District at odds with teachers (Berkeley)

By Dorothy Vriend
CORRESPONDENT

<snip> Last week the Berkeley Unified School District issued a press release outlining its latest offer to teachers, saying it had moved as far as it could without jeopardizing the solvency of the district or cutting critical programs. While the statement didn't specify exactly what was on the table, the district offered to raise all teachers' salaries.

But BFT president Barry Fike said the district's offer didn't reflect the cap on health benefits that came along with the proposal, which would go into effect next year. If the offer was agreed on, teachers would be paying 75 percent of increased premium rates next year and 100 percent of increased premium rates the following year, setting a precedent that would be hard to change in the future. Fike said in that scenario teachers would not gain anything but instead would lose an average of $2,000 each over the next two years.

He also called the offer divisive, saying the district offered higher increases to veteran teachers and additional stipends for counselors and speech pathologists -- but didn't raise the bar equally for everyone. <snip>

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