GWSD teachers to receive salary increases through union agreement

Starting salaries raised to $50,000

[  By Kendra Walker  ]

The Gunnison Watershed School District (GWSD) board approved an agreement for 2024/25 with the local teachers’ union, the Gunnison County Education Association, during their May 20 meeting. 

The agreement includes a 2% step increase as well as increases ranging from a 2.9% to 6.3% to all base salaries. “I thought negotiations went really well,” said GWSD superintendent Leslie Nichols, noting that 100% of union members involved in negotiations voted to approve the agreement. “I’m not sure that’s ever happened before in my history with the district.”

Nichols told the school board that the district has also achieved its goal of getting starting teacher salaries to $50,000, with a year one teacher with a bachelor’s degree earning a starting salary of $50,475. 

GWSD business manager Tia Mills also said that changes to salary schedules were unique this year in that every position received an increase of $3,000 to the base salary. “This method was proposed by the union and represents an effort to decrease the wage gap between starting and longer tenured teacher/SSP (special services providers) staff,” Mills said. “The district continues to maintain a solid and healthy relationship with the union.”

Mills explained that the district’s proposed 2024/25 budget prioritizes staff as much as possible. “This past legislative session, the Colorado General Assembly was able to fully fund K-12 education and the school finance act has no budget stabilization factor,” she wrote in a memo to the board. “School finance funding to the district increased over $1.3M and every effort was made to pass most of that on to staff through salary increases.”

The school board unanimously voted to approve the 2024/25 agreement with the Gunnison County Education Association.