Minneapolis educators will vote this week on whether to authorize a strike, the Minneapolis Federation of Teachers and Education Support Professionals said in a news release Wednesday.
The planned strike authorization vote follows months of negotiation between the union and district officials. The union’s teacher chapter has been in mediation with the state Bureau of Mediation Services since February 29. Educational support professionals held their first mediation session with the district on Monday. It also comes as the district wrestles with a budget deficit of at least $110 million. Minneapolis Public Schools has said that additional funds to settle contracts would result in further budget cuts.
The union said that members would vote on Thursday and Friday, and they would announce the results on Saturday. The unions can call a strike at any time after members approve, but are required to give the district 10 days’ notice before walking off the job.
In a brief statement Wednesday afternoon, Minneapolis Public Schools said it “remains committed to reaching a tentative agreement with MFT as soon as possible,” adding that it would provide updates to the community on its website.
The Minneapolis Federation of Teachers and Educational Support Professionals represents more than 3,000 teachers and about 1,600 educational support professionals, union leaders said.
Jose Rodriguez, a special education resource teacher at Windom Elementary School and member of the bargaining team, said he hoped a strike vote would send a message to the district.
“My hope is that our membership authorizes a strike and we send a clear message to our district that our rank and file are with us 100%, and that is enough to get us over the finish line, and that we do not have to strike,” he said.
In March 2022, Minneapolis educators went on strike, shutting down schools for three weeks. That year, the union’s biggest demand was increased pay for education support professionals.
Greta Callahan, the president of the union’s teacher chapter, had called a mediation session April 3 and 4 “productive.” That session resulted in a contract agreement for the union’s smallest chapter, a group of 55 adult educators. “We are not that far apart on salary,” Callahan told Sahan Journal on April 5.
The next mediation session was held April 23. During that session, the district did not improve its salary offer, the union said.
In a Facebook post Wednesday, MFT said that the teachers went into meditation Tuesday hopeful they would reach a settlement. At 3 a.m., the district presented teachers with a “last, best, and final offer” that did not include any movement on the union’s top priority of a pay increase. The union said it had asked the district to reallocate an additional $13 million for staff compensation by adjusting its projected vacancy rate to be more realistic.
Because the district had made a “last, best, and final offer,” the mediator did not schedule an additional session, and the union’s only options were to accept the district’s offer or schedule a strike vote, the union said.
“Based on the packages that were presented, we know the parties can reach a resolution by moving different proposals,” the union’s Facebook post said. “We are not light years apart.”
Rodriguez said that because of high vacancy rates for special education teachers, he was currently the only K-5 special education teacher at his school. That has sometimes meant he’s had more students than the district’s recommended caseload. And that doesn’t include all the time needed for paperwork, he said.
His top priority was a salary increase to help with teacher retention, he said. He’d heard of Minneapolis Public Schools teachers leaving to earn $10,000 or $15,000 more in other districts. In one case, a teacher who left the district received a $17,000 pay bump, he said.
“I believe in and I love our school district,” he said. “But how can you say no to $17,000 more?”
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Those vacancy rates were especially high for special education teachers, causing a revolving door that affects students, he said.
Maria White, a first-grade teacher at Ella Baker Global Studies and Humanities School, said her school had a 65% staff retention rate last year. She attributed that in part to low pay compared to other districts, as well as a high number of meetings. Though the teachers’ last contract limited the number of meetings, that agreement had expired, she said.
At Ella Baker, some staff are required to attend as many as six meetings a week, which cuts into the time they need to prepare lesson plans or make phone calls to parents, White said. Some teachers have been lured to other districts where the administration has promised them a maximum of one meeting per week.
“That was a deciding factor in people leaving, in addition to pay,” she said. Like Rodriguez, she said that some of her colleagues have left knowing they would receive large pay raises by moving to another district — and that that pay would accumulate over time. One teacher calculated an additional $200,000 in lifetime earnings by switching districts, White said.
“It’s not just a little bit,” she said. “It can make a big difference in people’s lives.”
Education support professionals said they were pushing for higher wages and more affordable health insurance.
Mikel Herb, a special education assistant at Sanford Middle School, said educational support professionals did not earn enough to support themselves with one job. Her biweekly paycheck is about $700 after health care deductions, she said.
In the contract agreement that concluded the 2022 strike, the lowest-paid educational support professionals won wage increases of about 20%, Herb said.
“We aren’t asking to go that high this time around, but we’re still not making living wages,” she said. She said there is “ridiculous” turnover among education support professionals.
“Our school district is in dire straits right now, and if we don’t do something right now to attract and retain educators who are going to do the best for our students, we’re going to see our district doing worse,” she said.
