BREAKING NEWS:

by Michael Miller

The Newport-Mesa Unified School District has signed a tentative agreement with its teachers union, following six months of negotiations during which the union held out for higher salaries.

The agreement, signed late Tuesday afternoon, allots a 9.5% raise to teachers for the coming school year, with a combined 9.5% over the two years to follow. Union President Jim Rogers said that within three years, the raises should make Newport-Mesa the third-highest-paying unified district in Orange County.

“We’re not quite at the mean, but we agreed that this had to be a process that required a few steps to get where we needed to be,” he said.

With the district and union having approved the agreement, teachers are expected to vote on it May 21. The school board has final authority to approve the pay raises.

Newport-Mesa’s teachers began demonstrating for higher pay after a January report, compiled by district and union officials, showed that they earned the lowest salaries in any unified district in Orange County. According to the report, the average Newport-Mesa salary was $64,292 — more than $14,000 behind the highest-paying district, Laguna Beach Unified.

Hundreds of teachers picketed at a school board meeting in March, while a smaller group demonstrated in April outside Corona del Mar High School’s open house. Around 50 teachers stayed home on April 20 in what some called an organized protest, but Rogers said the union had not endorsed the action.