UPDATE: CUSD's Tentative Pact with Teachers Adds 2 School Days

Originally posted July 25. Updated July 26 with more information from CUSD, which previously didn't comment, on class-size reductions and the suspension of open house nights.

The Capistrano Unified School District and its teachers have reached a tentative contract agreement that would add two school days, slightly reduce class sizes and temporarily halt spring open house nights.

Under the pact, students would be in class for 177 instructional days, two more than in 2012-13, officials said.

The agreement would also eliminate a 1.2 percent teacher salary cut and three non-instructional furlough days (with corresponding pay cuts) that had been in effect since 2011-12. 

In contrast to the last contract, in which teachers went unpaid for eight days, including five instructional days, the new deal reduces unpaid days to two.

But it bars parent open house nights next spring.

In a Friday email to school trustees, Superintendent Joseph Farley said some campuses had already dropped open house nights, which normally follow a minimum school day, or created other events for parents. So contract negotiators decided to suspend open house altogether "for one year to provide time to determine what should be done about it in subsequent ones," Farley wrote.

In addition, negotiators agreed to decrease class sizes, which grew an average of 1.5 students in the 2012-2013 school year. Under the pact, classes in kindergarten through third grade would shrink by 0.75 students, while fourth- and fifth-grade classes would drop by 0.5 students. Secondary school class sizes would decrease by 0.25 students, according to a CUSD press release issued Friday.

In an email to faculty earlier this week, union representative Bobbi Martin said the district and teachers were “inching along to decrease class size. [It’s a] big cost and [we] did not want to affect salaries.”

Martin wrote that she hoped the news would help make the summer “more enjoyable” for teachers.

The tentative contract also adds three paid training days in which teachers learn about new state-mandated, nationally implemented Common Core standards.

The union rank-and-file still need to vote on the contract, and the district Board of Trustees must ratify it. In June, the school board passed what staff described as a placeholder budget before negotiations concluded. Staff expected to submit a revised budget to the Orange County Department of Education within 45 days.