KANSAS CITY, Mo. — A federal mediator will be brought in to help settle the dispute between the Shawnee Mission School District and its teachers' union.
In a letter sent to staff Tuesday morning, SMSD Superintendent Mike Fulton and National Education Association — Shawnee Mission President Linda Sieck said the two entities had "jointly agreed to use a mediator in order to resolve issues related to the 2019-20 contract for certified staff."
The two sides will meet Thursday with a federal negotiator to advance contract negotiations for a new contract for the district's teachers, the letter said.
The meeting is not open to the public, and Fulton and Sieck said they'd be releasing no further updates at this time.
It's unclear if it will impact the timeline of when a new deal must be in place.
Negotiations broke down between SMSD and the NEA-SM teachers’ union, which has been operating under terms of the expired 2018-19 contract this year, in late January.
After the impasses, the Shawnee Mission Board of Education unilaterally approved a three-year contract, drawing ire from the union and a legal challenge.
The Kansas Department of Labor rejected the three-year term for the contract, forcing both sides back to the negotiating table.
Teachers who signed the three-year deal before the state ruling are bound by that agreement through 2019-20, but the final two years were voided by the Department of Labor's decision.
Teachers who had yet to sign the new deal will finish the year under the terms of last year's expired contract.
Shawnee Mission and its teachers were unable to work out an agreement after the 2018-19 contract expired.
Much of the dispute centers on nearly $10 million the state allocated to SMSD.
The district said it made up for past lost revenue and wanted to use the money to hire 29 new positions.
The union said that money should go to staff salaries because, while SMSD teachers are the highest-paid in the state, they also have one of the highest workloads.
Class size and the number of hours per child teachers can devote to students also have been sticking points in negotiations.
Teachers have rallied and students have protested during failed negotiations between the district and union.
One SMSD teacher, Amanda Coffman, took the extraordinary step of resigning at a school board meeting last month.
A state-assigned fact-finder sided with the district.
