We are so excited to share our tentative collective bargaining agreement with you and begin the ratification (voting) process. Our journey to this CBA has been long and difficult — the closure of Rainier, fighting the pay freeze, and the pandemic were just a few of the obstacles we faced. Despite high teacher turnover, we were able to keep our union going because new teachers quickly saw both the things that needed improvement and the potential of our schools. We fought for our union and our contract for over three years motivated by our love for our students and our school communities. While we didn’t win everything we wanted or deserved, we are extremely proud of this CBA. Both our bargaining team and site reps enthusiastically recommend voting YES to ratify our agreement.
We’ve settled this contract because of the hard work teachers past and present did to talk with their coworkers and school communities. Every petition you signed, every meeting you attended, and every action we held made a difference. We know that when we are unified and fearless in our advocacy, we can achieve great things.
This contract is also a recognition of teacher voice by Summit’s Home Office. We hope it allows us to turn a new page in our relationship and that we can work productively and collaboratively to continue to improve our schools.
Tentative Collective Bargaining Agreement
There is a lot to absorb about our new contract, so we’ve created two resources.
First, a summary of all of the articles in our agreement. This is the TLDR version of our contract.
Second, you can read all of the actual contract language here. Please note that this is not quite final; we are waiting on a few things from Summit (such as the appendices) but wanted to share this with our members ASAP.
A couple of highlights:
- New standards to support English language learners, including provisions for class size limits of 17 for middle school and 19 for high school English language learners.
- Job security, including layoff language based on objective factors and a probationary period after which you will be asked back every year unless you are terminated for cause or poor performance. Summit must follow the discipline article to terminate you and you have the right to appeal your termination to a neutral arbitrator.
- Four weeks fully paid parental leave
- A 40-hour workweek for teachers that includes duty-free lunches.
- Automatic “step” increases; your ED can no longer deny you a raise.
- Provisions that will help to create greater mental health supports on Summit’s campuses.
Ratification Vote
We will begin voting on the contract May 18. We will hold meetings at each school site so that members of the bargaining team can present the CBA and answer questions. After the meeting, you will vote on the contract. Please look out for information from your site rep about when your school meeting will be held.
Please note that you will need to sign up for union membership (dues) in order to vote. Dues of charter and district educators from across CA paid for our nearly 4 year journey to start a union and win a first contract. Now, we get to pay it forward to help the next nonunion charter school that wants to organize! Dues also pay for our CTA staff, legal support, and more.
Union Leadership Elections
A reminder that we will have union leadership elections before the end of the school year. The elections committee will send out more details soon.
Our terms are one year so there will be an election for all positions — president, vice president, treasurer, and site reps. This is an exciting time for our union as we work on growing our strength and implementing our contract! We encourage you to be a part of it and run for an office!