The threat of another strike in Pierce County’s third-largest school district appears to be averted.

Teachers in the Bethel School District will vote Thursday on a two-year contract endorsed by their union bargaining team.

The School Board is expected to approve the pact on Tuesday, pending ratification by the 1,000-member Bethel Education Association two days later. The current contract expires Aug. 31.

State budget cuts mean teachers won’t get cost-of-living raises, but the union’s members “will walk away from this with no loss in pay at all,” Bethel Education Association President Tom Cruver said.

The district will use some of its fund balance and other monies to pay certificated staff for a training day cut by the state, School Board President Joy Cook said Thursday. Staff training is too important to fall away, she added.

The deal also will help teachers and other certificated employees pay for rising health-care costs passed on by the state, and it preserves step raises for experience as well as pay for work outside the school day, Cook said.

Approval would mean a peaceful start to the 2009-10 school year. Classes are set to begin Sept. 8.

It’s a far more relaxed August in the Spanaway-based public school system than two years ago, when differences led to a rancorous three-day strike. But it took give and take on both sides to reach this agreement in a troubled economy.

“This has been a difficult year because of the financial constraints that people have been under,” Cook said. “The board was very, very, very pleased that the union and the administration were able to reach a tentative agreement.”

Both bargaining teams signed off on the deal June 24, a conclusion that allowed teachers, other employees and families in the 17,500-student district to enjoy their summer off without worrying about labor unrest, Cook said.

Cruver said he feels confident the membership will ratify the agreement, which also calls for a joint workload committee to study and address the impacts of program and technology changes.

The negotiations were briefly clouded by a union complaint that the district posted misleading figures on its Web site. But the tentative agreement was reached less than two weeks after the complaint was filed with the state Public Employment Relations Commission.

The draft agreement now posted on the district Web site is correct, Cruver said. Education association members will get fresh copies before the vote.

Under the pact, pay for teachers and other certificated employees will range from about $39,000 to around $77,000 for the 2009-10 school year.

At one point in the spring, the district issued 220 notices of potential layoffs to certificated staff; however, all but a handful were called back as the budget took shape, some employees retired and others moved on, Cook said.

Budget cuts did slice just more than 30 school-based certificated staff and a half dozen assistant principal jobs.

< b>Kris Sherman: 253-597-8659
kris.sherman@thenewstribune.com