On Thursday, 5/01/2025, Cass Lake-Bena School District’s negotiations committee met with the negotiators representing the Cass Lake Education Association (CLEA). This was the first negotiations session towards developing the 2025-2027 contract. During this session, rules for future sessions were adopted and meeting dates were set for the 2nd and 4th Thursday of each month. The group agreed to the number of teachers affected by the contract. The teams also set a goal of having negotiations completed by the 4th Thursday in August.
CLEA negotiators presented three proposed changes to the contract. The first request was to allow the district’s contribution to teacher’s 403B retirement accounts to be directed towards repayment of teacher’s student loans. This would not increase costs for the district. The district will review the legal and systems impact of this request and respond at the next meeting. The second request was related to severance language. The request is to increase the district’s severance pay-out related to accumulated sick leave of retiring teachers from the current daily substitute teacher rate, to the teacher’s own daily rate of pay. The third request is related to health insurance contributions for Single +1 and family policies, from current dollar amount contributions, to 55% of the cost of the insurance (maintaining the fully paid single policy per current language). The district will do a cost analysis of the last two requests and will have a response at the next meeting.
The next meeting will be at 4:00 p.m. June 12, 2025, in CLB High School Room 435.