It is with great excitement that I share with you the latest bargaining news. On Friday, June 24th, SVEA and SVSD bargaining team members reached a tentative agreement (TA) on the financial package portion of the 2016-2019 Collective Bargaining Agreement. These team members had many productive conversations and have worked hard on building openness and trust. Many other TA's to contract language changes were signed that will benefit both you and your students. This early agreement was made possible by the Interest Based Bargaining structure that SVEA entered into with SVSD over a year ago.
The joint bargaining team members will be meeting again Aug. 8th to complete our work finalizing wording on other contract language and working on the wording for the TPEP guidelines.
On August 23rd, SVEA members will go "off the clock" after the staff barbecue and convene in the Mt. Si Auditorium. There you will be presented with an information packet of all the agreements. Please plan to attend and cast your vote.
I want to thank my fellow SVEA bargaining team members: Lynn Bradwell (Chief Kanim), Chris Jackson (Mt. Si), Freedom Johnson (WEA), Tony Manjarrez (Chief Kanim), and Nate Ziemkowski (Snoqualmie Elementary) for all their time, expertise, participation, and patience. A special thank you to Nancy Byrnes and the Bargaining Support team who made sure we started our bargaining days with rich sustenance.
If you have a chance, please also thank the SVSD team: Jeff Hogan (Asst. Superintendent), Warren Hopkins (Contract Specialist for SVSD), Rhonda Schmidt (Asst. Principal), Ryan Stokes (Asst. Superintendent), Ray Wilson (Principal), and Amy Wright (Principal).
Thank you to you - for your membership and support in SVEA and WEA. Without such support we would be hampered in our ability to collectively bargain our pay, benefits, rights and working conditions. Remember... our working conditions are our students learning conditions.
Have a fantastic relaxing summer. I look forward to sharing this new contract with you in August. I also look forward to working with you this next school year.
Sincerely,
Lisa Radmer, SVEA President