The Juneau School District and its support staff union reached a tentative agreement Tuesday, almost one year after both parties initially exchanged proposed contracts.
The tentative agreement is a three-year contract for an estimated 286 members of Juneau Education Support Staff, or JESS, according to an announcement from the district. That includes employees who work as paraeducators, custodians, office assistants and more.
The contract increases wages and employer contributions to health insurance. If it’s approved, it would raise the hourly wage for all positions by $2 this school year and provide for backpay retroactive to June 2025, when the last contract ended. It also includes 3% wage increases for the next two school years.
Special education paraeducator Phil Buettel works at Kax̱dig̱oowu Héen Elementary School and is the vice president of JESS. He said it’s been a “long road” to reach a tentative agreement.
“It was hard. It was a lot of back and forth. Both sides were pretty intent on getting things that they wanted,” he said. “Ultimately, where we ended up, I think, was a really good, solid middle ground.”
Buettel said the union sent an intent to negotiate to the district in November 2024. According to Superintendent Frank Hauser, both parties had their initial negotiation meeting last April.
Now, Buettel said the union is gearing up for members to vote to ratify the agreement. That requires at least half of voting members’ approval. From there, the contract will go to the school board for approval, which will require two readings.
Hauser said it’ll take some time before the district determines how much the contract will impact its budget.
“We’ve got the tentative agreement and (are) waiting to hear back from JESS and JESS membership if that tentative agreement is ratified,” he said. “At that point, once that happens, we’ll start working on doing the updates to the budget and presenting that as part of the (next fiscal year) budget development process.”
School Board President Britteny Cioni-Haywood said she’s happy the district reached an agreement with the union. This is her first time going through the negotiation process as a board member, and she said state funding can make it challenging to run the school district and negotiate with staff.
“I think it’s really difficult, given the constraints of education funding in the state, to do all the things that we need to do, and that includes negotiations with our incredibly valuable staff,” she said.
That leaves one district union left without a new contract. Juneau Education Association, the union representing teachers, has been in negotiations for more than a year. It has an arbitration hearing with the district scheduled for April 27 and 28.
The tentative agreement between JESS and the district is not public. Juneau School District Chief of Staff Kristin Bartlett said in an email the contract will not be publicly available until it’s ratified by the union. Buettel, with the union, said they hope to ratify the contract ahead of the school board’s March 10 meeting.
