A new three-year agreement between the School Committee and Cranston Teachers’ Alliance (CTA) represents a “practical compromise” that benefits educators, students and the community as a whole, district and union officials said in a joint release late last week.

“This contract represents months of hard work at the negotiating table and serves all constituencies well including Cranston taxpayers, parents, our teachers and especially our students. I want to thank our teachers and their representatives for reaching a compromise that enabled this contract to move forward,” Cranston Superintendent Dr. Judith Lundsten said. “I also want to thank the school committee for their hard work and perseverance during the negotiations.”

“There is a long history of successful labor management partnerships in the Cranston Public School system and this contract reflects that legacy. The contract is a practical compromise given the limited resources the school committee had at our disposal,” said Andrea Iannazzi, the committee’s chair. “We appreciate the efforts of the Cranston Teachers’ Alliance to forge a compromise that satisfied the needs of all parties.”

Lizbeth Larkin, president of the CTA, said participants in negotiations were “challenged by the inability of the School Committee to make up for the $5.1 million in concessions teachers agreed to in the last contract.”

“Both sides were hamstrung by inadequate school resources caused by years of under-funding by the Cranston Mayor and City Council,” she said. “Despite these obstacles, Cranston teachers were glad to find common ground with the School Committee and reach agreement on a contract.”

The teachers’ contract – along with new three-year deals reached with the bargaining units representing teacher assistants, bus aides and technical assistants – was negotiated between members of the school committee, district administration and CTA Local 1704 of the American Federation of Teachers.

According to the joint release, the district has 969 teachers, 163 teacher assistants, 34 bus aides and 10 technical assistants.

The committee approved all three contracts on Sept. 10. The documents were introduced as new business at the most recent meeting of the City Council, and have been referred to the council’s Finance Committee for consideration on Oct. 16. A vote of the full council is anticipated Oct. 27.

The new teachers’ contract would be effective as of Sept. 1 of this year and run until Aug. 31, 2017. Its total fiscal impact would be approximately $3.9 million.

The agreement would freeze salaries in the first year, followed by 2-percent increases in the second and third years. It would also temporarily lower health care costs in the first year before introducing a deductible – eligible for up to 50 percent reimbursement through the district – in the second and third years.

On the educational side, the joint release indicates the contract would modify the elementary school schedule to provide additional student instruction time starting next year; revise the teacher assignment system “to give administrators the ability to modify teacher assignments in certain circumstances”; and provide payment for high school teachers to participate in after-school common planning time meetings starting next year.

“I am most pleased that we were able to agree to new elementary school schedule beginning in the 2015-2016 school year that provides additional instruction time and a reduction in administrative meetings for teachers. The new schedule is a great example of productive and practical collective bargaining,” Larkin said.

The three-year pact with teacher assistants and bus aides would have a total cost of $268,623. The terms of the agreement would eliminate longevity payments and holidays and roll the costs associated with those items into the hourly rate for employees. The contract would also raise the health care cost share for employees.

The agreement with the district’s technical assistants has the same terms as the contract reached with the teacher assistants and bus aides, with a total cost of $16,017 over the three-year term.

Approval was also recently given to a new three-year pact with the city’s custodians. That deal includes a salary increase of 3 percent in the first year, with re-opener clauses in the second and third years allowing for the possibility of additional raises.

The contract talks between the district and union became contentious earlier this year, particularly over the union’s proposal of a 4-percent salary increase and the school committee’s issuing of a request for proposals for services provided by the teacher assistant bargaining unit.

Tensions publicly boiled over during the June meeting of the school committee amid a disruption in mediation and the union’s filing of an Unfair Labor Practice claim with the State Labor Relations Board.