February 28th Mediation Update

Dear SPFE member,


Your bargaining team met with the district today in our 12th mediation session. Your SPFE bargaining team showed up ready to negotiate and work toward settlement. 


We reached a tentative agreement to keep school redesign language in our contract and remove site-based school committee language that was outdated.  The district also dropped its severance proposals. 


We shared counters on our special education proposal to reduce workload for Fed 1 and 2 teachers and getting education assistants access to laptops and smart phones to help them do their jobs better and connect with families. Discussions continued on equity leads and BIPOC recruitment and retention proposals. 


It’s good that we are making movement on these proposals. But we made it clear to the district’s bargaining team that many of these issues could have been agreed upon or discussed more thoroughly months ago. It’s the latest example of the district bargaining team not being prepared and slowing down the negotiations process.  

We have two additional mediation sessions scheduled for this week — March 2 and March 4 and plan to meet through the weekend. Again, it is important that we continue to prepare for a strike if the district doesn’t agree to a fair contract that invests in students and honors our work. Stay in touch with the leaders at your site for updates. 


SPFE has two parent informational meetings scheduled for March 1 and March 3 at 7 p.m. via Zoom. Please spread the word.


In Solidarity, 

Your SPFE Bargaining Team