On Wednesday, March 29, 2017, the District and Hemet Teachers Association (HTA) reached an impasse in negotiations concerning Article 9 (Salaries). This means that despite their best efforts, the parties were not able to reach an agreement on these articles.
Impasse is essentially an extension of the negotiations process, with the assistance of third parties. For example, the first stage of the impasse process is mediation. The parties have agreed on a mediator to assist the parties in the coming months. The District is hopeful that we will be able to complete negotiations during mediation, but we will keep you informed if we go beyond this stage.
Mediation does not necessarily mean that personal relationships among the teams have broken down. In fact, the overall tenor of negotiations has been professional and collaborative, and we do not expect this to change merely because the parties have entered a different stage of negotiations.
We will keep you informed as the process unfolds, and we look forward to reaching agreement with HTA.