Hello Team Palomar!
Here is an overview of our negotiations meeting from October 10, 2024:
☀️Annual Reopeners/Sunshining
Excited to officially agree on our reopeners for this academic year:
Article 15 + Appendix F and Article 16 are automatic reopeners
The District chose to open Article 4 + Appendix B and Appendix L
After our listening sessions and feedback from faculty, we chose to open Article 20 and Article 12
We are currently working on our proposals, so stay tuned for more opportunities to provide feedback!
✅Class Caps
We presented a full list of all class caps adjustments made since 2022 with an MOU for all the agreed upon changes since January of 2023 to create a complete and updated list of class caps before we go into our next round of class caps negotiations. The District will review and verify. As a reminder, we have been working on this list since 2017, so this will be very exciting to finally have a complete list!
MOU for International Education
We presented an MOU to support faculty with international transcripts who earned degrees concurrently. Given that our contract’s current language allows for grade movement for degrees “completed subsequent to receiving the Bachelor’s degree,” faculty with degrees earned concurrently do not have their additional education reflected in their salary placement. The District understood the need for this request, but prefers not to create specific MOUs for individual cases. We will continue to advocate for this change when we open Article 15 in this round of reopeners.
MOU for DRC Chair Extension
Both parties agreed to extend the MOU for a DRC Chair through Spring 2025. Again, we will continue to advocate for this position to be institutionalized in Article 12 in this round of reopeners.
Discussion
We’ve had a lot to discuss with the District. We have a standing Discussion agenda item to check on ISA staffing updates. We also discussed concerns with union dues deductions mistakes, specific salary placement concerns, and benefits.
There was discussion on how office hours should be documented for non-lead instructors, particularly in fields like EME and public safety. PFF emphasized the importance of documenting these on syllabi.
The District is testing 12-month benefit deductions for PT faculty, which may be implemented by the next fiscal year.