Southwest District Court Judge William Herauf on Monday ruled in favor of the Dickinson Education Association at a hearing over a court battle about teacher contracts. But the fight may not be over.
After about 45 minutes of hearing DEA attorney Michael Geiermann and Dickinson Public School Board counsel Rachel Ann Bruner-Kaufman plead their respective cases, Herauf decided that contracts agreed upon for the 2013-14 school year would not be binding to a two-year agreement.
After months of contract negotiations by both sides failed to produce an agreement, the school board unilaterally imposed a teacher contract for the 2013-14 school year, implementing salary numbers that were partially agreed upon during the talks.
A first-year teacher in the Dickinson public school system with no experience will earn $38,400 this year, according to the unilateral contract. Herauf's decision sided with the DEA's assertion that the board shouldn't be able to unilaterally impose a multi-year contract.
"We won," Geiermann said after Herauf handed down his decision. "There is a tremendous disparity of negotiating power and I think the judge realized that. I think he followed the law."
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Bruner-Kaufman argued that the two sides had been negotiating with a two-year agreement in mind the entire time and said the board could still decide to appeal Monday's decision to North Dakota's highest court.
"Contracts have been issued and accepted for the current school year," Bruner-Kaufman said. "The board will look at Judge Herauf's written decision and make a decision on whether or not to appeal to the North Dakota Supreme Court. As a representative of the board, we are certainly disappointed in the judge's decision. We'll see what the board wants to do because there is no definitive case law on this issue yet."
