Negotiations

Negotiations began on February 25, 2025. The current round of negotiations is called a “reopener.” Reopeners are clauses in a collective bargaining agreement (CBA) that allow for the renegotiation of specific terms, most commonly wages, before the entire contract expires. We are currently negotiating salary, benefits, and two other articles of the contract chosen by each side. To date, there have been eleven (11) bargaining sessions, with a break in negotiations during the summer of 2025.

ETA first proposed a 5% salary increase for this year and another 5% increase for next year, which would total an additional salary expense of $6,697,246.00. The district received that proposal on May 27, 2025, after the Governor released the May Revision of the state budget. The district responded to the proposed 10% over two years with a more cautious offer: a 1% salary increase for this year, and a possible 1% increase next year if the district’s finances improved. ETA then countered with a proposal for a 3.5% increase this year and a 4% increase next year, which would total an additional salary expense of $5,022,934.00. At that point, the district was already seeing signs of deficit spending, so it chose to wait before making another salary proposal until the Unaudited Actuals for the 2024–25 fiscal year were released in September. Once those numbers came out, the district was informed that the budget was now in qualified status and that a Fiscal Stabilization Plan was required.

The last bargaining session occurred on October 28, 2025. ETA filed a Request for Impasse with the Public Employee Relations Board (PERB), which is the state agency that helps school districts and employee unions follow state labor law. On November 10, 2025, the district received ETA’s Request for Impasse from PERB and met with an attorney supervisor from PERB on Thursday, November 13, 2025 to discuss whether the district was in agreement with the request. On the same day, the district reached out to ETA leadership to attempt to schedule another bargaining session. On Monday, November 17, 2025, the district received certification of Impasse with ETA.

Both parties move to the next stage, Mediation. When a school district and one of its employee unions cannot reach an agreement during negotiations, they may enter mediation through PERB. During the mediation stage, a neutral mediator is assigned by PERB. The mediator’s job is to guide the conversation and help both the district and the union talk through the issues and look for common ground. Nothing discussed in mediation can be shared publicly, allowing both sides to speak openly. The goal is to reach an agreement. But the mediator cannot force an agreement. Both sides must agree voluntarily.

At that point the process can move to the next stage, called Factfinding, where a panel reviews the situation and provides a recommended settlement.

Teaching and learning continues as usual in our schools. Negotiations do not have an impact on our day-to-day operations. We do not anticipate the mediation phase to begin until December.

No. This statement is not accurate. During the 2024–25 negotiations, both the district and ETA jointly agreed, for the first time, to establish set work hours for teachers, and those agreed-upon hours were put into place at the start of this school year. After implementation, the district identified that an additional 15 minutes is needed on Wednesdays so principals can hold a full one-hour staff meeting. This is because dismissal times differ from school to school, which shortens the available meeting window. Currently, ETA’s negotiated work hours are:

• 7 hours per day on Mondays, Tuesdays, most Thursdays, and Fridays
• 7.5 hours on Wednesdays

The district has proposed adjusting the Wednesday schedule to 7 hours and 45 minutes.

Under the existing agreement, teachers work 35.5 hours per week, except for one week each month when the total is 35.75 hours. With the district’s proposal of a 1% base salary increase and the proposed 15-minute adjustment to Wednesdays, the claim that teachers are being asked to work longer hours without compensation is false.

The Evergreen teachers have seen an increase to their salaries by a total of 27% since 2016-17, with nine consecutive years of pay increases. Those increases total approximately $15.5 million in funding.

Currently, the amount paid by teachers in health care premiums is frozen at the 2024-25 rate, even though the costs to the district have increased dramatically. While our teachers pay less than $3,500 per year in premiums for both their own health care and their dependents, the district contributes more than $22,500 per teacher towards health-care premiums.

Currently our student-to-teacher ratios are better than the state requires and several safeguards are in place within the ETA collective bargaining agreement to ensure teachers are well compensated if their class size is larger than the negotiated ratio. See table below.

No. Since July 2022, the reasons for teachers and other certificated staff leaving the district are listed in the table below:

Since 2015-16, declining enrollment has taken a financial toll on our district. District enrollment has declined more than 3,800 students, which is more than 31%. As a result, our state funding has dropped by nearly $39.2 million.

In a public school district, deficit spending happens when the district spends more money in a year than it receives in annual revenue. It is similar to a household budget: if you bring in $100 but spend $110, you are operating at a deficit. Districts may temporarily deficit spend if they have enough savings (reserves) to cover the difference. Ongoing deficit spending is not sustainable because reserves will eventually run out.

A qualified budget means the school district is projected to meet its financial obligations this year, but may not be able to meet them in one of the next two years. In California, districts must show they can pay all bills (i.e. salaries, benefits, programs, contracts) for three years. When a budget is marked qualified, it’s a warning sign that the district’s reserves or revenue may not be enough in future years unless changes are made. It doesn’t mean the district is insolvent, but it does mean the district must take steps to improve its financial position.

A Fiscal Stabilization Plan outlines specific steps the district will take to restore long-term financial stability, such as adjusting spending, reducing costs, rebuilding reserves, or restructuring programs. County Offices of Education often require a Fiscal Stabilization Plan when a district’s budget is “qualified” or at risk. The goal is to ensure the district can continue meeting all financial obligations, now and in the next several years, so that students’ education is not disrupted.

COLA stands for Cost-of-Living Adjustment. Each year, the state calculates a COLA to help public agencies, including school districts, keep up with rising costs such as utilities, materials, and services. For school districts, COLA is applied to the Local Control Funding Formula (LCFF), which determines how much money the state provides per student. When the state grants a COLA, a district’s funding increases on paper, but the increase doesn’t always cover actual rising costs like salary step-and-column, health benefit increases, or special education expenses. In short, COLA helps, but it doesn’t automatically mean a district has new or extra money. It simply offsets inflation so districts can maintain current operations. For the 2025-26 school year, California’s statutory COLA is 2.30 %.

School districts in California are funded through the Local Control Funding Formula (LCFF), which varies the amount that districts receive based on a district’s demographics and student needs. Districts receive:

• Base funding for each student and
• Additional funding (called supplemental and concentration grants) for students who are English learners, low income, or foster youth.

LCFF is designed to make school funding more fair and more responsive to the needs of the students a district serves. In addition, California districts are designated as either “basic aid” districts or ‘state-funded’ districts.

• State-funded districts rely on the state to provide the bulk of their funding to meet a per-pupil target.
• Basic Aid districts receive the majority of their funding from local property taxes and are able to keep any "excess" revenue that exceeds the state-mandated target.

As a result, Basic Aid districts have significantly more per-pupil funding but are entirely dependent on local property wealth, while State-funded districts are more dependent on the state budget and per-pupil enrollment levels. Evergreen Elementary School District is not a basic aid district. We are a state-funded LCFF district, so we do not receive the additional local property tax revenue that basic aid districts keep. We must account for our level of funding when determining employee salaries.

No. Class time may not be used to discuss union negotiations, labor disputes, or contract issues with students or parents. California law requires that instructional time be used only for teaching and learning, and school districts must ensure that classrooms remain free from political or labor-related advocacy during the school day. Teachers may do union business during non instructional time only. Prep-time is considered on-duty work time.

For the 2024-25 school year, the district spent over $1 million on certificated subs due to teacher absenteeism.