Three months of negotiations came to an end last week when the Community High School District 94 School Board voted unanimously to approve a contract settlement with the teachers union.

“My hat’s off to the teachers and all the parties on both sides of the table for doing everything humanly possible to come up with an agreement that would work for both sides,” School Board President Tony Reyes said.

The district had been operating under a one-year agreement, which expires in August, when teachers agreed to take multiple cuts in pay and benefits to help the district balance the budget. Reyes and Barb Laimins, president of the teachers union, said the new four-year agreement provides more stability for the district.

“I think it’s what we were hoping for,” Reyes said of the four-year term. “They wanted to see something a little longer than what we settled for last year.

Under the agreement, teachers will receive a 3.373 percent salary increase for the first year and a 3.15 percent increase each year afterward.

In exchange for the salary increases, the contract increases the teachers’ share of health insurance. New employees will pay 30 percent of the cost to the district’s 70 percent. Current teachers will pay 20 percent the first year but the share will eventually increase to 30 percent over the contract’s lifetime.

“I feel it was a good, fair settlement,” Laimins said.

Employees will also have the option of obtaining alternative insurance providers and paying a 15 percent share of the cost, she said.

“I think everyone realizes that insurance costs are going up,” Laimins said. “It’s just a fact of life.”

The contract also included a “memorandum of understanding” adopting the Straight 8 schedule, which will add a 48-minute period to the school day. The period will be split between lunch and an advisory session. The contract provides $1,000 per year to every educator who teaches an advisory period.

District and union teams started negotiations April 21. Through six sessions over three months, they came to a tentative agreement in late June. The union voted 65-23 to ratify the contract last Thursday.

Although roughly one-third of the union’s members disliked some aspect of the contract, Laimins said the negotiations helped open the door of communication between the board and teachers, who have accused the board of not listening to them in previous discussions.

“I think the team really liked the fact they could talk to the board about the pressing issues,” she said. “I  think we could have avoided a lot of the hassles over the last few years if we had talked directly.”

Both sides have yet to sign the contract as negotiating teams are working out language details in the agreement. Laimins said she expects the signatures sometime next week.