GLENDALE, CA – Glendale Unified School District (GUSD) and Glendale Teachers Association (GTA) bargaining teams have reached a tentative agreement on wages for the 2025-26 school year. The tentative agreement, reached after one negotiation session, includes an ongoing 4.5% wage increase effective July 1, 2025.

This wage increase was made possible through the collaborative efforts of the GUSD and GTA bargaining teams and the GUSD Employee Benefits Committee, which includes representation from GTA, the Classified School Employees Association (CSEA), and the Glendale Schools Management Association (GSMA). 

GUSD accepted GTA’s proposed 2% wage increase based on the cost-of-living adjustment anticipated in the Governor’s May Budget Revision. An additional 2.5% increase will be funded by cost savings from adjustments to GUSD’s healthcare plan, including lowering the benefit cap and moving from a direct market to a risk pool. Both of these changes were made while ensuring full-time GUSD employees do not have to pay out of pocket for their healthcare premiums in the 2025-26 school year. Employees will have the opportunity to keep their current Blue Shield provider with the added option to switch to Kaiser Permanente.

In addition to wage and benefits settlements, GUSD and GTA reached agreement on several contract items, including:

• Increasing the rate of pay for summer school so that teachers receive the same compensation as they do for a regular school day. 
• Temporarily extending the early retiree health benefit provision to employees who have been working part-time for 10 years or more (the benefit provision is currently available to full-time employees only). 
• Ensuring two half days of prep time per week for special education service providers who did not previously have guaranteed prep time.

As a next step, the GTA membership will vote on ratifying the tentative agreement, after which the GUSD Board of Education will vote on the final approval of the contract. GUSD and GTA will continue to collaborate to reach an agreement on Memorandums of Understanding for full-day kindergarten and child development and child care services in transitional kindergarten classrooms.

“Our Board of Education is committed to strengthening collaboration with our labor partners and supporting a thriving workforce to benefit student learning,” said Board of Education President Shant Sahakian. “The tentative agreement reached expeditiously in the first negotiation session is a testament to the District and GTA leadership’s shared commitment to our entire school community. I am very proud of our bargaining teams for working together to find solutions and maximize compensation for our valued educators, especially in light of current fiscal challenges.”

“I am incredibly grateful to our District and GTA leaders who worked collaboratively to reach an agreement that provides our dedicated education professionals with the compensation they deserve and to our Board of Education for supporting this process,” said GUSD Superintendent Dr. Darneika Watson. “I look forward to continued conversations about how we can better support educators and staff to the benefit of all students.”

“We are ecstatic to successfully negotiate better wages and working conditions in just one day,” said GTA Bargaining Chair Sarah Morrison. “Looking forward, it’s collaboration like this between labor and management that will allow GUSD to deliver the world-class education our students deserve.”

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