ORANGE : District, Teachers Settle on Contract

Negotiating teams for the Orange Unified School District and the teachers’ union have reached a tentative contract agreement.

Teachers in the 36-school district have been working without a contract since July, 1994, and have been negotiating for a new one since last May, said David Reger, president of the Orange Unified Education Assn., which represents the teachers.

A tentative agreement on a new pact was reached Friday, officials said.

“We settled, and if the teachers accept it, this will be the first time in a long time that we have known what is happening when we return in September,” he said.

Neither side would release details of the agreement until their members have ratified its terms. But district trustees had earlier indicated they would not accept the 2.59% raise teachers were demanding.

Reger said he was not overjoyed with the terms of the pact, but was happy that the two sides had arrived at a tentative.

“I am never happy with a contract because I never get everything I want. That’s why it’s called collective bargaining,” he said.

The district’s representative was more pleased with the deal.

“We feel very positive about it,” said Jack Elsner, the district’s chief negotiator. “It solves [the problem] this year and runs through the 1995-96 school year.”

The union’s team will submit the agreement to its board of directors today and call for a vote by teachers by the end of the week, Reger said.

Officials of the 1,200-member union had hoped for a raise to make up for the 2.59% pay cut they accepted for the 1992-93 school year, Reger said.

The last contract, for the 1993-94 school year, gave a 1% raise to the most senior teachers but nothing to others, he said.

The school board is expected to ratify the agreement soon after the vote by teachers, Elsner said.