," SEA President Tracy Linscott said in a statement.

"The Board’s continued inability to bargain in good faith as well as their stunning decision to issue a premature Last Best Offer reinforced what the Association has known for the last nine months. Specifically, that this Board never intended to reach a deal, and instead was simply buying time to unilaterally implement a contract at a time of their choosing," Linscott said.

The Board's Proposal

Under the board's proposal, the district would stop picking up teachers' pension payments, which amounts to 9.3 percent of their salaries, but would add that amonut onto teachers' base pay. The switch would bring the base salary from $34,779 to $38,013.

No employee would have an effective increase or decrease in salary.

Also, the board wanted the teachers to pay 15 percent of their monthly health insurance premiums -- they now pay 10 percent -- and raised the maximum to $200 a month per family, up from $150. 

For individual coverage, the cap would raise to $100 from the current $75.

Also, step increases would be eliminated.

If the district reduces the number of teachers, layoffs would be decided by teacher evaluations rather than by seniority. 

The SEA's proposal seeks to keep step increases, and to make up for a freeze in step pay in the 2011-12 school year.

For example, a teacher at level 6 in the 2010-11 school year who remained frozen at that level in 2011-12, then started the 2012-13 school year at level 7 would jump to step 9 for the 2013-14 school year. 

It also seeks longevity pay for teachers beyond the step system.

Note: An earlier version of this story indicated merit increases were included in the board's proposal, but the evaluations actually apply to layoffs, not salary.

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