With the 2017-2018 contract settled in the beginning of October, the Union  and District Board have been working on settling the 2018-2019 contract.

Some of the Union’s main goals include a pay increase and special education language. More specifically on pay increase, the Roseville School District pays their teacher approximately $12,000 more a year than the RUSD pays their teachers.

“They pay better and dental benefits are fully paid [in Roseville]…My kids have gone through this District, my son is a senior, and he has had phenomenal teachers. My daughter is doing really well in college because she had phenomenal teachers…We are starting to be a training ground, where new teachers come in, get trained up, and we teach them how to be great teachers and then they leave because they can make more money,” said Mrs. Colleen Crowe, government teacher and president of the Rocklin Professional Teachers Association.

After over a month of trying to settle the ‘18-19 contract, the Teacher Union began to feel that the School Board was stalling and declared impasse. Starting next week, both sides will meet with a Mediator for a couple different meetings.

“From the bargaining team perspective, the district started to stall, specifically on the money pieces and on some of the language that we think is important..things like class size and prep time..we are not going to allow them to stall. So we declare impasse..we need a mediator to come in and help us solve the problem…If we cannot solve our problems in mediation with a mediator, we would go to fact finding. Fact finding is where you bring in a neutral and you present your information to a neutral and they write a report,” said Crowe.

While setting the 2017-2018 contract, both a mediator and a fact finding were both brought in. Hopes are that there will not be a need for the fact finding for current settlements.

Teachers are currently running a strike authorization vote. They are not striking, but if it comes down to the post fact finding phase again, it would be a tool they could use.

If it came down to both sides being unable to settle and the strike vote resulted in majority wanting to strike, it would be expected to take place sometime within the first two months of the second semester of school.

The first meeting with the Mediator will take place tomorrow and hopes are they will be able to present creative ideas that will benefit and meet the needs of both sides.