Anchorage Daily News

Negotiating teams for the Anchorage School District and its teachers finally agreed early Saturday on a one-year contract. The deal was struck after two consecutive nights of marathon bargaining and nearly a year of often-rocky negotiations that spurred teachers to authorize a strike just two weeks ago.

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Teachers have been without a contract since their last three-year agreement expired June 30. The majority of the Anchorage Education Association's some 3,400 members and the Anchorage School Board must still approve the proposed new deal. Representatives from both groups said they're confident that will happen.

Both sides all along have said they'd rather get a contract than have a strike, and the new agreement lessens dramatically the prospect of a teacher walkout. While teachers overwhelmingly voted down a district offer late last month, this one is different because it has the union team's approval.

"The difference between any of the proposals we rejected and (this proposal) is the ones we rejected did not allow us to keep pace with the cost of living increases," AEA president Rich Kronberg said. "This tentative agreement doesn't make up for lost ground over the last years, but it does allow us to not fall further behind."

Teams didn't finish talking Saturday until nearly 4 a.m. All told, they spent nearly 12 hours at the tables after starting Friday afternoon - that, on top of finishing the first week of classes and having spent eight additional hours in two previous bargaining sessions.

"We were not coming back," said Eric Tollefsen, district human relations director, who led the district team. "That's what I said is we're either walking out of here with a deal or we don't get a deal. We had worked too hard, and we were too close, and we had momentum going. As long as we were still talking, still making some process, I'll tell you what, we weren't going to walk out of there."

The proposed contract would take effect immediately upon approval by the teachers and the School Board. It has the district's contribution to teachers' health insurance premiums increasing to $700 a month, from $600 a month last school year. It also has 3 percent raises and movements on the pay grid for experience.

Other highlights: Teachers would get 21u20442 personal days instead of their current two. The proposal also increases compensation for coaches and activity advisers.

The contract is worth nearly $240 million - $15 million more than the last year of the last contract. In the final stages of negotiations, the district put about $1 million more on the table when compared to the first year of its earlier three-year offer made to teachers.

"Overall, I think it's definitely a fair deal," Superintendent Carol Comeau said. "If both sides ratify, which I think they will, it will bring closure and allow us to have a really good school year."

At a joint press conference Saturday afternoon, teachers passed out purple rubber bracelets that bore the phrase "Good Teaching Matters." School board members and Comeau slipped them on.

Karla Gallagher, a Hanshew Middle School math teacher on the union's team, predicted support from her colleagues for the deal.

"Everybody wants a contract and doesn't want to think about having to walk out," said Gallagher, a 17-year district employee. "I do really think there will be relief."

Just about 10 hours earlier, Gallagher and many others at the press conference had been upstairs, pressing toward a resolution.

"It was difficult because we teach all day, we're up early, and it's not exactly a sit-down-and-relax job," Gallagher said. "And then we'd have these meetings. But we were really set on getting a contract, and that's what kept us going."

Union and district bargainers joked about what got them through the final elongated negotiations: Coffee. Jokes. Chit-chat. Tai chi.

"Now we're going to be able to relax, knowing we don't have to walk out," said Shellie Griswold, a math teacher at West High. She's also Gallagher's daughter. Unlike her mother, it was her first time on a bargaining team.

"I had no idea what I was getting into," Griswold said.

Reaching agreement was a long, bumpy ride. An impasse last spring prompted mediation, then arbitration. Neither resulted in a deal. In June, the union dismissed its bargaining team and replaced those teachers with members from the union's executive board.

Teams had more mediation in August without resolution. Late in the month and as school's first day approached, union bargaining members agreed to present a district offer to teachers but didn't back the proposed contract.

Neither did teachers. Nearly nine out of 10 defeated that offer in a vote taken at a meeting in late August. The next night, by a similarly decisive margin, teachers authorized a strike.

With a walkout possible, teams focused on a one-year deal instead of a three-year contract.

"A strike simply was not something we wanted to do," Kronberg said. "I mean, the cost to our members, to the community, to kids was just - it would have had to really be a huge disparity between the district's offer and ours for us to consider it. The differences were not that great and in the end, with the help of the mediator, we split the difference."

At last week's first sit-down of the latest round, talks lasted just a couple of hours and left the teams far apart: The union's offer was some $8 million more than the district's. The district had no offer to make.

Then came Thursday. Retired Judge Elaine Andrews was back to mediate. After six hours that night, they gathered again Friday with the judge. She steered teams toward an eventual agreement.

"She can add this successful mediation to her already distinguished record of service to the community," Comeau said of Andrews.

"It was like having the public in the room with us," Kronberg said. "She advocated for us, and to the extent (the district) could convince her that they were right, she did the same for them. There are nice theories that bargaining is between the association and the district, but the reality is the district is a public entity, we are public employees, and there's no denying we're sensitive to that."

Teachers in the next two weeks will get copies of the agreement and meet for a vote. If they ratify, the school board will vote on the contract at its soonest meeting, said Jeff Friedman, board president.

"This is just a one-year agreement," Friedman said. "It's the first step on the road to doing what we need to do, which is paying our employees a fair and competitive wage."

For that to happen, officials on both sides said the state needs to ramp up and commit to more education funding. Comeau and Kronberg pledged a united effort during the next school year to seek that financial stability from lawmakers in Juneau.

Meanwhile, bargaining on a contract for subsequent years will begin this winter.

Deal at a glance

Contract highlights

• 3 percent raises

• Increases in district's contributions to teachers' health insurance premiums to $700 a month from the previous $600 a month.

• An additional half-day for personal leave time

• Increased compensation for coaches and activity advisors

Who's covered:

• Teachers, psychologists, counselors, nurses, occupational therapists, speech therapists, librarians, music and art teachers, and others who work directly with students.

What's next

• The majority of the Anchorage Education Association's some 3,400 members and the Anchorage School Board must vote on the new deal.

• If the contract is ratified, bargaining on a contract for subsequent years will begin this winter.

Daily News reporter Katie Pesznecker can be reached at kpesznecker@adn.com.