After school on Thursday, September 18, teachers from across ICSD gathered with community members at the IHS bus loop for an Ithaca Teachers Association (ITA) rally.
Last spring, teacher contract negotiations between ICSD and the ITA paused, meaning that teachers in ICSD are currently working under a contract that expired on June 30. Under the old agreement, salaries remain frozen, while the deduction for health insurance has risen, meaning that ICSD teachers are effectively being paid less than last year.
The rally on September 18 was monumental, marking the day when ICSD and the ITA were originally intending to continue contract negotiations. ICSD officials had postponed contract negotiations until Thursday, October 9, citing an influx of work at the beginning of the school year. Until then, members of the ITA have vowed to rally every Thursday, and September 18 was no exception.
After the buses departed, Aurora Rojer, Co-Chair of the ITA’s Contract Action Team, led the crowd in chants highlighting the union’s key demands. Chief among them is the implementation of a step-and-lane salary system for teacher pay. Under this structure, teachers would earn raises in two ways: through “steps,” based on years of service, and “lanes,” based on additional credits or qualifications. The ITA argues that such a system prevents “leapfrogging”—when new hires earn more than experienced teachers with equal or greater credentials—and ensures uniform pay across the district. ICSD, however, has rejected this demand, arguing that the system would lead to disproportionate raises, with some teachers receiving double-digit increases that the district deems financially unsustainable.
ICSD gave all teachers a uniform four percent salary increase in the 2024-2025 school year. The ITA has argued that a four percent increase is not enough to match the rapidly growing cost of living in Ithaca, making it difficult to both retain teachers and recruit new staff. The ITA is requesting a seven percent annual increase to the overall teachers’ budget over the next four years. This amount would provide the necessary funds to convert to a step and lane salary structure competitive with those already used in neighboring school districts. Union leaders stress that this plan would not require a tax increase, but rather a reallocation of existing district funds.
Another key demand made by the ITA in its contract negotiations is maintaining and expanding healthcare coverage. ICSD has pushed to switch from the current Medicare supplemental plan to a Medicare Advantage plan, as the Advantage plan generally has a lower premium for employers. However, the ITA favors the current supplemental plan because it does not have network restrictions for retirees, does not require referrals for specialists, and has lower out-of-pocket costs for teachers than the Medicare Advantage plan. The ITA also wants the district to expand healthcare coverage to domestic partners, as, currently, it only recognizes married spouses.
Paid family leave is also central to negotiations. At present, teachers must rely on using no more than thirty of their own accumulated sick days to cover family leave upon the birth of a child, and any additional leave is unpaid, a system the ITA argues is inadequate for new parents. The ITA’s proposal would increase the number of sick days that birth parents are allowed to use from thirty to sixty, and those for partners from fifteen to thirty. Under this new plan, expanded family leave would also extend to foster parents and caregivers of ill family members, and teachers would be guaranteed automatic access to the sick bank, a pool of unused sick days donated by teachers to the union, if they exhaust all of their own days.
ICSD’s counteroffer granted teachers expanded parental leave but required them to draw from the ITA sick bank instead of their own days. The district vowed to replenish the bank only if the teacher remained employed full-time for six years afterward; otherwise, teachers would be required to repay the cost of their leave.
The rally on September 18 was an overwhelming show of ITA membership’s support of these three key demands. ITA members unraveled scrolls each containing over five hundred signatures supporting the union’s position. There were five of these scrolls in total: one for each member of the ICSD’s contract negotiation team: Superintendent Luvelle Brown, Assistant Superintendent for Teaching and Learning Mary Grover, Assistant Superintendent for Human Resources and Technology Zachary Lind, Assistant Superintendent for Business and Finance Dominick Lisi, and Chief Investigations Officer of Human Resources Robert Van Keuren. The group marched with the petitions to ICSD’s main administrative offices. Out of the five administrators, only Van Keuren was present in the building. The remaining scrolls of signatures were stuck in office doors and unfurled in hallways, placed alongside a “Goat of Labor” award presented to ICSD by the Tompkins County Workers Center and a hand-drawn sign of a goat marking the district as the “worst union workplace in Tompkins County.”
The ITA has emphasized that it will continue to hold weekly events on Thursdays until a contract is agreed upon and is hopeful that these rallies will serve as a wake-up call to the district to return to the table ready to make progress on the contracts.