Moses Lake Education Association approves agreement with MLSD

MOSES LAKE — Members of the union representing Moses Lake School District teaching (certificated) staff approved a one-year agreement Tuesday with the Moses Lake School District for the 2024-25 school year.

With the union approval, the memorandum of understanding is submitted to the Moses Lake School Board; a vote to approve or reject is on the MLSB on Aug. 22 agenda.

Moses Lake Education Association President Heather Whittall said 388 teachers, about 90% of MLEA members, cast a vote.

“It was almost unanimous,” Whittall said. “We had one no vote.”

The contract between the MLSD and the MLEA stipulated there would be negotiations if an educational programs and operations levy was rejected by voters. That occurred in April. At about the same time district officials discovered that accounting errors had almost drained the district’s reserves.

School district officials did not answer a request for comment on the vote.

In an earlier interview, Whittall said the MLEA researched how levy funds are spent and concentrated on cuts in those areas.

The proposal approved by the union includes reductions to the extended-day contracts for school psychologists, physical and occupational therapists and speech-language pathologists. Employees in each profession are paid for a designated number of days in addition to the school year, and the draft agreement proposes cutting those by three days. Most teacher training funding would be eliminated.

Class sizes would be increased in the district’s highly capable program, MLSD Digitial and the Open Doors program. Contractual limits on K-12 class sizes would remain unchanged.

“The bargaining team was committed to cuts furthest from the classroom,” Whittall said.

In an earlier interview, MLSD Superintendent Carol Lewis said class size limits can be exceeded, but the district must pay extra compensation to teachers if that occurs.

“A class size limit doesn’t mean that that the class won’t be larger than what the class size limit is. It just means that teachers will get additional pay if their classes are larger than that,” Lewis said.

Whittall said MLEA members are ready to get back in the classroom, although the levy rejection has left uncertainty in its wake. Whittall said she’s been in the district for 25 years, and it was the first levy failure she could remember. Few, if any, staff in the district have had experience with a levy failure, so people don’t know how it will work out, she said.

The levy failure coupled with the depleted reserves resulted in layoffs for both teaching and support staff.

“We’re going to be without a lot of vital support staff. It’s going to be a different kind of school,” she said. “All of these changes create a lot of unknowns. We’re just going to have to dig in and work together.”

Many teachers will be working in new and unfamiliar positions, she said, and there is limited time to prepare or get any additional training that might be needed. Education association members, however, are looking forward to school, she said.

“We’re just excited to get back to school,” Whittall said. “Everybody had a really positive attitude about making the best of it. It’s going to be challenging, but we can do it.”