Perreault shares union perspective on Pine City school district paraprofessional hiring practices

Paraprofessional hiring practices have been in the spotlight for the local AFSCME Council 65 union and the Pine City school district.

In late November, Local 1647-3 President Elizabeth Perreault sat down for an interview with WCMP to share the union’s perspective.

“It appears that the school district has adopted a sort of new hiring practice from what we’ve been used to in previous years, and it’s causing a lot of frustration among our current staff,” Perreault said.

Perreault, who became union president in January of 2025, explained that the AFSCME team in place during the last round of negotiations in spring of 2024 worked to make sure starting salaries were competitive in the region.

Those negotiations included dropping off the bottom step of the salary schedule in place at the time, and adding an additional step for the staff that had already maxed out.

“We felt like that was a really productive thing for us to do,” Perreault said. “It was going to make it so Pine City was desirable to work for, and the hope with that was that the employer would then not have to hire at such additionally high steps if we had a more desirable starting wage.”

Perreault said that between January 2010 and October 2022, the district hired 12 paraprofessionals higher than step one on the salary schedule, according to independent research.

“There was a period of time from 2017 to 2022 where there was not a single para hired above step one,” she said.

Perreault said from July 2022 to present, 26 paraprofessionals have been hired above step one.

“This is a new norm for us, and we haven’t any documentation to justify this,” Perreault said. “So it’s pretty frustrating.”

The current collective bargaining agreement between the district and union goes through June of 2026.

“During our last round of negotiations, we did try to work with the employer to implement language in the contract that would define how new hires would be placed on the salary schedule,” Perreault said, adding that the employer was “very unwilling” to do so.

Perreault said there are currently no formal plans to try to push through a memorandum of understanding ahead of time, but the hiring practices will be taken into consideration when returning to the negotiating table.

A timeline for negotiations would likely start around late May or early June of 2026; the contract officially ends on June 30.

“In our last round of negotiations, it wasn’t a great experience,” Perreault said, adding that the atmosphere felt “combative,” and eventually the process was delayed by going into mediation.

Moving forward, Perreault said a priority is getting data requests fulfilled by the district. According to Perreault, the school board has “ceased all communication with our union executive board through AFSCME.”

“We’ve been completely cut off by the employer,” Perreault said. “They’re not willing to talk with us, they’re not willing to come to the table to bargain in good faith, or to meet and confer. And we’re just feeling very hopeless.”

Perreault explained that the union will continue to seek transparency, consistency, and adherence to district policy in regards to starting wages for paraprofessionals.

“We’re here, we’re ready to talk, we’re ready to come to the table to find ways to make this fair and equitable,” Perreault said. “The morale within our district just seems to be falling. We need to keep our veteran staff here, we need to keep them happy. They’re a vital asset to this district. It’s just important that our district and our school board is willing to have that good-faith dialogue.”