Portland parents have long complained about “No School November.” With the combination of teacher planning days, Veterans Day and the week off over Thanksgiving, parents have often felt that students seem to miss more school than they attend this time of year.þþThis year, that feeling is stronger. The district confirmed Sunday night that students would not be in classes Monday due to the ongoing teachers strike, and a failure to reach a contract over the weekend.þþStudents of Portland Public Schools, or PPS, haven’t had a single school day this month. They’re about to go for their ninth November day without school, when you add up days lost to the strike, holidays and planning days. And the month isn’t even half over, with Thanksgiving still to come.þþIn a sign talks are progressing, and with less than a week before the district starts its weeklong Thanksgiving holiday, both teachers and administrators submitted two of their most comprehensive contract packages to date. Both deals show movement and levels of agreement, in the form of green, highlighted language in the two proposals.þþFor instance, the two proposals both offer stipends to educators who teach in bilingual programs or have advanced degrees. The two proposals agree on the same number of holidays and days teachers can have for grading, and they agree on fewer required meetings for teachers.þþBut the two proposals also reflect ongoing differences between the two sides, and the union had harsh words for the district proposal Sunday night.þþ“PPS has the ability to end the strike and put resources into schools that will benefit kids and yet they chose to squander another weekend and continue the strike,” Portland Association of Teachers, or PAT, president Angela Bonilla said in a statement.þþThe school district presented a 58-page, three-year contract worth a little more than $147 million. The PPS offer includes $30.5 million in total proposals added since the “final offer” was submitted in September. The additional investments include $11.8 million for planning time (most of it in the elementary grades), $6.5 million in stipends and pay for educators taking on additional responsibilities, as well as one year of a “workload relief” benefit at a cost of $4.5 million, largely intended to supplement the state’s new Paid Leave Oregon program.þþCost of living increases for teachers are only slightly changed in the PPS proposal, at close to an 11% increase over the three-year deal. However, by accounting for attrition among other technical changes, the district says it reduced the cost of the salary proposal by more than $27 million over the three contract years.
Source: opb.org
