New CCSD teacher contract ‘a hollow victory’ for some

Some experienced Clark County School District teachers are frustrated that their placement on a salary schedule won’t be reevaluated under a new contract.

The two-year agreement — which was approved by an arbitrator — was announced Wednesday and includes pay raises. The news followed months of contentious negotiations and teacher protests.

In September, the school district declared an impasse after 11 negotiation sessions that began in late March with the Clark County Education Association, a teachers union that represents more than 16,000 licensed employees.

The contract calls for a new pay scale that places new hires based on their education and years of experience. But it doesn’t include a one-time lookback for current employees — a proposal floated during negotiations — to ensure they’re properly placed.

“It feels to some of us like a hollow victory because one of the most important things was not addressed at all,” said Vicki Kreidel, an elementary school reading teacher and president of the National Education Association of Southern Nevada.

The teachers union broke away from the Nevada State Education Association and its national parent organization in 2018 and that resulted in multiple lawsuits.

The school district didn’t respond to a request for comment Friday.

During a press conference Thursday, John Vellardita, executive director of the union, said he thinks the district was “really disingenuous” initially in bargaining and tried to play “wedge politics” by pandering to educators who felt they should receive additional pay because they’ve been with the district longer.

“The district initially put a proposal on the table, but that proposal withered away as negotiations proceeded,” he said. “We don’t believe the district was ever serious on that.”

The teachers union suggested a review of salary scale placement during the second year of the contract and perhaps doing any needed adjustments during the third year, but the district declined, Vellardita said.

‘Cloud of resentment’

Salary compression issues arose after the district raised its starting teacher pay in 2022 to $50,115 — a roughly $7,000 increase. It means some new teachers are on the same pay rung as more experienced teachers.

And an educator who moved to the district from New York, for example, could have seen their salary matched, Kreidel said.

It started to create a “cloud of resentment” among veteran educators when people with much less experience — and in many cases, less education — are making more, she said.

The school district originally proposed a one-time lookback for all licensed employees, it said in a frequently asked questions document released during negotiations.

The aim was to place employees on the pay scale to align with their education and years of experience.

The union argued the lookback should be limited to the beginning of the 2016-17 school year, which is when a new salary scale went into effect, the district said.

The district noted it agreed to limit the lookback to employees hired after Aug. 16, 2016.

But ultimately, it wasn’t included in the new teacher contract.

The agreement includes a boost in starting pay to $53,000 and the salary schedule tops out at more than $131,000.

Teacher reactions

Kreidel said she appreciates the pay raise — 10 percent in the first year and 8 percent in the second — and some other provisions in the new contract.

“That was much needed because things are getting more expensive in Las Vegas, and we all need a raise,” she said.

But Kreidel said it feels like one-time lookbacks are never going to be addressed, and that leaves some people feeling hopeless.

Educators had a glimpse of hope when the district said it wanted to do a lookback, but the rug got pulled out from everyone through the course of negotiations, she said.

High school history teacher Robert Cowles, who has a masters degree and has been with the district for 17 years, said the absence of the lookback will cost him between $12,000 and $15,000 annually. That estimate is measured against someone coming into the district with a master’s degree and 10 years of experience.

He wrote in a message to the Las Vegas Review-Journal: “Essentially, we are being punished for staying with CCSD.”

Contact Julie Wootton-Greener at jgreener@reviewjournal.com. Follow @julieswootton on X.