COUPEVILLE: Letter from Coupeville Education Association (CSD)

[Ed. Note: The Whidbey News-Times ran a story in their Wed., Jan. 31, 2024 edition regarding complaints by the teachers’ union about pay and contracts with the Coupeville School District. The union sent a letter to the school board, which was discussed during the Thu., Jan. 25, 2024 board meeting. We reproduce the contents of the letter below.]

Dear Coupeville School Board Directors,

The Coupeville Education Association (CEA) would like to draw your attention to a growing concern regarding how our pay and contracts have been handled over the past year. While we are expected to regularly report attendance, student grades, as well as completing reports such as IEPs for students, the district office has repeatedly failed to accurately and reliably pay our employees, provide contracts, and meet the requirements of our collective bargaining agreement.

While we appreciate the district’s efforts to rectify these issues, these kinds of problems concerning pay should not be an issue in a professional organization. This, along with our district’s current financial situation, inaccurate reporting, and general lack of leadership, has left our members with little confidence in the financial future of their own pay as well as the district’s solvency. The specific payroll issues can be best divided into the following issues:

Contracts

• In June of 2023, members were knowingly given inaccurate contracts that they were asked to sign with promises that accurate contracts would be available at the beginning of the school year.
• By mid-October the delay had become so great that the district asked to delay until November after the cutoff for advancement on the salary schedule.
• Reissued contracts were not made available until the final week in November.
• When contracts were issued, they did not include the supplemental contract for additional days.
• This entire process left our members unsure of if the district was accurately paying them. For some individuals, corrections to errors are ongoing.

Inaccurate Pay

• In July, a National Board Certified teacher was left off the list and did not receive their annual National Boards bonus leading to the member receiving thousands of dollars less than they expected to have available during the summer break.
• In September a member on leave was not paid at all, counter to previous discussions with the district.
• On September 27th, CEA was contacted regarding an issue with payroll where an unknown number of members had been inadvertently advanced on the salary schedule resulting in an overpayment for the month of September.
• This resulted in approximately one third of our members being overpaid in September, resulting in a need to deduct from future payment in their salary. Additionally, two members were underpaid for reasons that are still unclear.
• Fortunately, this was corrected in the October payroll but will have year long impacts on members’ payroll.

Overage Pay

• After struggling for much of last school year to get the district to accurately track overage and caseload pay as they had indicated they could during the past bargain, payments for September overages, which were expected in October, were then delayed to November as notified by the Superintendent.
• At the end of November members noticed that overage pay was not present in their paychecks with no information coming from the district regarding the change. This left members, some expecting thousands of dollars in their November paycheck, to be left waiting until the end of their winter break to receive their pay.
• On December 1st, upon request from CEA, the district alerted employees that overage pay for November would once again be delayed until the end of December.
• As of December 12th the Business Manager was unaware of the terms in our contract for additional Prep pay and had made no steps towards ensuring this was paid.
• As of December 31st, caseload overages for SPED teachers had not been paid and pay for several other teachers was either inaccurate or missing.
• Teachers have not yet received an accounting of overage days as had been discussed with the Superintendent and Business Manager.

Seniority List

• The seniority list due from the district on December 1st was delivered on December 11th with all of the relevant information regarding seniority removed.
• February 1st is the deadline for sharing the final seniority list with staff. Members have not been able to verify the accuracy of the seniority list.

While each of these issues on their own would indicate a notable issue, the combination of them is unacceptable. Our staff need to be able to receive their pay accurately and on time, period. They need to know that their contracts are accurate and in place, not be expected to sign them with retroactive dating five months in the past.

We would like to bring attention to our survey results in our previous letter of concern delivered in June in which “only 18.4% of CEA and 20.4% of CESA respondents have confidence in the district office’s ability to appropriately resolve the current financial crisis.” Unfortunately, we have only seen evidence of these issues compounding. We look forward to working with the school board to ensure that our district is financially responsible, competent, and solvent.

Coupeville Education Association Executive Board

Marc DeArmond, co-President

Jen Mostafavinassab, co-President

Wilbur Purdue, Treasurer

Deb Sherman, Secretary

Kathy Bayne

Caitlin Rusch

Alex Reid

Cassidy Patnoe

Annalisa Hiroyasu

Melissa Casey