Harwood teachers, district reach three-year contract agreement

August 23, 2024  |  By Lisa Scagliotti 

With the new school year about to begin, one big hurdle for the Harwood Unified Union School District has been cleared—the teachers union and school board have reached a three-year contract agreement that increases compensation in an effort to attract and retain teachers in a competitive job market. 

The previous contract ended on June 30, before negotiators for the HUUSD School Board and the Harwood Union Education Association had reached a new agreement despite months of negotiating sessions during the 2023-24 school year. 

Following mediation early this summer, the final pieces were ironed out by July 9, and both the union membership and the school board voted to accept the new contract which now is in effect through June 30, 2027. The teachers union ratified the agreement on July 22, and the Harwood School Board called a special meeting on July 23 to approve it despite the board taking a summer recess. 

The meeting took just over 30 minutes and was attended by eight of the board’s 14 members. During the meeting, board members involved in the contract negotiations and Superintendent Mike Leichliter shared a summary of the key contract points in a slide presentation. That’s captured in the video recording of the meeting on the school board’s YouTube page. 

The new three-year contract covers approximately 220 teachers across all of the schools in the Harwood district. It will increase teacher salaries by an average of 6.5% over three years. In a joint news release, the school board and education association said the goal was “an emphasis on increasing starting teacher salaries which were $40,792 in 2023-2024, well below the average starting salary for new teachers in the region.”

School officials said comparable starting teacher salaries in nearby districts for 2023-24 were $43,130 in Montpelier, $43,250 in Barre, and $50,225 in Washington Central.  

The new contract will increase the Harwood base starting salary each of the three years of the agreement to $43,843 for the 2024-25 school year, to $46,420 in 2025-26, to $49,200 in 2026-27, according to the contract. 

Improving Harwood’s competitive edge in the regional labor market was important, according to School Board Chair Ashley Woods of Warren. “The current starting salary HUUSD offers for professional teachers is not a livable wage when you consider the cost of living in our six towns,” Woods said in the joint statement. “We believe that this agreement represents a fair settlement for the school district, the association, and our community as it will help our schools attract and retain teachers that we are currently losing to many of our central Vermont and Chittenden County neighbors.”

Waitsfield school board member J.B. Weir was the lead negotiator for the board. He said the contract reflects the importance of attracting and retaining good teachers. “Our schools provide an outstanding education for our students due in large part to the quality of our teachers,” he said. “While the school board understands the fiscal realities we face, we also realize that it has become challenging to hire new teachers with the current teacher shortage in Vermont and the low starting salary currently offered by our school district.”

The contract does not increase the amount of sick leave teachers may take, but it does increase the number of days a teacher may use to care for a sick child or family member from 5 to 15. That was a provision added to the previous contract during the COVID-19 pandemic that was just incorporated into the new contract. 

The new agreement also adjusts professional development spending that the district will cover and expands the types of professional development that may be approved. It also eliminates sabbatical leave.

During the school board’s review of the contract’s key points, Weir and board member Victoria Taravella of Waterbury, the other main board negotiator, noted that there were questions surrounding teacher preparation time that were discussed as needing detailed review across the district in order for the contract to reflect that information. Superintendent Leichliter was directed to form a committee to review that topic this fall to make recommendations that could result in an eventual addendum to contract language. 

Details around health care benefits are not negotiated at the district level as a statewide agreement is in place covering all Vermont public school staff. Harwood’s new contract made one small adjustment to increase the payment a teacher receives for foregoing health insurance coverage from $1,400 to $1,500 in the new contract. 

Waitsfield Elementary teacher Tom Young and Harwood Union Middle/High School Teaching and Learning Coordinator Jessica Deane co-chaired the union negotiating team which they said “appreciated the collaborative and mutually respectful approach both sides took” during negotiations. 

They agreed that the process put “a strong emphasis on increasing the base teacher salary, which has fallen compared to surrounding districts over the last several years.” The association is pleased with the end result, they said. “This contract improves the HUUSD’s ability to attract and retain the high-quality educators that our students all deserve,” Young and Deane said. 

The school board’s vote was unanimous, 8-0, to approve the contract. Six members were absent from the special meeting, but the eight in attendance constituted 56.9% based on the board’s system of weighted voting. Those present and voting to approve the contract were: Waterbury representatives Corey Hackett and Taravella, Life LeGeros and board Vice Chair Cindy Senning from Duxbury, Weir and Bobbi Rood of Waitsfield, Steve Rosenberg of Moretown, and Woods. 

The school district in February approved a separate three-year collective bargaining agreement covering the district’s approximate 140 support staff personnel.

The current and former collective bargaining agreements for the Harwood district can be found on the HUUSD.org website.