Brevard Teachers Approve New Contract
By Space Coast Daily // May 21, 2012
Ratification OK'd
BREVARD COUNTY • ROCKLEDGE, FLORIDA – A proposed contract between Brevard Public Schools and the Brevard Federation of Teachers has been ratified.
Richard Smith, president of the Brevard Federation of Teachers, said he learned today that the teachers voted across the district to approve the district’s proposal.
“It was passed by a 70-30 percent vote,” Smith said.
With the new contract, more than 5,100 teachers in Brevard Public Schools will receive modest pay raises.
Some veteran teachers at the top of the pay scale will receive a one-time bonus of $700 under the contract while about 1,100 teachers employed since the beginning of the 2008 school year will receive a one-time $350 bonus.
Raises in the new contract were settled by the Brevard School Board at an impasse hearing May 7 between the district and the teachers union pending a ratification vote by teachers.
The school board sided with the district at the impasse hearing in limiting what teachers would receive raises.
The union had wanted all teachers in the district to receive pay raises, but the district said it could not afford to give all teachers raises because of budgetary constraints.
