School Pay Dispute Resolved in Irvine Unified District

IRVINE — After a year of negotiations, a tentative agreement was reached early Saturday morning between teachers and the Irvine Unified School District that may save the district up to $1.67 million without laying off teachers.

The plan, if ratified by a vote of the teachers, would grant no cost-of-living salary raises but would save the jobs of 68 teachers the district was proposing to eliminate to defray an anticipated deficit of up to $2.5 million next year.

A major concession by the teachers’ union was a new salary schedule that would delay raises teachers normally receive for additional professional education. The district stands to save $480,000 a year from that measure.

Other money-saving steps, such as the use of counselors and librarians to substitute for classroom teachers, would begin depending on the level of funding that the district receives from the state next year.

“What the district really was interested in was financial solvency and flexibility to deal with the budgetary problems, and we were interested in protecting our teachers from layoffs, maintaining our salary and fringe benefits and our working conditions,” said Gail Rothman, co-bargaining chair for the Irvine Teachers Assn., which represents about 1,000 teachers.

Margie Wakeham, president of the Irvine Unified School District board, said she was “delighted” by the compromise, which was reached about 12:30 a.m. Saturday after nearly 12 hours of negotiations.

She said the prospect of layoffs had been “a highly emotional issue” for the district. Layoff notices were sent to teachers last month and appeal hearings were scheduled for April 19.

“It has been the goal of the school board to avoid layoffs,” Wakeham said. Because spring break begins Monday, she said, the teachers won’t be able to vote on the two-year contract proposal until school resumes April 12.

“We are very optimistic this will be ratified by the teachers’ association,” Wakeham said. The agreement then would go to the school board for final approval.