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Education News
MPR News Staff
St. Paul

Anoka-Hennepin teachers back new 2-year contract

A yellow bus, blurred with motion
Union leaders in the state’s largest school district said Friday their members formally approved a contract deal struck last month following a daylong mediation session.
Ben Hovland | MPR News

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Updated 11:57 a.m.

Union leaders in the Anoka-Hennepin School District said Friday their members formally approved a two-year contract deal that came together last month following a marathon mediation session.

The agreement includes salary increases of 5 percent for the current school year, retroactive to July, and 3 percent in 2024-25, the union said in a statement announcing the details.

Union leaders said the district agreed to boost health insurance contributions and set a salary schedule that includes raising the starting salary for teachers to $50,000 and a structure that gets teachers to the top of the salary schedule faster. It also includes one-time bonus of $750 per educator.

The union put the total cost of the package at $64 million, “which includes higher salary percentage increases than educators have seen in years.”

The district received $66 million in new dollars from the Legislature last year, enough to absorb the cost of the new two-year contract, a spokesperson said Friday.

The Anoka-Hennepin school board is expected to consider the package at its Feb. 26 meeting. The district still needs to settle contracts with numerous other labor groups, the spokesperson added.

The district serves about 38,000 students in the northern suburbs of the Twin Cities. Teachers in the district had been working without a contract since July.

“As is always the case in negotiations, we didn’t get everything we wanted, but we got a lot,” Val Holthus, the union’s president, said in a statement, adding the contract includes “important building blocks to reach the schools Anoka-Hennepin communities deserve.”