UPDATED: Plymouth-Canton School Board Approves Teacher Contract

Plymouth-Canton teachers will see no pay increase and will have to pay more for benefits, under a contract for the 2010-11 school year approved Tuesday after almost a year of negotiations.

The voted 6-0 to approve an agreement at a special meeting that sets the stage for next year’s talks that will begin in April. School board secretary Adrienne Davis was absent.

The union passed the agreement last week with 88 percent of members supporting it, according to Plymouth-Canton Education Association president Nancy Wojtowicz (formerly Nancy Barrows).

"The teachers are looking around at what was happening in Michigan and we realized that there were concessions that needed to be made to the district," Wojtowicz said. "Was it everything they wanted? Absolutely not."

In October and November, teachers showed up at school board meetings in droves, wearing red shirts, to protest the lack of a contract. During those meetings, several teachers spoke up to express their desire for an increase in pay and dissatisfaction with possible changes in benefits.

According to Wojtowicz, the health insurance changes in this year's contract are "something we've never seen before."

Some of those changes include an increase in office visit and emergency room copays and an increased out-of-network health insurance deductible.

Also under the agreement, the school district will fund up to $300 per employee into the employee's flexible spending account, which can be used for medical expenses and dependent care and teachers will receive $100 annually for classroom supplies.

The contract will be applied retroactively to Aug. 31, 2010, and expires Aug. 30 of this year.

According to Ray Bihun, the district's director of human resources, the district met with the union more than 20 times since last April.

"We worked well together," Wojtowicz said of the overall process. "It was tough, and we didn't get everything we wanted, but neither did the district."