'Last, best, final' offers, but strike continues with no negotiation meetings scheduled

It’s the 12th missed day of school in Minneapolis, but both the district and teacher union representatives say they are not scheduled to meet on Wednesday. 

“As far as I know, they’re refusing to meet with us today. We have told our mediator we are ready to go,” said Minneapolis Federation of Teachers President Greta Callahan. 

The district, when contacted by MPR News, confirmed by 12:40 p.m. that it did not yet have plans to meet on Wednesday.  

“While MPS remains committed to reaching an agreement as soon as possible, the mediators set and schedule the negotiation sessions. We have not yet received word of what today’s schedule is,” said district media relations coordinator Crystina Lugo-Beach.

There are two different contracts at stake in the Minneapolis strike: one for the over 3,000 classroom teachers in Minneapolis and another for the approximately 1,200 unlicensed education support professionals, or ESPs, who work in the district. 

On Sunday, district leaders said they’d put forward their “last, best and final” offer to ESPs.

The offer included an average pay bump of more than 15 percent over two years, getting most full-time ESPs close to a salary of $35,000 per year, according to the district.

“We’re much closer to where we need to be to get this done, but there’s still some outstanding issues,” said Shaun Laden, the union’s ESP president. He said the union is still pushing the district to modify contract language around career advancement for ESPs.

On Tuesday, district leaders put forward what they called their “last, best and final” offer to MFT teachers. The proposal includes a complicated offer outline for wage increases between 5-12 percent for teachers in their first through sixth years of teaching and cost-of-living wage increases for teachers with more than six years’ experience. 

The offer also has contract language around class size caps, $3,000 bonuses, a full-time social worker in every school and lower ratios for social workers and counselors at high needs schools. 

But it’s still $167 million away from what teachers are asking for in terms of cost to the district, according to district estimates. 

A large part of what the union is asking for centers on caseloads for the district’s mental health providers and special education teachers, says the district. 

“We need caseloads in the contract,” Callahan said. “We offered an MOA last night which, again, can be used with one-time money, which can help our kids get mental health supports now and for the next few years and then we’re going to have to fight for it again.”

Callahan also said the union has decreased its wage increase requests.

“We moved to 3 percent and 3 percent. For reference, we haven’t had over a 2 percent raise in over 21 years. Our asks are so minimal,” Callahan said, referring to a 3 percent raise the first year, and another 3 percent raise the second year of the contract. 

As of 4 p.m. on Wednesday, neither the district nor the union appear to have scheduled further negotiations. 

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