Unresolved teacher contract issues in school district raise safety, fairness concerns

Editor’s Note: This opinion piece is written by Eden Prairie resident Jody Ward-Rannow.

The Eden Prairie School District and teachers have not yet reached a contract agreement.

I recently reviewed the district’s negotiations website and was surprised to see what language remains in dispute. In order for an issue to still be in dispute at this late stage, a critical mass of teachers would have to support/be affected by the issue to give the bargaining team authority to stay firm. Similarly, the district would need to believe an issue is significant enough in cost or operations burden that it cannot compromise. 

Safety

The teachers asked to not have to use their sick time if they are assaulted at school. They wanted up to five days of paid leave to recover from an assault. If there’s no recovery needed, then there’s no qualifying need for leave. If workers’ compensation pays a percentage of the lost time, the district would only pay the difference to make the teacher whole. 

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The district rejected this proposal and did not propose alternative language. The district said it will “start” looking into the root causes of the violence in our schools and acknowledged that there were situations this year that could have been handled better. 

This leave will not be used if the district provides safe spaces for our teachers and students. If this is a sticking point, then there must be enough teachers worried about injury-causing assaults to support standing firm to negotiate this point. The district must think there are enough teacher assaults that providing this leave would be too costly, have too many teachers out of school at once, or cause some other problem for school operations. The fact that this is such a hard NO for the district that it will not propose revised language makes me worried. Is there something going on in our schools that teachers getting paid leave for being assaulted by a student is a significant issue? 

Class size 

The teachers wanted increased pay for class sizes that exceed the class size targets the district communicated to families. The goal of this request isn’t to increase teacher pay. It is to incentivize the district to keep class sizes at the publicly stated target size. The district rejected this proposal. 

The district publicizes class targets, and the community votes to approve referendums, in part, to support these targets. Larger class sizes make it difficult for teachers to spend time supporting individual students. They make it difficult to manage behavior to prevent violence. If the district publishes class size targets to gain community support, then it should agree to an incentive to hold it accountable for meeting the targets it sets.

Prep time

The teachers asked for the state-recommended prep time of five minutes per 25 minutes of instruction. The district agreed to give that IF the teachers agree to more teaching time. The district will commit to not requiring elementary teachers to monitor recess, but won’t state that commitment in the contract. Why can’t the contract state the district’s commitment regarding recess? What additional time does the district want teachers to spend teaching? Why can’t Eden Prairie meet the state’s minimum recommendation for prep time?

If you have questions about these items, please email the school board and ask. 

As a community, we love our teachers, staff, district, and students. The above issues impact all of them. I hope we can find solutions that provide a safe and supportive environment for everyone in our schools.

The district negotiations website can be found here.

About the writer: Jody Ward-Rannow has a daughter at Central Middle School and a son at Eagle Heights Spanish Immersion. She is a member of the Eagle Heights PTO and ran for Eden Prairie School Board in 2022.

Ward-Rannow is also an employment attorney representing employers and routinely advises clients on developing employment policies, negotiating employment agreements, managing unionized and non-unionized workplaces, and employment dispute resolution.