School board, teachers union exchange offers 
by Mark Berglund
The Star News
October 1, 2009 —  The Medford School Board and Medford Education Association, the teacher's union for the district, exchanged initial contract offers Monday night as they begin the process of negotiating a two-year contract for 2009-2011.
This was the first contract negotiation meeting since the state repealed the qualified economic offer, which set a baseline for offers from school boards who wished to avoid mediation and arbitration issues. The district did not provide figures on initial salary offers.
Proposals for both sides to the language of the master agreement were released Tuesday. As it appears the district is heading toward a smaller staff because of smaller enrollments and tighter budgets, both sides offered language for possible changes to article XII of the agreement, which deals with reduction in staff.
The MEA proposal would remove criteria dealing with qualifications and length of service in the article, leaving seniority as the sole criteria for determining who is laid off after normal attrition and volunteer lay-offs are exhausted. The proposal reads, "seniority for the purposes of this contract shall be applied equally district-wide within any given department or subject area. Seniority shall be applied in inverse order of the earliest date on which an individual teacher began his/her teaching assignment in the district in his/her particular department or subject area. If any teacher has or had assignments in more than one department, that teacher shall earn one year of service credit toward seniority in each department that he/she teaches in. Service credits toward seniority shall apply to continuous employment with part-time employees accruing seniority on a prorated basis. A year of service credit equates to a year of seniority. In the event that two or more teachers have identical service credits, seniority shall be determined by applying the following criterion to any given teacher.
1. Total number of years in the district. 2. Certification and academic training. 3. Co-curricular, committees, and extra-curricular duties performed within the district. Seniority shall cease when a teacher: 1. Resigns or quits, 2. Is fired or non-renewed, 3. Is retired, 4. Is considered to be on layoff for more than two years.
The administration shall post a district-wide seniority list on January 31 of each year.
The board's only change in the current contract language is making the final date for layoff notifications May 31 rather than May 19. The current contract uses "qualifications" and "length of service in the district" as the criteria for layoffs. The contract defines the standards for qualifications as 1. appropriateness of training, experience and certification with respect to the remaining teaching assignments which must be filled; 2. teaching performance in the district as previously and currently evaluated by the principal and or administrative team; 3. and where applicable; co-curricular assignments or activities held or to be filled. Teaching criteria to be considered first. In the event two or more professional staff are found to be equally qualified upon application of the above standards, then length of service in the district shall prevail.
A proposed 11-word change in article XIII, section J - health insurance will be a key bargaining point. The school board is proposing to eliminate the words "at least comparable to that provided in the previous school year" from the sentence the district shall continue to provide all full-time professional staff, hospital and surgical insurance. The change in wording would allow the district to change the insurance policy or even the insurance company. The district has added wording setting out deductibles of $250 for a single policy and $500 for a family policy and a $5/$10/$25 tiered prescription drug card beginning January 1, 2010.
The union is offering a contract change dealing with insurance. The new language would allow "those individuals who have family insurance coverage through a spouse's employment may elect to discontinue coverage under the district's medical plan and be reimbursed an amount equal to 90 percent of the single rate for medical plan coverage."
The board proposals increase the liquidated damages charge for individuals released from the contract. The charge until June 1 would go from $50 to $10, the charge in June would go from $150 to $200, the July charge would be $400 up from $250, an August release until eight days before the first student day would go to $800 from $600 and a release after that deadline would go from $750 to $1,000.
The district is proposing a language change for employment probation to make all new hires fall under a 3-year probation period. The current language sets a two year probation, if the staff member has three previous years teaching experience in Wisconsin.

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