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After several tense negotiation sessions between Eagle County School District leadership and the teachers’ union led to mediation, the school board approved the agreed-upon negotiated agreement that will bring teachers back to public schools next year.

The Eagle County School District and Eagle County Education Association engaged in negotiations throughout the month of May over the compensation package, benefits and surrounding terms for teachers in the 2025-26 school year, but failed to reach an agreement.

In June, the two parties moved into mediation. The six-hour mediation session resulted in a negotiated agreement that both parties approved with reservations.

“When you get to mediation, nobody is happy,” said Katie Jarnot, the district’s assistant superintendent, at the June 18 meeting.

“The ECEA team is relieved to have reached a tentative agreement, but acknowledges that we are not completely satisfied with the results,” wrote Katie Leibig, co-president of the Eagle County Education Association, in an email to the Vail Daily.

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Negotiated agreement includes raises but no change to base salary

The June 4 mediation session, which lasted six hours, saw district and union representatives sitting in separate rooms with a mediator going back and forth between the rooms.

“When you end up in mediation, it’s a red flag. It’s a symptom that something is not right with your system, and we need to work really hard moving forward to make things right again,” Jarnot said.

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The resulting negotiated agreement includes step increases and lane advancements for all certified staff, but no adjustment to the base salary. The starting salary for a certified district staff member with no experience is $50,500. The maximum salary a teacher can earn, according to the , is $118,050.

“The number one goal going into negotiations was to work towards a more competitive salary with surrounding districts, and our agreement fails to do this,” Leibig wrote. “We cannot afford to ignore the growing gap between our compensation packages and those in neighboring districts, especially given the high cost of living in Eagle County.”

Staff compensation and benefits make up 80% of the district’s general fund, which has been set up to deficit spend since the 2020-21 school year. To ensure the district remains solvent going forward, the school board set strict limits on spending this year. Still, $80 million will go to salaries and benefits.

The negotiated agreement includes several changes outside of compensation and benefits, including removing three workdays from the calendar for certified employees in the 2025-26 school year.

“We spent quite a long time in mediation on those particular days as far as where they would come from,” said Adele Wilson, the district’s chief human resources officer, during the June 18 meeting. “The push was to have them all be professional learning days, but as the administrative side, we pushed back hard on that. We felt as though those are important and necessary.”

Two professional learning days and one teacher-directed planning day were selected to be removed from the calendar. Instead of starting on Aug. 5, teachers will return on Aug. 7, and teachers will end school on the same day as students, instead of finishing the year with a planning day.

The agreement increased leave options for teachers in other ways, as well, including adding the option for two days of religious leave and increasing the allocated paternity leave for families with both parents employed by the district to 12 weeks.

The agreement also protects teachers’ ability to take a minimum of 150 minutes of duty-free lunch breaks per week.

Several elements were added to the negotiated agreement to streamline negotiations next year.

A third-party research firm, Oehm, has been hired for $8,500 to evaluate the district’s expenditures on non-student-facing positions.

A salary schedule working group made up of four district and four union representatives will convene in September to compare the Eagle County School District salary schedule and benefits to other districts, propose adjustments and analyze the potential for a paid parental leave benefit for potential inclusion in negotiations.

“Research consistently shows that teachers are the single most important in-school factor affecting student achievement. That’s why the work ahead must focus on making Eagle County Schools a place where high-quality educators want to build their careers,” Leibig wrote. “This means addressing our lack of competitiveness with surrounding districts, particularly when it comes to compensation.”

A separate teacher leader program work group with 14 members will evaluate the program in September.

The district and the union also passed a to replace the former one, which expired on June 30, which will govern negotiations until the end of June 2028.

District, union agree a mill levy override is needed to raise teacher salaries

District and union representatives agreed Eagle County voters need to pass a mill levy override to provide more funding that can be allocated to teacher salaries. Though education is primarily funded at the state level in Colorado, a mill levy override can provide more dollars to the school district through a local property tax.

The school district last put a mill levy override on the ballot in November 2023, but it was not approved by voters.

Front Range lawmakers “don’t understand what it is to live in a resort community. We do. So if we want to fix it, we need to do that ourselves,” Jarnot said.

“I don’t want to see this district fall apart,” Jarnot said. “I also believe firmly that we have got to pass an MLO. We have to do a mill levy override. The state is not going to fix it for us.”

“The only immediate, actionable financial solution available to us is a local one,” Leibig wrote. “Passing a mill levy offers a tangible opportunity to provide much-needed resources, especially for improving teacher compensation, which is key to recruiting and retaining the high-quality educators our children deserve.”