The Sulphur Springs District Teachers Association bargaining team has reached a tentative agreement with the school district for their 2025-2026 school year contract.
The agreement, which is scheduled to be voted on next week, maintains the 1.3% raise offer the district had proposed last month, but also comes with a one-time $1,000 payment to all teachers, regardless of their position on the district’s pay schedule.
SSDTA President Rikki Fayne said the district board had been generous with its time at the Jan. 21 board meeting, where teachers expressed some discontent with the district’s 1.3% raise offer, and that the bargaining committee had come out of the following week’s bargaining session satisfied with the new terms.
“The board was really receptive, they really respected what the teachers were saying,” Fayne said. “I’m grateful that they listened, and then we had a great bargaining session the following week.”
Fayne said the one-time payment, or “off schedule,” is especially welcome for new teachers. Teachers with a master’s degree – or up to 45 units of extra education on top of their bachelor’s degree – make less than $60,000 for their first three years with the district, according to the district’s pay schedule.
“We came to that number because last year, the off schedule for the highest tier for the pay schedule was $1,000, but if you’re at the bottom of the pay scale, you got $400,” Fayne said. “Everybody kind of talked about their reality and their situation and how they were feeling, and the district came back with $1,000.”
While Fayne said that the cost-of-living adjustment, or COLA, is the ideal number for basing teacher raises off of – calculated each year by the California Department of Finance to be passed on to school district employees – the off schedule is a welcome supplement.
This year’s COLA is calculated at 2.4%.
Sulphur Springs Union School District teachers are expected to vote on the 2025-26 contract next week between Monday and Friday. The union needs a simple majority of voters to approve the contract.
