On Monday, June 30, 2025, the Berkeley Federation of Teachers’ (BFT) contract with Berkeley Unified School District ended. Negotiations for a new contract started earlier in the spring, but BFT and BUSD have yet to reach an agreement on a new contract.
Typically, contract negotiations between the two sides consist of exchanging proposals until an agreement is made, according to Matt Meyer, president of BFT. BFT has a team of educators representing almost every part of the district that decides what language they want changed in the new contract. This team consists of teachers from every BUSD school and other types of staff members at BUSD. This team presents its proposals to the school board, which typically creates its own version of the proposals to send back. This process continues on until both parties agree on a contract.
Meyer explained that this time around, the school board has not given its answers to a large portion of the proposals. “For many things, we’ve gotten some responses. We’ve had some agreements on some smaller stuff, but anything that costs money, the district has not responded to,” Meyer said.
Meyer explained that the union gave the district many different proposals in the spring. This year, the district has not sent back feedback for a large number of the proposals, and the union is still waiting for answers.
A main concern of BFT is better compensation and benefits for teachers. BUSD ranks from the bottom third to the very bottom in terms of compensation among the 18 public school districts in Alameda County, according to Meyer. This includes annual salary and benefits such as health care.
Ariana Braga, a fourth grade teacher at Malcolm X Elementary School, spoke about these costs at the school board meeting on Wednesday, Oct. 1, 2025. “I should be able to continue to see the same doctors that I’ve been seeing for the past decade … I’m having to weigh the choice of keeping what I know is best for my health or what I can afford,” Braga said.
Some Berkeley teachers take issue with the healthcare benefit disparities between Oakland Unified School District (OUSD) and BUSD. According to the 2023 salary schedule for OUSD, Oakland full-time employees are eligible to have all of their health insurance covered by the district, whereas in Berkeley this is not the case. The Jacket calculated that, depending on how many family members a teacher’s healthcare plan covers, Berkeley teachers making a mid-range salary pay 12 to 31 percent of their yearly salary on health insurance, according to numbers pulled from the 2022-2025 union contract and 2024 report card.
Some teachers also spend time working outside contract hours that go unpaid. Cory Potts, an education specialist at Berkeley Arts Magnet at Whittier School, explained that this is especially true for education specialists and teachers assisting with Individualized Education Plans (IEPs), 504 plans, and Student Success Teams (SSTs). SSTs are meetings where teachers, staff, and parents/guardians collaborate to create a plan to assist a student in a general education setting.
Potts works with teachers, families, and students with IEPs. Much of this work is done outside of the school day, she explained. In Potts’ experience, this work can go unpaid, as the current contract only compensates teachers for the hours outlined in the contracts. Both Potts and Meyer expressed their willingness to work with the district towards an agreement. “They know how long we’ve been negotiating, and to not hear back is frustrating and demoralizing,” Meyer said.
As of right now, the previous contract and salaries are in effect. Meyer and Potts have detailed the urgency of finding an agreement because of rising health care costs and the cost of living. BFT has plans to continue emphasizing the urgency of these agreements until the district gives them responses to their proposals.