Monday night, the School Committee approved a new three-year contract for the Chelsea Administrators Association.
The contract, retroactive back to July of last year, sees raises and new steps for the bargaining unit of assistant principals and district coordinator positions. It also calls for the creation of two new director positions in the district.
“For the coordinators, which is one of the key groups for our CAA group, we added a fourth step that applies after five years of service, which honors those who have been in the positions for at least five years,” said Christine Lee, the district’s human resources director. “For the assistant principals, we will be having a slight change in their number of days and a few other things in there.”
The number of days elementary and middle school principals work will increase from 205 to 210 to help provide more support during the school breaks, Lee said.
Conversely, the number of days worked for the high school assistant principals will drop from 220 to 215.
“We believe this will help with ensuring they are working over the summer, but are also provided with some time off over the summer,” said Lee.
Lee said the new contract will also standardize assistant principal rates so that all the positions begin at the same hourly rate. Under the contract, the assistant principals will see a 5.25 percent raise for the first year of the contract, followed by 3 percent increases in the second and third years. The high school assistant principal raises will be slightly lower so that all the district assistant principal positions are at the same rate by Fiscal Year 2023.
The proposal for two director positions within the district will help create a pipeline within the administrative unit for new leadership positions, Lee said. Additional provisions in the contract call for all service years from the Chelsea Teachers Union an administrator may have to carry over to the CAA, and that assistant principals who are approved to cover long-term for principals on leave are paid at the hourly rate of the principal.