The bargaining teams of the Glendale Unified School District (GUSD) and Glendale Teachers Association (GTA) reached a tentative agreement on wages for the 2026-27 school year. The agreement includes an ongoing 2% wage increase effective July 1, 2026, and a 1% one-time payment in November 2026. This is the second consecutive year that the parties have concluded negotiations ahead of the school year. 

The agreement also includes a broad range of updates focused on employee support, instructional practices, early learning, workplace safety and student opportunity. In addition to compensation, GUSD and GTA reached agreement on the following contract items:

• Adjustments to compensation for child development and child care (CDCC) teachers to provide a universal increase in place of a cost-of-living adjustment, funded through the California Dept. of Education Expanded Learning Opportunities Program.  
• New language addressing employee-created instructional materials and the use of artificial intelligence in schools, protecting educator intellectual property rights, ensuring AI systems cannot replace bargaining unit work without agreement and establishing clear guidelines for training, privacy, oversight and instructional use of AI technologies. 
• A clearer set of advancement opportunities for CDCC teachers and head teachers, including new protections for employees who transition into classroom teaching positions.  
• An increase in annual sick leave from 10 to 11 days for counselors.
• An updated workplace safety agreement affirming the District’s commitment to promptly investigate and address reported unsafe conditions while strengthening employee supports related to workplace violence, including paid leave protections following traumatic incidents, documentation procedures and access to legal, mental health and other support resources for affected employees. 
• Revised class size procedures that strengthen collaboration and transparency between site administrators and GTA representatives through regular joint meetings focused on class size, staffing allocations, teacher workload, course preparations and student enrollment data to support equitable classroom distribution and staffing practices. 
• A memorandum of understanding reaffirming the District’s commitment to supporting students and employees impacted by immigration-related matters, including clear protocols for immigration enforcement requests on campuses, employee protections, leave provisions related to immigration and citizenship matters and reinstatement protections for employees whose work authorization is temporarily impacted by changes in federal immigration policy. 
• Expanded dual and concurrent enrollment provisions to strengthen collaboration between high schools and post-secondary partners, increase access and support for GUSD teachers interested in dual enrollment opportunities, improve student support and oversight within college courses offered on high school campuses and enhance transparency, communication and planning related to concurrent and dual enrollment programs. 

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. 

Submitted by GUSD