CHS School Board Negotiations Committee Meets

The negotiations committee met for master agreement negotiations on Jan. 9 at 6:30 p.m. Trustees present were Wendy Becker, Amber Fox, Chris Petersen and Lisa Steppler. Clerk Lora Finnicum was also present. Teacher representatives were Janelle Ator, Amy Berwick, Theresa McDonald, Jimie Lou Morris, Tiffany Nielsen, Chris Olson and Shelly Panasuk. No visitors were present.

Negotiations left off with the union proposal requesting hours versus days to match language in Policy 2100. Board members expressed their position to remain at days as authorized by state law MCA 20-1-302 for the best interest of the district.

Union representatives said the student contact hours were more than what state requires at 1,080 hours for grades 4-12. Current contract language is 187 days and they are stuck in days, but said they would like to go by hours to match state language and said they wanted to be paid fairly according to their worth. They said that if the district wouldn’t pay fairly, they wanted the time. A sample calendar was presented counting 1,104 hour, three days less than the current calendar.

Board requested time to review numbers presented.