Oak Harbor teachers approve a contract

Oak Harbor teachers on average will each take home $750 more this year

Oak Harbor teachers on average will each take home $750 more this year under an agreement reached last week with the school district.

Oak Harbor Education Association re-opened the teachers’ contract to ask the school district to fund additional non-teaching days, partly in response to the state freeze on teachers’ pay. A federal mediator was called in last week when teachers and the district failed to reach an agreement. The teachers had been asking for four additional paid days.

Under the agreement, certificated staff will see their supplemental pay days increase from 8 to 11 this year, and to 12 next school year. That will take them up to spring 2005, when the teachers’ contract is up for renewal.

While less than half of the district’s 340 certificated staff voted Friday, 135 of the 139 teachers voting approved the agreement.

Peter Szalai, union president, said teachers overall are satisfied with the agreement.