Los Banos teachers reach agreement with school district for reduced class sizes
The Los Banos Teachers Association on Monday reached a three-year deal with the Los Banos Unified School District that’s expected to reduce class sizes.
The bargaining process started with face-to-face meetings in fall of 2019 and ended with virtual meetings this spring.
“What started as a normal bargain became abnormal and difficult,” said LBTA president Jennifer Wilkin in a release from the California Teachers Association, “It is hard to describe the difficulty of bargaining in a rapidly changing world.”
Prior to this deal, there was no limit for class sizes for middle school, high school and special education. The new maximum for middle school is 165 students for five periods and 225 students for middle school physical education classes. The maximum for high school is 175 students for five periods and 240 for PE. There is a payment of $3 per student per day for exceeding these limits.
For speech and language therapists there is a caseload max of 55 and 40 for pre-K caseloads. Special education resource teachers have a caseload limit of 28.
There will be a new maximum of 24 students for pre-K classes. There were no changes for other elementary school class sizes. Kindergarten through third grade remained at a maximum of 31 students and fourth through sixth grade also remained at 33 students. There is a payment of $15 per day per student for exceeding these numbers.
In the new deal there is no salary increase. Fringe benefits will increase at the existing formula at 3%.
“Students are at the center of everything we do,” said Wilkin, “This new agreement goes as far as we could go in this environment to limit class sizes and improve education.”
According to the release, negotiations for a return to work with COVID-19 protections will begin soon.
This story was originally published June 16, 2020 at 3:30 PM.
