The Wright School District Friday reinstated nine teaching positions it cut earlier this month, marking a dramatic turnaround in labor negotiations that had been declared at impasse.
The decision means the the district will eliminate five days of instruction this coming school year and increase some class sizes.
The five-member school board voted July 11 to eliminate the positions and not to fill three additional teaching posts in an effort to cut $500,000 to $1 million from its 2012-13 budget.
The move affects the jobs of about 15 full- and part-time teachers in the district of 1,600 students in three schools in west Santa Rosa.
Despite that vote, the Wright Educators Association and district officials had vowed to continue negotiating. On Friday, before a standing room only crowd at a specially called school board meeting, nine jobs were reinstated while two-currently vacant posts were cut.
"I'm pleased that the Wright community has stepped up to work with me very collaboratively to come up with a solution," said new superintendent Adam Stein, who started work July 1, well after talks had stalemated.
The conflict arose because the two sides were working with changing and differing sets of budgetary projections in the early days of talks, said Janette Witte, a first grade teacher at J.X. Wilson Elementary School and a member of the union's negotiating team.
"We were operating from different numbers," she said.
She said board members were "sincere and believed (the cuts) to be necessary and I'm so thrilled that we got past it."
"It wasn't a false negotiating ploy to try and force their hand," Stein said of the July 11 vote. "It was, in my opinion, the board taking their fiduciary responsibility seriously."
To reinstate the jobs, the board voted to eliminate five days from the 2012-13 instruction calendar and cap benefits pay at 2011-12 rates. The calendar for the upcoming year already has been set so board members must vote again on which days will become furlough days.
The deal means class sizes in kindergarten through third grade likely will rise from about 20 students per teacher to 25.
"I think in the grand scheme of what we were looking at, that's a reasonable thing to do," Witte said.
District business manager Wendy Wood said Friday's deal doesn't solve the district's budgetary issues, but takes a step toward the goal.
"It doesn't get us the $1 million but it gets us some breathing room to be able to negotiate ongoing solutions," she said.
(Staff Writer Kerry Benefield writes an education blog at extracredit.blogs.pressdemocrat.com. She can be reached at 526-8671 or kerry.benefield@pressdemocrat.com.)
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