OXFORD – A new bargaining process has resulted in the successful negotiation of a three-year contract for SAD 17 teachers.

The contract was ratified unanimously by SAD 17 directors and the majority of the approximately 275-member teachers association last week. In part, it provides a 2.25 percent pay hike the first year, 2.5 percent the second year and 2.75 percent the third year.

“It’s a great process,” said SAD 17 Director William Hanger, who helped negotiate the contract for the Board of Directors along with Superintendent Mark Eastman, five other directors and a consultant. “Historically there’s an adversarial relationship between the two sides. We determined this time we’d use a nonadversarial or problem-solving bargaining.”

Under the new process, commonly known as collaborative bargaining, both sides came to the table with a host of issues but agreeing they wanted to provide the best education for a reasonable price.

Fred Burbank, who co-chaired the teacher’s association negotiation team along with Joan Wenzel, two other teacher representatives and their consultant, said the two sides agree on what the issues are first. “Then we work it out as a unit to find the best solution.”

Burbank, who suggested the process be used during this round of negotiations, had seen the process used before and had some training in it. He said the negotiations had to be conducted in a positive manner particularly because of the pressures put on school districts by state education reforms this year.

In previous negotiations, the two sides would meet in separate rooms and a representative would come to the other room listing the issues and demands. “It was back and forth. There was not a lot of open communication,” said Hanger of the old method. “A lot of time is spent on one side or the other caucusing.”

In the collaborative or collegian form of bargaining, everyone sits in the same room and operates under an agreed upon set of guidelines. They seldom leave the room to caucus.

“It’s a consensus-building brainstorming process,” said Hanger, who represents Waterford on the Board of Directors.

“We’re all in this together,” agreed Burbank, a science teacher at Oxford Hills Middle School in Paris.

Both sides said they consider the process satisfying and one that reduced negotiating time by weeks. It is expected to be used again.

Burbank said the new contract was not unanimously approved by the teachers association because of some disagreement over how to reach the state’s mandate of a $30,000 pay minimum for certified teachers. Last year, Gov. John Baldacci signed legislation that requires school districts to pay certified teachers a minimum salary of $30,000 by July 1, 2007, or face adjustment to the district’s state’s subsidy.

“Some teachers felt it was too much for taxpayers to handle all at once,” Burbank explained. “We’re still working to get there.”

Hanger said the two sides negotiated a wide array of issues ranging from providing adequate planning time for elementary teachers, rewards for long-service employee salaries, reimbursement for educational courses to notification of non-continuation. “It runs the whole gamut,” he said.

Hanger said that in the end a number of new ideas were approved. Although there will be no change in the premiums paid by teachers on health insurance, the two sides agreed to “experiment,” as Hanger put it, on allowing teachers to establish a medical savings account and offering cash payments to those teachers who have outside health insurance. Although the actual cash payment amount is not known yet, Hanger called the plan a win/win situation for both sides.

The new contract also provides payment for teacher courses before rather than after completion of the course to make them more affordable. Teachers and secretaries, who also recently cemented a contract under the new process, have been given an incentive for not using personal and sick time. If they use three or fewer sick or personal days they can receive up to $150 back that can be used at any Chamber of Commerce business.

The contract is also going to be available in the near future online for the public to view through the SAD 17 Web page.

“We all agreed we would be willing to try a number of these if it was affordable for both sides,” Hanger said.

Burbank said the biggest thing to come out of the negotiations in his opinion was the establishment of monthly meetings between association representatives and the superintendent to discuss issues. He called this a “more productive, more positive” way to air problems.

“There was skepticism on the part of a number of committee members and teachers, but we all committed at the outset,” said Hanger of the process.