It has been a long, bumpy road, but your ESP bargaining team is happy to announce that we have a tentative agreement on a significant wage increase! After a 1½ hour session today, we have agreed to the following:
FY 21—2% increase (paid retroactively)
FY 22—a new three-step pay scale:
- Step 1—$21.00/hour for 1-3 years of service
- Step 2—$24.00/hour for 4-9 years of service (*new hires with a bachelor’s degree start on Step 2)
- Step 3—$27.00/hour for 10+ years of service
- Longevity and toileting stipends shall be deleted.
FY 23—1.5% increase
The new salary structure will increase the ESP starting salary (6 hour day) from $19,016 to $22,932 and the top ESP pay from $26,640 (including max longevity) to $29,484!
Employees with an active DESE license will be paid a stipend of $1.00/hour. Library and technology ESPS, who are not supervised by a certified teacher, will also receive a stipend of $1.00/hour.
A comprehensive job description has been created and will be shared once the language is cleaned up.
The team appreciates your patience during this extended negotiation period. We would like all members to still stand out Thursday morning as the contract proposal has not been approved by the full School Committee. Flyers WILL NOT be distributed, but we need to keep up the pressure until the School Committee ratifies the final agreement, which is not guaranteed.
We would like to thank Maureen Zuber for her strong yet graceful leadership. We humbly acknowledge that without her, we would not have been able to negotiate such a lucrative offer. We also would like to thank the School Committee’s Negotiation Team of Paul Magliocchetti and Toni Sapienza-Donais, who have committed to advocate for the above offer to the full committee.
Respectfully submitted by Leslye Zylkuski