The Portland School Board this morning unanimously approved a three-year contract between Portland Public Schools and the district's nearly 4,000 teachers.
The new contract gives teachers a 2 percent cost-of-living pay increase in 2008-09 and in 2010-11. For 2009-10, teachers will receive no pay raise. The district gained the ability to extend the student day, which means additional support and tutoring classes could be available to kids before or after school.
"The important message is that we're trying to balance the challenges of the economy with being fair to our teachers," board co-chair Trudy Sargent said after the vote, "and I think the 0 percent cola in the current year, which has been a really tough year for everybody ... that was an important place to balance the budget and teachers were willing to sacrifice in that year."
Added schools Supt. Carole Smith: "We hit a sweet spot of being able to both protect services to students and reflect the tough economic times that we're in."
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