Members of the Regional School Unit 18 Education Association watch Wednesday as the RSU 18 board of directors meets in Oakland. Board members voted unanimously to approve the contract after about five months of negotiations. Dylan Tusinski/Morning Sentinel

OAKLAND — After about five months of negotiating, Regional School Unit 18 administrators tentatively agreed Wednesday night to a new contract with the district’s support staff.

The new three-year contract will increase pay and benefits for education technicians, custodians and nutritional supervisors at RSU 18, which employs about 125 support staff at schools in Oakland, Belgrade, China and Sidney.

Both the RSU 18 Education Association, which represents the support staff, and district administration say the process was much more intense and drawn-out than previous negotiations.

“The negotiations went well in a lot of ways, but they were a little strained at times,” RSU 18 Superintendent Carl Gartley said Thursday. “Ultimately, the staff got a very well-deserved raise.”

With this week’s tentative agreement, pay rates for RSU 18’s ed techs, custodians and nutrition staff will rise by between 3% and 11% depending on the position. The district will also cover costs of textbooks for teachers and uniforms for custodial staff, among other new benefits.

Negotiations began in March, a few months behind the usual schedule as both sides retained outside counsel. Talks stalled for months in the summer before negotiations spilled on to social media in the weeks leading up to Wednesday’s board meeting.

Educators and union officials posted on local Facebook groups to organize large shows of support for the union during school board meetings ahead of the contract vote.

Educators and support staff sit in the Messalonskee Middle School cafeteria Wednesday, ahead of the Regional School Unit 18’s school board meeting. About 60 people attended the meeting, many wearing red in support of the union that represents teachers and support staff. Dylan Tusinski/Morning Sentinel

About 60 educators, support staff, students and community members attended Wednesday’s school board meeting, where district administrators unanimously approved the contract. Most in the crowd were wearing red T-shirts in support of the union.

Atwood Primary School custodian Mike Lewis is the head of the RSU 18 Education Association’s bargaining unit and helped found the union in 2004. He said that public support was crucial in securing an agreement on the contract.

“This was the toughest negotiations I’ve done, and I helped start the union,” said Lewis. “We couldn’t have done it without all those people in the room, though. There’s strength in numbers.”

Lewis, along with many district custodial and support staff, said at the meeting they feel their work is undervalued by the district’s administrators, arguing that the pay gaps between different positions are too high and that existing pay bumps for tenure were too low.

Lewis noted that while the base wage for RSU 18 custodians will increase from $17.50 to $19 an hour when the contract takes effect next year, the district posted a job listing for substitute custodians last week that offers $25.50 hourly.

“I know we all have a job to do, but we ought to be getting paid fairly for it,” Lewis said.

A job listing for a substitute custodian is pictured on an RSU 18 Education Association member’s phone. The hourly rate of $25.50 is $8 more than the district’s base rate for full-time custodians. District administrators say the position was only open to current employees looking for “a chance to work and get overtime wages.” Dylan Tusinski/Morning Sentinel

Gartley disputed Lewis’ notions, saying the district’s substitute custodian positions are only offered to current district employees looking for extra work, not outside applicants who will make more than full-time custodial staff.

He added that it’s not uncommon for substitute roles to have higher pay rates to entice more applicants and that the substitute custodian’s rate is roughly the $26.25 hourly rate offered to full-time employees for overtime work.

The new contract also includes language that will ensure RSU 18’s full-time custodians get first dibs on the hours that substitute custodians would otherwise fill, Gartley said, solidifying what he said is a longstanding practice.

“This was the (education) association and the administration working collaboratively to try to build our sub pool and give our full-time employees a chance to work and get overtime wages,” Gartley said. “The first people to get offered these hours are the custodians. They get the first crack on it, and if they don’t want it or aren’t available, then we use substitute custodians.”

Still, Lewis’ sentiment was echoed by the community members, educators and students who spoke during public comment at the meeting.

Caitlin Elkins, a graduate of Messalonskee High School’s special education program, praised the district’s ed techs and support staff, saying she likely would not have graduated without them.

“These ed techs and everyone, they go through a lot with us kids. They really kind of take care of us,” Elkins said. “I think they deserve more than what they’re getting paid, especially with what they have to deal with and what they choose to deal with.”

RSU 18 currently offers pay bumps of about 15 cents per year of experience at the district up to 15 years. The exact scale differs based on role and tenure. Some years come with an increase of 8 cents, and others with as much as 25 cents.

The new contract standardizes the rates of yearly pay increases for each position and brings different pay rates closer in line with one another. Both district and union officials say the change is intended to make pay more equitable across all the district’s positions.

It also coincides with legislation passed by the State House that aims to raise education workers’ salaries across the board.

The new law will increase ed techs’ minimum hourly wage to $21.22 an hour, or 150% of the state’s minimum wage, at the start of the 2025-26 school year. Other support staff wages must be 125% of the minimum wage, equaling $17.68 an hour.

“I think school districts and community members are in support of spending more on support staff,” Gartley said Thursday. “It’s a much better (pay) scale now. It more fairly compensates our staff and it adds some consistency between steps.”

Despite the pay bump, both union leaders and school administrators said this year’s negotiations were unusually tense compared to RSU 18’s previous contract negotiations, in large part because both sides retained outside counsel.

The district hired lawyer Tom Trenholm, a partner with Portland-based law firm Drummond Woodsum who specializes in school and labor law. The union brought in Allison Lytton, a district director with the Maine Education Association.

Ninette Fenlason, an art teacher at Messalonskee High School and part of the RSU 18 Education Association’s bargaining committee, feels the presence of legal counsel is indicative of a larger disconnect between educators and the school board.

That divide, she said, is caused by a district policy forbidding staff members from directly communicating with the school board.

District policy BHC mandates that support staff, teachers and principals engage with the superintendent rather than the school board. It establishes a chain of command through which comments and complaints can be given to the board and also prohibits board members from “initiating communications or conversations with staff members on their own.”

“They kind of encourage (the board) not to actually come in to schools, and it discourages teachers from engaging with the board, which can make our jobs a lot more difficult,” Fenlason said.

Gartley said that policy has been in place since 1998 and has not affected the working relationship between teachers and the school board.

“It’s basically a policy that says teachers report to the principals, principals report to the superintendent, the superintendent reports to the board,” Gartley said. “I think you would be hard pressed to find board members that don’t know what’s happening in our schools.”

Still, both sides said at Wednesday’s meeting that they were glad the negotiations reached a conclusion with a tentative agreement.

Despite some of their disagreements during the process, both union members and district leadership expressed their appreciation for one another after the contract was tentatively agreed upon.

“This is the best school district around. I wouldn’t want to work anywhere else,” Lewis said. “I’m glad we can put this behind us and move forward.”