The second day of collective bargaining on November 17, 2017, with the Washington Teachers Association (WTA) was a success as both teams worked the full day to address the topics on the agenda while learning together to implement a new style of negotiations.

Both teams have been trained and have agreed on Interest Based Bargaining (IBB) to be the foundation of this year’s cycle and hopeful that it will yield a speedy and amicable outcome. While traditional bargaining is based on the passing of proposals that are based on a fixed position, IBB focuses on the mutual development of agreements based on the interests of both parties.

The second meeting was indeed productive, collaboratively generating conceptual ideas which will now be developed to design new teacher orientation, start-of-year meeting plans, and the onboarding of new staff. The next scheduled meeting date is Friday, December 8, 2017, covering the following agenda items:

The entire negotiations team consists of teachers, principals, and administrators with guidance provided by an outside facilitator. Our current agreement sunsets on June 30, 2018, and our goal is to renew that agreement prior to that date.