The recent Perry School Board meeting was filled to capacity with the District’s teachers, many of whom voiced their concerns with what they had heard were changes to the negotiation process and the master contract.

However, Superintendent Clark Wicks says the worries of the crowd were largely unfounded and based off what he felt was irresponsible misinformation. “Here’s a case where poor choice of words that did not accurately describe what’s going on, plus fear. Those two things got enough people stirred up that that’s why we had a lot of people there. Here’s the facts of the matter: we are not abolishing the master contract, in fact about 80% is going to be still in the master contract. That’s number one. Number two: it was never the intention of anybody on the Board or myself to ‘abolish’ or ‘strip’ or ‘gut’ the master contract. So I think it was just a matter of being misinformed. We’re moving on, we’re fine, it was very civil (discussion), (and) we’re going to focus on what we need to do here at Perry Schools.”

Wicks adds, last August the Board acknowledged the Perry Education Association as a bargaining unit, which serves as the labor negotiating entity for the teachers. He emphasizes that the base wage negotiation aspect of the master contract was never going away, and that the majority of the contract will remain the same. The only parts that will no longer be included are those that were ruled illegal to include in a master contract, as outlined by the changes the State Legislature made to Chapter 20 of the Iowa Code in 2017. However, many of those items will likely be transferred to the employee handbook, which is allowed under the law.

Wicks is hopeful everyone can move on from the situation now that the air has been cleared, and negotiations with the PEA will continue. He encourages any staff with questions to reach out to himself or their administrators for more information. To hear more from Wicks, listen to yesterday’s Perry Fareway Let’s Talk Dallas County program at RaccoonValleyRadio.com.