Summary
Salary: 3% COLA and a step, or the amount approved by the County in its final budget.
NOTE: there is existing language in the TAAAC contract entitling the employer to reopen any contract provision the County does not fund. This means that if we had signed a TA containing language promising any fixed financial terms, we would have been required to return to the table if the County ultimately approved a budget that did not fund those terms. This language ensures that we will get the 3%, if it is there to be gotten.
ACTION STEP: Right now, the proposed budget funds a COLA at only 2.25%; the County Council will finalize the budget next week. Please write to the county executive and county council to let them know that you want this COLA fully funded. There are ways they can do it if they have the will to!
PTE scale: Our agreement extends the existing scale for educators with PTE licenses (those who have worked in the trades and are typically now teaching at our CAT Centers) from a top step of 13 to a top step of 25, like all of the other scales; that means for them the top step moves from $79k to $102k annually. The extension of this scale is the product of a joint TAAAC-AACPS workgroup (vs. representing an outcome of particularly fierce bargaining confined to this issue).
All of TAAAC’s other economic proposals:
- Remedying the salary compression experienced by our colleagues who were in steps 1-3 when those steps were eliminated
- Extending the provisional scale
- Providing an additional longevity increase to educators on Step 25
- Consolidating the pay scales for coaches and extracurricular advisors and increasing the pay associated with each of these positions
- Bringing back stipends for Nationally Certified Schools Psychologists
- Providing additional pay for department chairs
- Pay equity for social workers
were explicitly rejected by the Board.
Student Discipline: added language on “Referral of Severe Cases” recognizing that safety of both students and Unit 1 members is a shared priority; extended requirement that AACPS provide notice of students’ “severe overt behavior endangering the safety of themselves and others” to Unit 1 employees who are not classroom teachers (most notably PPWs).
Next steps
These terms also underline the need to continue pushing hard for the revenue to fully fund a 3% COLA. Again, we urge you and your colleagues to send an email TODAY to the county executive and county council to advocate that they fully fund this negotiated 3% COLA. You can do that here.
This is not all that we hoped for–and it is certainly not all that we deserve–but given the context, we believe that it is the best we could achieve in this round.
You will receive via email a ballot on which you can vote to ratify this tentative agreement starting this Saturday, June 6 at 9 am. The voting will continue until Tuesday, June 16 at 5 pm. You can also go to the TAAAC website to access the ballot so that you can cast your vote. We recommend a yes vote.
Your 2026-2027 bargaining team members,
Dawn Austin
Robin Cooper
Jorge Cordoba
Dyana Cronin
Jill Grimm
Juanita Howard
Will Johnson
Alyssa Picard
PS. All ofthe proposals AACPS rejected are fair game for negotiations in the 2026-2027 contract campaign.
Please watch your personal email for the 2026-2027 bargaining survey, which we will use to identify and prioritize issues for the negotiations that will begin no later than Friday, October 9. In accordance with the requirements of Article 22, we will present our entire contract proposal to AACPS no later than Friday, October 16.
