Star Tribune
Settling teacher contracts is taking longer for Minnesota school districts
An unusually large number of Minnesota school districts are heading into the end of the year while still trying to reach contracts with their teachers unions.
The protracted negotiations are largely driven by conversations about inflation and the rising cost of health care benefits amid an increase in state funding for schools. Unions are advocating for major boosts in pay while districts say they need money to cover new state mandates including summer unemployment insurance for hourly workers.
As of Dec. 6, nearly 100 of the state’s 330 school districts have settled a contract with their teachers union, Education Minnesota spokesman Chris Williams said. At this time in 2021, more than 150 had settled. The state’s two largest school districts — Anoka-Hennepin and St. Paul — have announced they’re entering mediation with their teachers union.
The Anoka-Hennepin teachers union and district remain about $36 million apart in salary negotiations alone. In St. Paul, district officials say the overall gulf is $94 million.
Scott Croonquist, executive director of the Association of Metropolitan School Districts, said he expected a longer-than-usual bargaining season after the Legislature allowed unions to bargain over staffing ratios and testing policies.
“Those used to be considered managerial rights, which have now been inserted into the collective bargaining process,” Croonquist said. “That certainly adds another layer into negotiations.”
Many districts are also paying more for some services than they did before the pandemic, he said. Contracts with bus companies are more expensive due to price hikes for gas. Schools also had to increase pay for employees such as custodians and cafeteria workers to compete with local businesses offering higher wages amid record low unemployment.
“Districts have had to respond to the market and increase salaries just to decrease vacant positions,” Croonquist said.
The protracted negotiations across many districts mirror the larger labor movement that’s taken hold in the U.S. as nearly 1,000 employee unions across several industries have either held strikes or protests this year, according to a tally by Cornell University.
Teachers in Oakland, Calif., and Portland, Ore., went on strike earlier this year. Minneapolis Public Schools, where educators picketed for three weeks in 2022, has a bargaining session with its teachers union scheduled for Monday.
Still, several Minnesota districts, including Aitkin, Grand Meadow, Mounds View, Randolph and Walker, have already approved new contracts with their teachers unions.
Johnny Villarreal, commissioner of the Minnesota Bureau of Mediation Services, said the agency has received 33 petitions for mediation between school districts and teachers unions this year. So far, five of them have settled.
Williams said parents shouldn’t worry when they hear a union has filed for mediation.
“Mediation is fairly common,” Williams said. “Strikes are fairly rare.”
Teachers rally, demonstrate in Anoka-Hennepin
Teachers in Anoka-Hennepin, the state’s largest school district, gathered before Monday’s school board meeting. Union leaders led chants as educators wearing red waved signs on the sidewalk in front of district headquarters in Anoka.
The rally followed weeks of what union leaders have dubbed Wednesday Walkouts. Once a week, teachers have refused to volunteer to advise clubs or run other after-school programs to protest what they say are insufficient wage proposals.
Anoka-Hennepin Education Minnesota wants an 18% boost in classroom teacher pay. The district has countered with an increase of 9%. Negotiations have been tense since the district’s initial offer of a 2% increase over two years.
“Many of our teachers felt that it was insulting,” said John Wolhaupter, a teaching and learning specialist who serves as the union’s lead negotiators.
He and other union leaders worry that the district’s offers for first-year educators, in particular, will make it a challenge to recruit and retain young teachers and further increase workloads.
Union negotiators filed for a mediator after they said eight bargaining sessions yielded little progress.
“That was a hard place to come back from,” Wolhaupter said.
District officials say they’ve provided funding for up to 96 special education teachers and 10 educators for students who speak English as a second language to address heavy workloads.
They also say that they’re already stretching their budget forecast, which allowed for a 5% increase in teacher salaries.
“The district is committed to the goal of improving terms and conditions for employees while working within tight budget parameters to maintain financial and operational stability for the district,” district spokesman Jim Skelly said.
State funding increases, as do mandates
District officials in other parts of the state say they’re also struggling to settle contracts as educators seek a share of new state funding.
Minnesota lawmakers approved $2.2 billion in new spending during the last session, but much of it is tied up in new mandates, including a revamp of reading instruction and unemployment insurance for employees, such as bus drivers and cafeteria workers.
Some administrators also say they’re facing uncertainty as they prepare their budget forecasts beyond this year.
Bob Indihar, executive director of the Minnesota Rural Education Association, noted that the Legislature only guaranteed state funding for free school meals and unemployment insurance through July 2026.
