Durham staff, educators press board on policy stances ahead of budget vote
CORRECTION: The original version of this story incorrectly reported how the board voted on the Meet and Confer policy. Bettina Umstead, Jessica Card-Auten, Natalie Beyer and Chair Millicent Rogers voted for it. Joy Harrell Goff, Wendell Tabb and Emily Chávez voted against it.
Days after the Durham school board agreed to give it negotiating power, the Durham Association of Educators is urging board members to delay next week’s budget vote.
DAE representatives met with board members Jessica Carda-Auten, Bettina Umstead, and Joy Harrell Goff on Monday evening to present nine priorities from teachers and staff, including higher pay for classified workers and solutions to the bus-driver shortage, for consideration before the vote.
DAE President Mika Twietmeyer said the group wants greater transparency and fairness in the budget process.
“Educators came up with these priorities, and thousands are ready for action in order to see these improvements happen,” Twietmeyer said. “Before summer, it’s time for action from our board members.”
Over 50 people gathered at DPS’s Staff Development Center on Hillandale Road for the meeting. The board members agreed to bring the requests back to the full board but couldn’t promise to delay their vote due to a May deadline to submit the budget to the Durham County commissioners.
“Truth be told, there is not anything in this document that doesn’t feel urgent and important,” Goff said. “What I can do is take all of these and really go back and say, ‘What are the barriers to these?’ … I am in agreement with all of these priorities.”
The board plans to vote on the budget at its next meeting on April 24.
An overview of last week’s decision
Last Thursday, the school board approved DAE’s Meet & Confer proposal, which treats the association like a union and gives it a stronger voice in giving feedback to Superintendent Anthony Lewis, with some changes.
Lewis has been meeting with DAE to forge an agreement, but they disagreed over how many members a group would need to represent in order to have a seat at the table.
DAE had pushed for 30% membership representation. Instead, the school board voted 4-3 for a 6% threshold in order to allow the participation of other employee organizations. Umstead, Carda-Auten, Natalie Beyer and Chair Millicent Rogers voted in support. Goff, Emily Chávez and Wendell Tabb all opposed.
According to a report by INDY Week, the board’s attorney had advised the lower threshold to avoid violating a state law that prevents giving one group special treatment.
In a statement, the DAE called the policy “imperfect” and said the document being “finalized without workers at the table was inexcusable and extremely disrespectful.”
“Thursday night’s Board meeting was a painful reminder of how far we still have to go towards full respect for worker voice in DPS,” the statement read.
What are DAE’s budget and other priorities?
Budget transparency
Make internal audit information available to all staff
Salary transparency
Measures to address the transportation crisis
$300 a month supplement for bus drivers and bus monitors
Three paid weather days, two personal days
No collaboration with ICE
Make “Know Your Rights” cards visible and available in all front offices
Enforce Policy 4321 that gives teachers and staff instructions on handling immigration raids and arrests
Addressing classified pay compression
2% increase for all classified pay scales
Retention bonuses for positions
Full restoration of master’s pay
Restore the pay for all staff who were previously eligible for master’s pay under state law
Clear duties, contract hours, expectations and extra duty pay for all staff
A yearly printed contract outlining job duties, work hours
Extra pay for covering classes or additional work
Collective grievance policy and representation during grievance procedure
Workers can file grievances collectively and with an accompanying representative
No cuts to frontline positions
Maintaining all positions for staff who work directly with students
A multi-year plan for supplement and classified pay increases
Salary increases every year in the budget and information about what staff can expect in the coming years
According to the current DPS policy, employees can make collective grievances. To enforce Policy 4321, the board of education would need to take action to reinstate it since it was ended in 2021, according to Rogers.
The administration is working on a salary administration policy that has come to the board several times and will continue to until it’s ready for approval, Rogers said.
How did the board members respond Monday?
Carda-Auten, Goff, and Umstead said they are committed to working with staff to explore including them in the budget or gathering the information needed to consider adjustments.
Umstead said DPS staff “should know what’s going to happen next year.”
“I think we really have to give this to our staff and have them figure out what’s possible and feasible,” she said.
Carda-Auten sympathized with DAE and said she was “frustrated with the pace at which things move.”
“We need to have a general understanding and make a clear decision about the budget,” she said. “But the conversation you need to be having, and I hope starts happening very soon, is between you all and administration and you come to the board with administration being fully informed about your priorities.”
Goff said she could not commit to delaying her vote on the budget next week and was “anxious” to see how the meet and confer policy would be enacted.
After the budget is approved by the board and submitted to the county commissioners, the district waits to see what funding it gets from the state. Then, there is another process of analyzing what priorities the school district can fund and which it cannot.
How did DAE and the members respond?
Twietmeyer said DAE still believes there is time to delay the budget vote.
“So much information is not known and might not be known by next Thursday and this budget vote could be pushed to May 8 and this would still be making the deadline,” she said.
Several Durham Public Schools workers spoke during the meeting.
“Students notice when their teachers are stretched too thin,” said Hayley Filegar, a teacher at E. K. Powe Elementary School.. “Every single day we’re being asked to figure it out, and we’re just asking for a commitment that you’re going to figure it out and that you’re with us on that.”
Angelique Parkstone, a cafeteria manager, said workers feed 80% of Durham’s public school children two meals a day but “cannot survive on their one DPS salary.”
“It is time for classified staff members to be paid fairly and based on the important work that they do,” she said.
This story was originally published April 15, 2025 at 10:48 AM.