ISD 110 teachers ‘work to contract’ as negotiations continue

Waconia teachers aren’t on strike, but they are working only to contract – at least earlier this month.

In a series of social media posts, teachers shared that without a contract now for more than 270 days, they were staging a “Work the Contract Week” April 2-5 to highlight and reduce the unpaid voluntary work they do before or after school, during lunch, planning periods, and on weekends.

That means teachers worked only the hours stipulated in their expired contract which is 7:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m., and stopped doing any work not explicitly required by their contract.

For now, the “Work to Contract” was just last week, but WEA leaders said there are other things that the union has on the agenda to keep the public aware of the issues and to highlight the work teachers are doing without a contract.

Teachers and the school district negotiate a contract every two years; however, ISD110 has a history of talks carrying well into the next school year. That is the case again with only seven weeks remaining on the 2023-2024 school calendar -- although both parties say they want to settle. WEA and district negotiations teams have upcoming meetings scheduled April 15 and again April 29.