Community Update Regarding Negotiations: Principals Group
Cass Lake-Bena Schools negotiates new contracts with the principals’ group (principals and assistant principals) every two years. Similar to negotiations with teachers unions and support staff unions, the principals bargain as a group for salaries, benefits and other working conditions. Principal contracts are for 226 days and assistant principal contracts are for 185 days in this district.
Board and principals’ group negotiators met for the second time on 4/30/24. There are several areas where we have reached tentative agreements. Those areas include:
Adding Juneteenth as a paid holiday for principals
Increasing the value of life insurance to $100,000 for Assistant Principals (from $50,000) and $150,000 for principals (from $110,000)
Allowing assistant principals to attend a national-level (out of state) association conference every two years if a principal is not able to attend
Pay the annual Board of School Administrator fees that are required above and beyond the cost of the principal’s license
Removal of the cap on the district’s 403B contribution over the lifetime of a principal’s tenure with the district
Agree to the removal of language that no longer applies
The principal’s group has made proposals in the area of salaries and benefits that include significant increases.The district negotiators are in the process of preparing a counter-offer. As we did with the teacher contract, when a tentative agreement is reached, we will share that information out. The board and principal’s group negotiators will meet again May 28 at 4:30 p.m. in the high school ISS room. All negotiations sessions are open for the public to observe. At that time, the board negotiators will present a counter-offer and further discussion will take place as we work to come to mutual agreement that both recognizes the work principals and assistant principals do and is fiscally within the district’s limits. We will provide community updates following that session.