“The perception was that districts are now flush with money after the last session, which is not accurate,” Indihar said.
Williams said district officials and educators can lobby for more state funding in the future, but the contracts need to be resolved first.
“The Legislature has been responsive to education,” Williams said. “Let’s deal with the thing we’ve got right in front of us right now.”
Two men are dead and one woman was injured in a shooting at a homeless encampment in south Minneapolis on Sunday afternoon, police said. It was the second shooting at a Minneapolis encampment this weekend.
At about 2:20 p.m. Sunday, police responded to a reported shooting in the 4400 block of Snelling Avenue near the railroad tracks at the small encampment between Snelling and Hiawatha avenues. At the scene, officers found two men with fatal gunshot wounds, said Sgt. Garrett Parten Minneapolis Police spokesman. Responders rendered aid, but both men died at the scene.
A woman was found at the scene with life-threatening injuries and was taken to a local hospital where she was being treated Sunday night, he said. Police have yet to say whether the three were living at the encampment.
Officers detained three people, who Parten said have since been released after police found they were not believed to be involved in the shooting. No suspects had been identified as of 6:30 p.m. Sunday.
The shooting is the second at a southside homeless encampment this weekend. One man died and two were critically injured early Saturday at an encampment shooting near E. 21st Street and 15th Avenue S. On Sunday, the man was identified as Deven Leonard Caston, 31, according to the Hennepin County Medical Examiner’s Office.
“We don’t know if there’s a connection between this homeless encampment shooting and the one that occurred yesterday,” Parten said on Sunday. “That is a consideration of the investigation. We can’t rule it out.”
Ward 12 Council Member Aurin Chowdhury, who represents the area and lives nearby, was at the site of the shooting Sunday afternoon. She said officials need information about what happened to better understand how to address situations like this long-term.
“This is an absolute tragedy, and this type of violence should never occur within our city,” she said. “It really makes me think about how we need to look at this more systemically and not just take a whack-a-mole approach and expect the problem to go away.
During Sunday’s Twitch stream, Walz and Ocasio-Cortez played Madden while discussing making homebuying more accessible, building affordable housing, eliminating student loan debt and raising the federal minimum wage.
After the match, Walz showed off his Sega skills in a round of “Crazy Taxi,” the Y2K-era racing game where gamers play as a taxi driver picking up passengers and taking them to their destination for cash.
Walz called himself a “first-generation gamer” and recalled playing “Crazy Taxi” when he bought a Sega Dreamcast. He also mentioned the Minnesota Star Tribune’s coverage of how his old game console was sold and ended up with a Plymouth resident, who still has it.
Afterward, Walz and Ocasio-Cortez watched a short clip of Trump denying on Rogan’s podcast that he lost the 2020 presidential election. Democrat Joe Biden won that year.
Ocasio-Cortez during the livestream also showed viewers her farm on the cozy, indie game Stardew Valley. Walz said the game reminded him of Minnesota: “You’ve got mining,” he said. “You’ve got agriculture. You’ve got snow.”
Before Walz headed out to a rally in Nevada, he pleaded with viewers to vote. More than 12,000 viewers tuned into the livestream on Ocasio-Cortez’s Twitch channel. More watched from Harris’ channel.
”Hey guys, they’re now scrambling and trying to call us Nazis and fascists,” said Alina Habba, one of Trump’s attorneys, who draped a sparkly ”MAGA” jacket over the lectern as she spoke. ”And you know what they’re claiming, guys? It’s very scary. They’re claiming we’re going to go after them and try and put them in jail. Well, ain’t that rich?”
Declared Hogan in his characteristic raspy growl: ”I don’t see no stinkin’ Nazis in here.”
Trump has denounced the four criminal indictments brought against him as politically motivated. He has ramped up his denunciations in recent weeks of ”enemies from within,” naming domestic political rivals, and suggested he would use the military to go after them. Harris, in turn, has called Trump a ”fascist.”
The arena was full hours before Trump was scheduled to speak. Outside the arena, the sidewalks were overflowing with Trump supporters in red ”Make America Great Again” hats. There was a heavy security presence. Streets were blocked off and access to Penn Station was restricted.
In the crowd was Philip D’Agostino, a longtime Trump backer from Queens, the borough where Trump grew up. The 64-year-old said it was appropriate for Trump to be speaking at a place bills itself as ”the world’s most famous arena.”
”It just goes to show ya that he has a bigger following of any man that has ever lived,” D’Agostino said.
