After working more than three months without a contract, classified employees in the Washougal School District have ratified a two-year contract.
The 2017-2019 contract, approved by the district this week and ratified by the Washougal chapter of the Public School Employees association on Nov. 27, gives a 5-percent salary increase to the school district’s non-educator employees, which include bus drivers, cafeteria workers, para-educators, library assistants, bus mechanics, custodians, speech and language assistants, groundskeepers, secretaries and many other support positions.
In October, Brenda Brock, Washougal’s chapter president of the Public School Employees of Washington, SEIU 1948, said the union and school district had hit a stumbling block and were headed into mediation.
“We’ve met 12 times and can’t come to an agreement,” Brock said in mid-October.
The two groups met in mediation for the first time on Nov. 8.
The classified employees had been working without a contract since Sept. 1, after their former two-year contract expired on Aug. 31.