After months of negotiations that almost landed in arbitration, the city’s teachers union has reached a tentative agreement with the public school district for a new contract that would include a 13 percent pay raise over three years — but that would not move city educators onto a state health insurance plan. The tentative agreement will be the subject of a general membership meeting of the New Haven Federation of Teachers (NHFT) scheduled to take place at Career High School at 4 p.m. Wednesday. Following that meeting, city teachers will receive an online ballot via email. They’ll have until Friday to electronically cast their vote for or against the new three-year contract. The tentative deal includes average salary increases totaling 13.53 percent over three years. It also preserves current health insurance premium cost-sharing and makes changes to class size caps, teacher workday protections, and leave policies. The agreement, if approved, would also allow NHFT to select one member to serve on the district’s hiring committee for administrative positions, require the district to publish a line-by-line item budget on its website, and remove the union from the district’s input process for creating the school-year calendar. If approved by the union and the Board of Education and the alders, the new teachers union contract would run from July 1, 2026 until June 30, 2029. (The current three-year deal expires June 30, 2026.) “Our contract campaign has been member-driven from the start,” teachers union President Leslie Blatteau told the Independent. “The NHFT Bargaining Team is looking forward to bringing this tentative agreement to our members today for ratification which will take place via an online vote ending Friday.” “We’re excited that we’ve arrived at a tentative agreement for a new contract for our teachers with the leadership of the New Haven Federation of Teachers, and we are hopeful that it will be approved by the union’s membership and the Board of Education,” Mayor Justin Elicker — who is also a voting member on the Board of Education — said in a separate statement Wednesday. “Day in and day out teachers do everything they possibly can to provide our students with the highest-quality education possible and we want to do everything we can as a school district and as a city to attract, retain and support our teachers as well.” A NHPS spokesperson declined to comment for this article. According to a January bulletin shared by the union with its members to fill them in on the negotiation process, the tentative agreement restructures the teacher salary schedule by eliminating the lowest step, adding a new top step, and combining step movements with general wage increases over the term of the contract. That means individual raises would vary depending on experience and placement on the salary step schedule. Rather than a flat across-the-board raise each year, the tentative deal restructures the salary scale by eliminating the lowest step and adds a new top step that would be $3,750 more than the previous highest step. For health insurance, the tentative agreement keeps all four existing plans in place and does not raise employee premium contributions for cost share. The deal caps post-deductible prescription drug co-pays at $1,000 for individuals and $2,000 for families and expands preventive care coverage, including for mammograms and ultrasounds. Prescription drugs would be fully covered after the deductible is met rather than the previous 90/10 agreement. Additional changes under the tentative agreement include capping Pre-K class sizes at 20 students, expanded sick and bereavement leave, assigning itinerant teachers a “home” school building, two half-days for teacher preparation before students arrive at the start of the year, and the maintenance of a 30-minute duty-free lunch. Read the full tentative agreement below and click here for the union’s summarized updates. The tentative agreement was signed on Dec. 29 by Board of Education Vice President Matt Wilcox and teachers union Vice President Jenny Graves. NHFT and NHBOE TA signed by Union and BOEDownload After months of Board of Education testimony by teachers and allies, negotiation sessions, and several rallies for a fair contract, the teachers union announced in December it would likely head to arbitration with the school district thanks to an impasse over educators’ healthcare costs. Blatteau said in December the union felt “forced” to go to arbitration after three months of pushing the district on key issues like switching educators to the state health partnership plan, lowering class sizes and caseload caps, and increasing wages. State Health Plan Demand Dropped In a letter dated Dec. 12, teachers union leaders informed membership that — after an eight-hour session with a mediator — they were no longer pursuing a switch to Connecticut’s State Partnership Plan for health insurance. That mediator reportedly warned that the insurance change was unlikely to be awarded to the union through arbitration even if the city could not demonstrate a credible financial case against the plan. The letter also explained that the union’s shifting gears was intended to preserve other bargaining priorities, including avoiding a mandatory switch to a high-deductible health plan. “Hearing this unjust reality, and having to convey it to you, really sucks,” that letter states. “And it’s something we didn’t want to have to do. The deck is stacked against workers inthis country, and a big reason we have done so much organizing during thiscontract campaign is because we know that we need to build our power as a unionto overturn this reality.” The letter concluded that the union “refused to give an inch on extending the workday.” (A request for a 15-minute increase to the school day was made earlier in the negotiation process by the school district.) Union leaders also warned that negotiations could still head to arbitration if their remaining demands are not met, saying they are awaiting a final response from the Board of Education. The bargaining team said members would receive updates and next steps if negotiations stall. 12_16_25 Negotiations Letter to MembersDownload The post Teachers Union, NHPS Reach Tentative Deal appeared first on New Haven Independent. ...read more read less