Negotiations Update March 2026

Hope you all had a wonderful Spring Break! The majority of your negotiations team spent Spring Break at a bargaining conference to strengthen our skills and strategize to better represent our members and continue building a stronger contract. As we move through our Spring semester with a renewed sense of energy, our team has been focused on advancing negotiations and bringing strong proposals to advocate for faculty. We met twice with the District during March and made some progress on our initiatives. Additionally, we’ve established a Contract Action Team to strengthen collaboration, share more about the contract, and ensure member voices remain at the center of our work. Stay tuned for CAT updates. 🐈‍⬛

✅ Football Coach Restructure MOU

The District presented a proposal to pilot a new football coaching structure in order to maintain a competitive football program. Other community colleges in the area have already converted their Head Football Coach position to an educational administrator position in order to dedicate more attention to recruitment in a new era of college athletics, fundraising, promotion, and providing support to student athletes. 

We met with athletics faculty to review the impacts and negotiated a pilot Head Football Coach program with the District. Impacted faculty enthusiastically supported this pilot. Thank you to the faculty involved for their quick and thorough feedback! Below are some of the specifics we agreed upon:

• The pilot would be two years with clear metrics to measure its success. Those metrics would be heavily enrollment focused to leverage the SCFF and bring in more student athletes.

• The classes typically taught by the football coach would be taught by the assistant coaches. 

• This would be funded through general funds, and the position would still need to meet the same minimum qualifications as the current head coach position.

• The District proposed duties in the MOU to include relevant “instructional duties.” We maintained that instructional duties remain under faculty purview and successfully removed that language. 

📌 27-28 Summer Calendar Adjustments

Some programs at Palomar have consistency needs over the summer that would benefit from a separate summer track that would begin immediately after the Spring semester ends instead of waiting for the standard Summer sessions to begin. We proposed this separate track. The District heard the concerns and relayed that they would meet with Instruction and the relevant Deans to review impacts of a separate summer track. 

☑️ Initial Proposal Designation

As you know, PFF presented Article 15 immediately after closing our 24-25 reopeners in order to make progress on Compensation as early as possible. At our March 5th meeting, the remaining sunshined articles were then divided between the District and PFF to determine who would present the initial proposals. 

📌 District Proposal: Article 8

On March 18th, the District shared their proposal for Article 8 Class Maximums. The District included some of the language of our Large Class Cap MOU to codify the additional stipend for those with larger class caps. They also proposed to remove 8.1.3: “The online course maximums will equal 42 or the in-person course maximum, whichever is lower.” Given the many changes to teaching online, PFF conveyed the importance of maintaining this language. PFF is drafting their counter and will present it in April. 

📌 PFF Proposal: MOU_Program Revitalization Lead

Given that program revitalization requires substantial work beyond regular contractual duties per AP 4021, PFF proposed a temporary 20% reassigned time position in recognition of the scope, duration, and institutional impact of the work. The MOU outlines revitalization lead duties to include a development of action plans, data analysis, curriculum redesign, institutional coordination, and outcomes assessment with expected deliverables as outlined in AP 4021. The MOU was well received and the District shared they would review with impacted parties before countering.  

📌 PFF Proposal: MOU_Baccalaureate Workload

In order to support our newly established baccalaureate program and future programs, we brought forward a proposal that recognizes the additional time and effort required for upper-division coursework including curriculum development, assessment, student support, and maintaining academic standards aligned with four-year institutions and industry expectations. We proposed adjusting the workload factor from 15 to 12, using SDCCD as a model as well as traditional university workloads. We had a productive initial conversation with the District and look forward to a counter. 

Discussion

• CBA Edits with the updated language from our 24-25 reopeners - we are waiting on a few important edits before posting the updated contract to our website. Thank you for your patience.  

• Sick Days - We asked the District to provide clarification on how sick days are transferred when faculty move from part-time status to full-time status. The District committed to scheduling a more thorough presentation on what seems to be a more difficult answer than we realized. 

• Counselors at high school sites - The District shared an idea to hire a counselor to be physically present at high schools, similar to positions at other community colleges in the area. The District will share more details once they have more ideas. 

• Shredding Event - Per the request of some faculty, the District is exploring a shredding event for faculty to get rid of old documents and files.

• ASL Interpreter - The District confirmed that the position is going to the Governing Board for approval, and we can expect it to move forward soon after.

• Unit values for CTE Certificates - The District and PFF discussed a solution for certificates that don’t have verified hours attached. The goal would be to make such certificates equivalent to one 3-unit class.