NEW SCOTLAND — The Voorheesville School Board on July 6 approved a new three-year contract with the district’s teachers’ union. 

The agreement with the Voorheesville Teachers Association comes with a 3-percent annual salary increase for each year of the contract. 

The union didn’t accomplished everything it set out to do with this contract, but union President Kelly Lendrum said, “We felt very positive about the progress we made,” referring to salary increases and more sick-day buyouts. 

She said those are “two significant financial gains … that have benefited everybody, all members.”

With the five-year contract that just ended — three years with two years retroactive — Lendrum said the most significant salary percentage increase was 2 percent, in the fourth year of the contract. Every other annual increase was between 1 and 1.5 percent. 

“So to have 3 percent a year for three years,” she said, “is the strongest increase we’ve seen in several contracts.”

For the 2023-24 school year, a first-year teacher with a bachelor’s degree alone will earn about $49,700 while a first-year teacher with a master’s degree will take home about $52,200, up from about $48,200 and $50,700 this year, respectively. 

The sick-day buyout increased from $4,100 to $10,250, meaning teachers who don’t use sick days will now get up to $10,250 at retirement.

But Lendrum noted about the increase, “You have to have the days to max out.” And, with the new contract, she said, “We were able to increase how many days you could get paid for.”

The teachers did agree to increase their health-care contribution, from 19 to 20 percent. Lendrum said the 20-percent contribution will hold for the remainder of the contract. 

The union was also able to negotiate more planning time for elementary-school teachers, Lendrum said, where “there’s always a desire for teams to be able to work together and have time to plan together.”

The contract includes stipend increases for department chairs and leaders based on longevity. Coaching stipends will increase between 1.5 and 3 percent, depending on the sport. 

Both sides agreed to allow the district to change school start times within a 20-minute window. The teaching day at the middle and high school begins at 7:35 a.m. and ends at 2:50 p.m.

The contract gives the district the authority to change the secondary campus start time between 7:25 and 7:45 a.m., which would result in a corresponding adjustment to dismissal time.  At the elementary school, the district has the authority to modify the start time between 8:15 and 8:35 a.m.

At the school board’s May meeting, Lendrum had implored board members to raise teachers’ salaries. She said, “We are passionate, enthusiastic, talented educators,” but there are fewer individuals choosing the field of education as a career path. 

Lendrum said the average Voorheesville teacher salary is more than 9 percent below that of the average Suburban Council educator. 

Voorheesville is not a member of the Suburban Council, which includes 15 school districts located in the large suburban towns and cities of Albany, Rensselaer, Saratoga, and Schenectady counties, but rather is part of the 12-member Colonial Council, which is made up of smaller suburban, rural, and private city schools. The councils are formed for sports competitions.

The most recent state data compiled by See Thru NY, from the 2021-22 school year, shows the median annual salary of a Voorheesville teacher was about $73,550; only two of the Suburban Council’s 14 public schools had lower median annual salaries. Among the public schools of the Colonial Council, Voorheesville’s median annual salary is right in the middle — fifth out of 10. And compared to Albany County’s 11 other school districts, Voorheesville’s median annual salary is once again squarely in the middle — sixth out 12. 

Asked how the union is feeling about its teachers’ compensation compared to its peers, Lendrum said, while she hadn’t “crunched the numbers, so to speak,” at the time the VTA settled its contract, “no other area contracts had settled for 3 percent.”

But Lendrum pointed out that “doesn’t mean that they won’t.”

She said a 3-percent annual salary increase means the VTA is “starting to close that gap,” but added “we were not going to close that gap in one contract.”