Teacher Union Leaders Back 3-Year Contract : Education: Officials give reluctant approval to plan. Details will be released later. Picketing has stopped.

After working for a year without a contract, teachers moved one step closer to reaching a working agreement Tuesday as union leaders “reluctantly” endorsed a tentative three-year pact.

Under strict instructions from a state mediator who helped shape the contract, neither side will release details of the agreement, which was reached late last week amid threats of teacher walkouts. The proposal must still win approval from the full union membership and the school board.

The board took its first look at the contract Monday afternoon and will vote on it once it has been ratified by the teachers. A full union vote is scheduled Monday. The earliest the contract will go before the school board is Dec. 5.

“It’s going to be a very difficult meeting on Monday,” said Ron Myren, a teacher at Berylwood School and president of the Simi Educators Assn., which is bargaining for the teachers. “The proposal wasn’t everything we’d hoped it would be. Our motion says that we ‘reluctantly recommend approval’ to the teachers.”

He said the recommendation was made by about 20 executive board members and negotiators.

Meanwhile, teachers have stopped picketing before and after school to protest a delay in negotiations. They had greeted parents with their picket signs several mornings a week since school began.

However, they have not yet dropped plans to file unfair labor charges against the school board, charges that would clear the way for a full-fledged strike. They have also yet to return to volunteering for after-school activities. Teachers have stopped leading after-school choirs and independent study sessions since the beginning of the year, and many have said they are prepared to strike if negotiations fall through again.

The average teacher in the district makes about $42,000 annually. Union leaders were hoping for a contract providing a 2.7% raise, an expanded retirement package and a vote on whether to force all teachers, not just union members, to pay fees for representation.

The last publicized proposal by the district offered a 2% raise retroactive to July, a 2% raise in 1996-97 and an early retirement plan.

Details of the agreement reached last week--and its cost to the district--will be released after the union vote, Myren said.

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Times correspondent Stephanie Brommer contributed to this story.