JSD reaches tentative agreement with Juneau Education Support Staff union
- Jasz Garrett
- 3 hours ago
- 4 min read
After 15 months of negotiations, a new contract will be presented to employees for a ratification vote next week
By Jasz Garrett
Juneau Independent
The Juneau School District and Juneau Education Support Staff have reached a tentative agreement on a new three-year collective bargaining agreement, the district announced Wednesday.
"From a year ago, we're in a much better position now than we were, so we're grateful for that," said Phil Buettel, the vice president of the support staff union.
JESS is the district’s second-largest employee association, representing approximately 286 of the district’s roughly 600 employees when at full staffing capacity. JESS members include office and instructional support staff, school nurses, and maintenance and custodial personnel. JESS is a local affiliate of the Alaska Public Employee Association and AFT.
The new contract is effective retroactively to July 1, 2025. The tentative agreement succeeds the prior contract, which ended June 30, 2025. The parties began bargaining in early 2025.
Buettel said it was a long process that included mediation, but the union's leadership is happy with the tentative agreement.
"We're confident standing behind it," he said. "We feel like it's a contract that we can live with for the next couple years. You never get everything that you want in a negotiation. There are things we would like to have seen in there, but none of the things that we left on the table were things that felt like make-or-break situations."
He said several concerns the union previously felt were unheard by the district have been addressed.
The tentative agreement includes wage increases across all three years of the contract. The agreement also provides for continued employer support of employee health insurance premiums, according to a JSD press release.
In addition, the tentative agreement includes an adjustment to the work calendar for employees working nine months of the year. Beginning with the new contract, all nine-month employees will start work two additional days prior to the first day of school, allowing time for districtwide in-service and building-level preparation before students return.
"We have a couple of new articles in the contract as well about the way that probationary period employees were being handled, how training was being handled, how the movement of staff was being handled, if they needed to move staff from one area to another, where we felt like the district could do better," Buettel said. "It seems like they did a good job of listening to us and hearing what we had to say. We've got language in the contract now that we feel does a better job protecting our membership. So we're pretty happy with that, and financially, we've landed at a place where we feel pretty confident we can move forward. It's a good starting point. It's a significant increase over previous years."
The tentative agreement will be presented to the JESS membership for a ratification vote. A 2025 negotiations update on the union’s website states the tentative agreement for a full contract with JSD will be available for all bargaining unit members to review at two upcoming meetings before the final ratification vote.
"We hope to be able to announce the results of the ratification vote at the end of Monday," Buettel said.
The online negotiations update includes highlights of the tentative agreement, including a $2 per hour raise for all ranges for the 2026 school year, full retroactive pay for all current bargaining unit members to July 1, 2025, as well as any retirees since July 1, and a 3% wage increase in school years 2027 and 2028.
Highlights also include a one time $200,000 lump sum payment to the APEA-AFT Health and Welfare Trust to be made upon ratification of the agreement, a one-time payment of $22,500 to the health trust to retroactively cover the increase to JSD health insurance contributions from July to December 2025, and JSD monthly health insurance contributions to the health trust will increase to $1,724 for January through June 2026.
Additionally, monthly health insurance contributions from JSD to the health trust will increase to $1,744 in school year 2027 and to $1,764 in school year 2028, according to JESS.
"We've had a union membership who have been very patient through this process," Buettel said. "We've been working on a salary schedule that's based on a schedule that's over a year old, and we've been getting paid on that. This will be nice to finally get our members paid. There is language in the contract that our members will be paid retroactively to July 1."
Following member ratification, the Juneau Board of Education will consider the agreement for approval at a public meeting and full contract details will be released as part of the board’s action materials.
"This tentative agreement reflects the Board of Education’s commitment to recognizing the essential role our education support staff play in serving students and supporting schools across the district,” said Board President Britteny Cioni-Haywood. "We appreciate the collaborative work of both bargaining teams and look forward to the ratification process moving forward."
• Contact Jasz Garrett at jasz@juneauindependent.com or (907) 723-9356.
