Highlights of OCEA wins for the 2022-2023 school year

OCEA is improving pay and working conditions for our educators. In this post, we’d like to highlight some of our wins for the 2022-2023 school year. We’ve been working hard since last year to increase educator pay since we announced our cost of living adjustment campaign last October. We officially included our ESPs in the cost of living adjustment in November.

ESP and Instructional Bargaining Teams ratified a contract with a raise in August AND negotiated additional supplements in May!
ESP BLT negotiated and received twice as much as SDOC initially offered for the one-time May supplement.
Instructional BLT successfully eliminated contract language requiring DROP candidates’ salaries to decrease, thus allowing veterans to continue working at their current salary level.
ESP BLT successfully added bereavement leave language added to the contract.
Instructional BLT gained the contractual right for teachers to be paid with an OPS contract when staying after hours for car/bus duty.
OCEA Calendar Committee successfully negotiated to add an extra holiday day to the 2024-25 school year.
OCEA members united to successfully prevent the school board from imposing time changes on New Beginnings’ staff and students.
OCEA defended members against SDOC’s attempt to require Saturday training.
OCEA blocked SDOC’s attempt to allow principals to require teachers to substitute during planning.
OCEA blocked SDOC’s attempt to take away teacher work time during pre-planning.
OCEA members wrote and presented thousands of letters to the school board demanding fair pay.
Over 5,000 members of the Osceola community supported OCEA’s Cost of Living Adjustment petition.
OCEA members and community supporters appeared in countless news articles speaking up for all educators to receive fair compensation.