School board approves contracts

PALMER -- With Valley teachers, principals and educators anxiously watching in a small room at Palmer High School Wednesday night, every member of the Mat-Su Borough School Board raised their right hand to unanimously approve three-year contracts for more than 1,700 school district employees.

The contracts received overwhelming praise and support earlier this month from both Mat-Su school employee associations and administrators, who agreed that open dialogue during the negotiation process was responsible for the success of the contract agreements.

School district officials believe the collaborative bargaining effort was the first of its kind in Alaska to meet with all four employee associations, representing teachers, principals, support staff and mid-level managers at the same time, in the same bargaining room.

"This is not easy to explain," said School Board President Mike Chmielewski. "There is a long list of people who we could point to that helped make this happen."

In past years, negotiations were marked by bitter disagreements and hard feelings between school board members, teachers and administrators. Chief School Administrator Bob Doyle said all attorneys and adversarial arbitrators were barred from the negotiation process this year, to encourage open dialogue and understanding.

"It's easy to maintain conflict cycles," Doyle said. "But it takes a different approach and support from everyone to give a different process a chance."

The contracts run through 2008 and include yearly raises and increased health care coverage for each of the employee associations. The school board also approved, on Wednesday, one-year contracts -- the maximum allowed -- for nine school district directors.

Contact Joel Davidson at joel.davidson@

frontiersman.com.