Anoka-Hennepin teachers have voted to approve a new two-year contract that freezes base wages but allows some continued increases for years of experience and additional teacher education.
Sandra Skaar, president of the Anoka-Hennepin Education Minnesota teachers union, said the contract was approved by a 2,032 to 248 vote.
The district school board voted on the contract and approved it unanimously Wednesday evening, said district spokeswoman Mary Olson. Union and school district negotiators had reached agreement on the new accord on New Year's Eve.
With about 39,000 students, Anoka-Hennepin is Minnesota's largest school district.
By reaching agreement before a state-mandated Jan. 15 deadline, the district avoided a one-time $25-per-student penalty. For Anoka-Hennepin, that would have been an estimated $1 million.
Numerous other districts are expected to reach new contracts with their teachers in the final hours, before the midnight deadline Friday.
Under the Anoka-Hennepin contract, teachers get no across-the-board, cost-of-living increases. In the first year of the contract, they get both "step and lane" increases awarded, respectively, for years of experience and progress toward advanced college degrees. In the second year of the contract, teachers get only lane increases.
Another provision of the contract, said school board chairman Tom Heidemann, is a "memorandum of understanding" that the district participate in the state's Q Comp teacher compensation plan. That plan requires districts to move toward paying teachers more on the basis of accomplishment, rather than the current criteria of years of service and accumulated higher education credits.
