Castro Valley Unified School District (CVUSD) and the Castro Valley Teachers Association (CVTA) reached a tentative agreement that would increase CVUSD teacher salaries by three percent, retroactive to July 1, 2015, according to a bargaining update issued by CVUSD Superintendent Parvin Ahmadi’s office on Monday, November 30. 

CVTA members will vote on the agreement between December 2 through December 7. If CVTA’s members ratify the agreement, the CVUSD school board will vote on its approval at the December 8, 2015 CVUSD board meeting. The board’s approval of the agreement would not only trigger salary increases for teachers, but will likely prompt increases for non-certified classified staff represented by the California School Employee Association (CSEA) whose contract is linked teacher compensation increases, and CVUSD management.

“Our non-certificated employees, CSEA have a “me too” clause in their contract,” CVUSD Assistant Superintendent of Human Resources Sherri Beetz. “We will meet with CSEA and offer the same percentage increase. Management employees are not represented by a union so we typically offer the same increase once we settle with Certificated [teachers] and Classified.”

CVTA President Alicia Gholami said that her union’s bargaining team was “pleased with gains we made in many areas, including compensating our members for covering additional classes due to lack of substitute teachers.”

“The 3% salary increase is a step in the right direction, but still does not make us competitive with most surrounding districts,” Gholami said. “CVTA members are putting our trust in our School Board to prioritize teacher recruitment and retention as we move forward.”

The agreement would aim to limit class size to 32:1 for all science lab classes, and it would maintain class sizes for Transitional Kindergarten through third grade that fall below State of California class size limits. TK-3 staffing would be maintained at a 25:1 ratio with no more than ten percent of TK-3 classes going up to 26:1. A teacher would receive a stipend for taking the 26th student, and the language clarified that no TK-3 class could ever go over 26 students.

Per the California Department of Education, the State of California requires that average Kindergarten class size not exceed 31 students and that no Kindergarten class be larger than 33 students. For first through third grade, average class size may not exceed 30 students, and no class may be larger than 32 students.

The agreement would also authorize stipends for special education teachers, teachers of elementary combination classes, and new teachers who have completed “induction” (professional development for beginning teachers) and have one additional year of service.  Stipends of $15,600 for “three new paid coaching positions at each of the middle schools” would be authorized as well. “Based on this increase we have not only restored the previous cuts, but we have added 3 more sports to the middle school programs,” Beetz said.

Contract negotiations begin again next spring.

Read the text of the tentative agreement here.