by Jim Boyle
Editor
After filling up on some hot soup and bread as part of fundraiser for Open Doors for Youth, members of the Elk River Education Association headed across the highway to picket at the District 728 offices.
Members of the teachers union wanted to bring attention to its lack of a contract settlement as members of the Elk River Area School Board were expected to meet in closed session on Feb. 22 to get the latest on talks between the school district and the EREA.
Members of the Elk River Education Association included children in a recent informational picketing session outside the District 728 Office along Highway 10 in Elk River.
Negotiations started in last summer and the two groups met quite often until October, according to Bill Hjertstedt, the president of the local teachers union.
“It was quite evident the district wasn’t going to move beyond where they were at,” Hjertstedt said of the talks. “We took some time from October through January to talk to and survey our members.”
The district put a proposal on the table in December, and the EREA reportedly provided a counterproposal in January. Hjertstedt’s understanding of the Feb. 22 meeting is that it was to discuss the proposal.
“It was a variation, but what they wanted teachers to do is, for part of the increase, teachers would have to vote back staff development dollars to pay for it,” Hjertstedt said. “Also we would have to use staff development dollars to pay for an increase in insurance.
“I really feel that’s short sighted. It’s like eating the seed corn whereby the dollars, that could be used to make our teachers better educators in the future, we’d be using that money up.”
Hjertstedt said the bottom line for the teachers union is that it has been taking below-average increases for several negotiation sessions.
“We want to be able to attract and retain high-quality teachers for our students,” he said. “Parents and students expect that.”
Hjertstedt said the district has high-quality schools, and the teachers want to keep that high quality. Similarly, he said the district has high-quality teachers, and the teachers want to keep high-quality teachers.
“The reality is there are fewer students going into education,” he said. “Colleges are graduating fewer teachers. The competition for the high-quality teachers is increasing and it’s already hit certain subject areas hard.”
Of 23 districts selected by the Elk River Area School District for comparison, about 15 had settled by Feb. 22 and two were in mediation.
The Anoka-Hennepin School District teachers union and Education Minnesota, the state’s teachers union, both sent representatives to the picketing session.
The Sherburne Area Labor Coalition, of which Hjertstedt is a co-chair, hosted the soup supper. It brought in about $800 for Open Doors for Youth, a drop-in center of homeless and displaced youth. All of the food and bread was donated.