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An arbitrator on Monday sustained a grievance by the Winona Education Association, the union that represents Winona teachers, against the district over pay rates for the Developing Reading Education and Math Skills program. At Thursday’s school board meeting, district officials said the ruling was fair, but the board will have to make a decision about whether to continue the program.
“The administrators will evaluate the DREAMS program and project future costs to determine long-term sustainability and whether a recommendation will be made to continue the program or not,” Pat Blaisdell, district human relations director, told the board.
The arbitrator ruled that the district, if it continues the program, must pay teachers at their regular pay scale, instead of a reduced rate they have received the past few years.
The two sides differ on the economic feasibility of the program with regular pay rates, which would vary between $35 and $65 an hour, depending on a teacher’s pay scale. District financial director Jeff Seeley said the program breaks even at about $25 an hour with the additional state aid it receives for running the program. The arbitrator’s ruling could double the cost of the program, Seeley said.
The WEA insists that the state aid is enough to fully fund the DREAMS program.
“This is a program that speaks to a definite concern in our district of improving success in reading in math, and we have the funding from the state to pay for it,” WEA co-president Bruce Ramsdell said.
The program, developed in the summer of 2002, was originally called the Success in Math And Reading Together program. Teachers were initially paid their regular hourly rate.
In the spring of 2005, the district considered cutting the program after a failed 2004 referendum. Scott Hannon, the district’s director of academic affairs who became coordinator for the SMART program in 2004, asked the WEA to accept a reduced pay rate for SMART teachers. The WEA encouraged teachers to accept the lower rate of pay.
“We made an attempt to work with the district in a difficult financial time,” Ramsdell said. “We knew it was important to do the right thing for the students.”
The district and the WEA differ on the details of that informal agreement. The WEA contends Hannon promised to renew regular pay to teachers after a referendum was successfully passed, which ultimately happened in the fall of 2005. Hannon insisted that he only promised to increaser the rate of pay, not to return it to its previous level. The agreement was not in writing and neither side concedes the point.
The union had also request DREAMS teachers be compensated for not receiving full pay. The arbitrator compromised between the two sides, stating the district must compensate to a pay rate of $25 an hour because the district had offered to pay up to that amount during teacher contract negotiations this year. The total amount of back pay is approximately $5,700, according to Blaisdell.
District officials said the board will likely be asked to decide on the program’s fate in either August or September.
Contact reporter Nolan Rosenkrans at 507-453-3519 or by email at nolan.rosenkrans@lee.net
