Trends in Teacher Contract Negotiations for 2024

Comparability is, and always will be, a part of the negotiations process. Interest over the “going rate” naturally takes an elevated role, starting from the preparation stage of negotiations up to and including impasse procedures, if utilized. However, the New Jersey School Boards Association urges school board negotiations committees to bargain with a primary focus on their  ability to afford the cost of the settlement, not just for the first year, but throughout the entire term of the agreement.  

Each district has different budget restrictions, staffing needs and board goals, so comparative data does have its limitations. Nevertheless, the data should not be completely discounted. Board members, especially those on the negotiating team, should be knowledgeable about settlement data and current trends in contract negotiations. Comparative data can provide boards with a sense of what other districts are agreeing to and how competitive their district is in various areas, such as pay and work time, as well as the overall negotiations climate, before sitting down at the negotiating table. In the end, your team may even determine that other districts’ settlements are irrelevant to your own board’s goals, are out of line with your proposals, and simply decide that your district’s outcome will be based primarily on the district’s needs and affordability of the negotiated agreement.

Settlement Rates The results of our continuing surveys to the 181 New Jersey school districts whose teachers contracts expired June 30, 2024, with 86% of the districts responding at the time this article was written, indicate that a collectively negotiated agreement has been reached in at least 56% of those districts, some of which were still pending ratification when this article was published. Further inquiries to those school districts that remain unsettled for the 2024-2025 school year indicated that at least 11% of those districts were at impasse and were in, or were about to go into, the mediation process. There were also still several districts whose teachers contract expired June 30, 2023, that had not yet reached a settlement for a successor agreement and were going through impasse procedures as well.

For new teachers contracts that begin with the 2024-2025 cycle that had reached a settlement and reported it to the NJSBA, the average increase — inclusive of increment — is 3.67% for 2024-2025. In comparison, settlements for contracts that began with the 2023-2024 cycle, had average increases of 3.55%.

Board Achievements In considering settlement rates, board members should also consider concessions from the teachers association achieved in the bargaining process, which can affect the effective cost of the settlement. For example, a district may have obtained a concession on tuition reimbursement or reduced its payment for unused sick leave that may have resulted in savings to the board. 

The NJSBA has determined through individual district surveys that 60% of the new teachers contracts that begin with the 2024-2025 cycle have reported some type of concession from the union. Most of those board achievements are in the area of teacher work time and include more flexibility in scheduling, additional staff meetings and increasing the length of the workday.

Survey Results Regarding Paid Leave Days On July 3, 2023, Gov. Phil Murphy signed into law a bill that expands the use of school employees’ statutory sick leave days to include a wide scope of permitted reasons. Many districts already had negotiated provisions into their contracts that would cover some of these same permitted uses, such as separate family illness days and additional personal days. This brought into question whether districts would attempt to correct the redundancies within their negotiated agreement because of the new law.

Districts were asked in our annual survey if they attempted to negotiate changes to the language in their contract concerning sick leave, bereavement leave, family illness leave, personal leave, or any other kind of leave now covered by the new sick leave law. The preliminary result to this question indicates 35% of the districts that reported a ratified settlement for 2024-2025 had attempted to negotiate changes to their paid leaves of absence provisions. However, most of those simply modified the language to be consistent with the law. Only one district, so far, has reported reducing personal leave, which it did by one day. Approximately half of the 181 districts whose contracts expired in June that had not yet completed negotiations for their successor agreement, so this is an early assessment of this issue.

Salary Guides and Step Compression The average length of a teachers salary guide in New Jersey for 2024-2025, based upon information submitted so far to the NJSBA, is 16 steps, which decreased from an average of 17 steps starting with the 2022-2023 school year. 

The NJSBA has observed a number of union-proposed and board accepted guides where step compression has occurred. The objective in doing so is often to improve the salary and increments within the guide. While the reduction of steps is really a benefit to the union, this approach may be acceptable to the board if the current guide contains very small increments, and the goal is to improve that structure for the purpose of attracting and retaining staff. 

The board should be cautious, however, of reducing the length of the guide too much because, depending upon staff placement and the size of those increments, shorter guides can drive up your cost of increment – which is the cost of moving everyone up one step. Shorter guides also allow for employees to reach the maximum step sooner, thereby making the salary base grow more quickly. 

The average starting salary (BA step 1), based upon salary guides submitted to the NJSBA so far, is $59,162 for 2024-2025 – a 2.4% increase over the average starting salary in 2023-2024, which was $57,755. As a reference point, the average increase in the starting salary over the previous year has a 10-year average of 1.5%, indicating recently developed salary guides are directing more of the settlement money to the starting salaries, an approach to attract new teachers. 

Considering many of those salary guides for 2024-2025 were negotiated several years ago, as more districts reach an agreement during this year, it is expected this growth will continue as districts are still reporting staffing shortages.

Average Starting Salaries/Steps

Average Starting Salaries/Steps

Contract Length For contracts that begin with the 2024-2025 school year, 43% of them are three-year agreements. However, the increase in the number of four- and five-year agreements has been occurring since 2022-2023 and is continuing into this negotiations cycle, with 26% being four-year agreements and 25% being five-year agreements. With many districts still negotiating, these numbers are likely to change over the course of the year. 

One factor that may be driving this trend is the provision in Chapter 44 allowing the ability to negotiate over health benefits effective Jan. 1, 2028. A three-year contract negotiated now would expire in 2027. By agreeing to a four- or five-year contract, those districts in the School Employees’ Health Benefits Program would then be able to negotiate all plans and premium sharing arrangements. For non-SEHBP districts, all plans offered under the collective bargaining agreement, the New Jersey Educators Health Plan, and the Garden State Health Plan also become fully negotiable on that effective date. 

There may also be other considerations taken in the adoption of a longer contract, which could include getting past the next gubernatorial election or simply needing a fourth or fifth year to make progress in any salary guide goals. Regardless of the reason, the board negotiators need to consider their goals, budget implications, and their local situation when deciding on the length of their successor agreement.

While it’s tempting to negotiate less frequently, longer contracts may become problematic should the board experience cuts in aid and other financial restrictions two years into a five-year agreement, for example. Therefore, the negotiating team should carefully consider the benefits versus the downfalls of salary policies that go beyond three years, especially in this unstable economy.

Contract Length

Data is available in the NJSBA Negotiations Data Portal where teachers settlements and salary guide data is accessible to members (password required). 

The NJSBA collects and maintains a database of teacher contract bargaining data, including settlement rates, board gains, salary guides and more.

Sandy Raup is NJSBA’s business data analyst.