Bend-La Pine Schools administration building in Bend.

Bend-La Pine Schools and its two major unions, Bend Education Association and Oregon School Employees Association, made progress with contract negotiations this week.

The district’s bargaining team met with each union twice.

Though negotiations mainly focused on contract topics that aren’t salary or benefits, other topics discussed this week do concern financials, such as teacher prep time.

Members of both Bend-La Pine unions have been working without contracts since the summer. The district and the Oregon School Employees Union have scheduled sessions through January, and are considering scheduling more.

The district and Bend Education Association have scheduled sessions through the middle of December.

Bend Education Association represents more than 1,000 teachers, school psychologists, librarians, certified nurses and others. The Oregon School Employees Association represents nearly 1,000 clerical staff, bus drivers, custodians and others.

They aren’t the only unions in the state that have been in talks with school districts.

The Portland Association of Teachers’ strike against Portland Public Schools came to an end Sunday, after more than three weeks, and the union and district agreed to a contract.

The Salem-Keizer School District, the second largest in the state, recently announced $30 million in budget cuts, with more to come.

Bend Education Association and the district

On Thursday, the educators union and the district came to tentative agreements on complaint procedures, personnel records and evaluation of students.

At their Thursday session, bargaining teams discussed instructional hours, prep time, time for meetings, student supervisory time and time for breaks. The district also presented on class sizes.

The union proposed 30 minutes of prep time at the beginning of the day and 30 minutes at the end for all full-time certified employees. It proposed increasing elementary prep time from 270 minutes per week to 500. Among other things, the union also proposed class-size limits that would result in overtime pay if passed.

In response, the district proposed increasing elementary prep time to 360 minutes from 270 per week, and limiting the amount of time educators spend in meetings.

Teachers have posted anonymously on the union’s Facebook page about why they’d like an increase in prep time. A special education teacher wrote about the individualized materials they create, and how meetings every day take away from time creating curriculum for each student’s goals. Several teachers wrote about getting more paid time so they are working fewer unpaid hours each year.

“They really are just getting started on this one, which could have budget implications, such as needing to pay certified staff for extra work time, or hiring more staff to cover student contact time that would come from increasing prep time,” wrote Scott Maben, the district’s communications director, in an email.

Superintendent Steve Cook said during Thursday’s session that the district believes salary is the highest priority and wants to avoid commitment to new spending. The district therefore did not respond to every point of the union’s proposal.

“We have one pot of money that we’re trying to make everything happen out of… When that’s gone, that’s gone,” he said.

The district and the educators’ union are set to negotiate 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. Dec. 4, 5, 11 and 13.

Oregon School Employees Association and the district

Oregon School Employees Association and the district came to tentative agreements on management rights and responsibilities, grievance procedures, employee evaluation and personnel files on Monday. They also agreed to delete an obsolete memo on a transportation employee schedule, and began their discussion on association rights and responsibilities.

The district and Oregon School Employees Association are set to negotiate in the afternoons Dec. 4, Dec. 13 and Jan. 3.

All negotiation sessions are open to the public in the board room of the district education center.

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