Fairbanks Daily News-Miner

The Fairbanks North Star Borough Board of Education on Tuesday ratified a tentative agreement with the union representing the school district’s janitors, secretaries, teachers aides and other support staff.

The School Board unanimously ratified the agreement at its regular meeting Tuesday night.

The Education Support Staff Association voted on Saturday to ratify the agreement reached earlier in September. The union has been working without a new contract since June 30.

Of the 276 members in attendance at the meeting Saturday, 90 percent voted to ratify, Roy Roehl Sr. said. Roehl was elected as the union’s new president at the meeting, replacing Greg Rhines.

The union rejected the original tentative agreement with the district earlier this summer.

The major sticking point on that contract, Roehl said, was a new pay scale system. Under the rejected agreement the union members would have been plugged into a new pay scale with some of them getting a larger percentage raise than others. The consensus among members at the time was that it was an unfair scale.

This new tentative agreement addresses many of the concerns members had with the earlier agreement, Roehl said. Employees are still receiving different percentages of raise in pay depending on their old pay scale, but the difference is less drastic.

“There were some (members) that weren’t happy,” Roehl said of the new tentative agreement. “We instructed them to ratify this and then we’d start talking about some of their concerns for the next negotiations.”

ESSA’s new contract will be in effect for three years.

The union has almost 800 members.

Superintendant Ann Shortt said she was pleased to have the agreement ratified.

“I think it reflects good bargaining on both sides and I’m appreciative of the many hours of hard work that the bargaining team put into this contract,” Shortt said.

Also at the School Board meeting, the seven-member body approved new graduation requirements for all high school students in the district. Starting with the class of 2009, every high school student will be required to take a semester of Alaska history in order to graduate. The new rules also raise the number of required credits from 22 to 22.5.

The change is in response to new regulations put forth by the state Department of Education requiring every high school student to have some sort of Alaska history class under their belts before they graduate. The individual districts were given discretion to implement the new rules as they thought best.

The School Board also made some minor changes to the district’s career and technical education policies. The changes would add language in the policy requiring that all career and technical education opportunities comply with civil rights and nondiscrimination rules. They will also took a first look at some proposed changes to the district’s sexual harassment policies. The changes are nothing drastic, Bett Schaffhauser, director of the employment and educational opportunity for the district, said. She described the recommended changes as “housekeeping.”

“We’re really just rearranging and making it neater, you know more user-friendly,” she said.

The changes to the sexual harassment policies were advanced to second reading by the board. They will take any additional public comments and a final vote on the changes most likely at their next regular meeting.

At the meeting, Senator Gary Wilken presented a Legislative Citation to Tricia Rambin for her volunteer work at Arctic Light Elementary School on Fort Wainwright. Rambin was named Campbell’s Soup Company’s “Soup-er” Mom of the Year for the state of Alaska. The award recognizes a parent who puts forth extra effort to volunteer at his or her child’s school. Campbell’s will donate 10,000 Labels for Education to Arctic Light Elementary. The label can be used by the school to get educational supplies.

Rambin has two sons who attend Arctic Light Elementary. She volunteers at many of the school’s activities. Her husband is currently deployed in Iraq with the 172nd Stryker Brigade.

“Job well done, Tricia,” Wilken said. “Alaska is proud of you.”

The school board members and audience in attendance at the meeting honored Rambin with a standing ovation.

“I don’t think I do anything different than any of the other parents at our school.,” Rambin said.

Staff writer Robinson Duffy can be reached at 459-7523 or rduffy@newsminer.com.