The Cleveland Metropolitan School District and the Cleveland Teachers Union have reached a tentative agreement on a new contract. This is the second go-round for the two sides.
The two negotiating teams reached an agreement last summer but in a close vote, the teachers union members turned it down. It reportedly contained a 2 percent raise but other issues remained unresolved. One was teacher pay tied to performance. That was a deal in the 2012 Cleveland Plan to reform city schools, but teachers have been upset with being graded on the basis of their students’ test scores.
Cleveland Schools CEO Eric Gordon said he could not talk about details of the agreement yet.
"We want to get it into the hands of our teacher members first and we want them to see and hear from them directly . But what I can say is we did not walk away from any of the reforms we promised Cleveland. We did, though, look at which of those was working effectively and which of those could be made to work better.”
Union President David Quolke called it a good agreement with a focus on teaching and learning.
He said “many issues that we could not address in the fall were able to be addressed this time around.”
The union is expected to vote on the contract in early March.
