Negotiations Update 23 April 2026

Negotiations continue to feel stalled. The District has attempted to be creative in negotiating compensation, but we have not seen a formal counterproposal to our initial proposal from February 4th. Our team has increased our number of prep sessions per week and is maintaining pressure on the District to move in a timely, efficient, and respectful manner. 

📌 Article 8 Class Maximums - PFF Counterproposal #1

PFF presented our counterproposal to Article 8 (Class maximums). Highlights from our counter include a protection of class maximums in online modalities, codifying our class cap negotiations process, inclusion of the language from our large class cap stipend MOU, and language around the current process for reduced class caps. We expect to see a counter at our next meeting. 

📌 Article 9 Leaves - District Initial Proposal

The District gave their initial proposal for Article 9 (Leaves) with some suggestions to clarify language around potential disciplinary responses related to sabbatical obligations. We believe this is an area where we can offer a straightforward counter and reach an agreement pretty easily. We also have an extensive list from our listening sessions that will be added to our counter. We plan to present our counter at the next negotiations meeting.

📌 MOU_DRC Chair Extension

PFF presented our proposal to extend the DRC Chair Reassigned Time. We’ve attempted to codify this position in our CBA for the last two years, but the District is interested in reviewing the department structure with the DRC Director before agreeing to a permanent solution. We’ve asked the District to prioritize Article 12 (Chairs & Directors) to provide stability for the next academic year but have yet to see their proposal. This MOU extension is to ensure there is no disruption while we negotiate Article 12.

✅ MOU_SLO Administrator Access

PFF presented an MOU to clarify administrator access to SLO reports for purposes of verification in areas that do not have Dean oversight.

Discussion

• Trades & Industries Department Chair MOU - The District acknowledged a need to increase the reassigned time for the T&I Department for the 25-26 academic year and moving forward. Given the time constraints, they agreed to share an MOU via email. 

• Baccalaureate Workload - The District did share that they are not interested in negotiating our proposed MOU for a change to baccalaureate workload. As a reminder, we had proposed a change modeled after SDCCD from 15 units for full-time load to 12 units to account for an increase in workload for our new baccalaureate classes. This was especially interesting because the District specifically said they don’t want to create a two-tiered system. Part-time faculty and noncredit workload would like to have a word.... PFF shared that we will revisit this request in Article 4 as we need to be competitive in our baccalaureate offerings and want to continue to be mindful of faculty workload in upper-division courses.

• Accessibility Remediation Form - The District announced that the accessibility remediation form should be going out soon. Relatedly, we confirmed with the District that part-time faculty can claim any additional hours worked on accessibility remediation as professional development as long as there is no double-dipping. Additionally, it was confirmed that full-time faculty can also count accessibility remediation work (in excess of paid prep hours) as professional development hours. 

• Sick Leave Presentation - The District also gave a presentation on how sick leave is reported when PT faculty move to FT status as well as how FT overload sick leave is accrued. Part-time (and FT overload) sick leave is accrued in hours and FT sick leave is accrued in days. A conversion of the hours into days is made when a part-time faculty member becomes full-time.

• CTE Guidance to Sabbatical - The District shared that they would be giving the guidance to Sabbatical on CTE certificates that don’t have hours attached. For vocational salary credit, courses or certificates without listed instructional hours will generally be assigned three semester units by the Sabbatical Leave Committee if deemed discipline-relevant, unless they appear on a jointly maintained PFF–HR list of advanced certificates warranting higher credit, while courses with listed hours are evaluated under existing contract language. We discussed the growing pains with the new CTE language and all the benefits we’ve seen since. 

• Article 11 Personnel Files - The District had difficulty with their Teams documents and were unable to share their counterproposal for Article 11. 

• Lastly, but most importantly, the District did not give a counterproposal for Article 15 but shared some interesting “supposals” or suggested ideas before providing an official proposal. We appreciate the collaboration, but we are awaiting an official proposal before we can truly entertain or negotiate. As a note, we gave our initial proposal on February 4th.