Contract Forum this Friday, Aug. 28th, 1-3pm on zoom

August 26, 2026

Dear colleagues,

As you know, after 18 months of hard-fought negotiations, we have reached a Tentative Agreement with the District on a contract!  We want to inform our members about the changes and educate faculty about the Tentative Agreement before we likely hold our ratification vote next week, so we’re hosting a Contract Forum this Friday, Aug. 28th, from 1-3pm* on zoom (link: bit.ly/aft1493mm).

*Note: a prior email to faculty said the forum would be 12-2pm Friday, but it will be held from 1-3pm Friday.

In the Contract Forum, Chief Negotiator Monica Malamud and additional members of our Negotiating Team will be providing an overview of the relevant items included in our Tentative Agreement with the District, and we’ll provide time for a question-and-answer period, as well.  In case you missed my email from Tuesday evening, below are most of the relevant gains for faculty in the Tentative Agreement:

  • Raises: 13% raises over 3 years (4%-4%-5%) (2025-26 pay raise will be applied retroactively).
  • Stipends: a one-time payment of $3500 for full-timers employed as of Fall 2026 semester and $1750 for part-timers employed in academic year 2025-26.
  • Health Coverage Increase: Health insurance coverage for two-party and family plans for Kaiser increased to 92% (from 88%)
  • Academic Freedom!
  • Pay Parity for Part-time Instructional Faculty:
    • Achieve Pay Parity at 85% for all part-time instructional faculty starting academic year 2027-28.  This achieves our goal of “equal pay for equal work” and will result in a significant increase in compensation for most of our part-time instructional faculty, on top of the across-the-board raises all faculty will receive in this deal.
    • Pay-by-load beginning Fall 2028 subject to completion of “impacts and effects negotiations” to be complete by May 2027.
  • Increase to Overload Pay: Overload pay increased 2.5% in Year 3
  • Summer Office Hours: Full-time faculty teaching in the summer will be paid for office hours starting Summer 2027
  • Calculus Class Caps: Effective Spring 2027, Math 251 and Math 252 will have class size maximums of 31 students.
  • “Parental Leave” bank of up to 20 days, where faculty members will be able to donate up to 2 of their District-paid personal days to a person taking parental leave.
  • Lab Parity Reopener: the parties will convene a joint committee to review lab assignments Fall 2026, with negotiations on this specific issue starting in Spring 2027.
  • Binding Arbitration for grievances.
  • Personal Necessity Days increased and more flexible: Employees can use up to 6 sick days for Personal Necessity purposes, and 3 PN days can be used without prior approval / subsequent documentation.  District to provide 2 paid personal days to be used for whatever reason.
  • Disability Accommodations: the District must respond to faculty inquiries on the status of their disability accommodation requests within 10 days

Also, a reminder we’ll be hosting a celebration of our Tentative Agreement at Fieldwork Brewing in San Mateo this Friday, August 28, from 4-7pm.  Hope to see you there!

In Solidarity,

Chet Lexvold
Executive Director
San Mateo Community College Federation of Teachers, AFT 1493
lexvold@aft1493.org
(650) 395-8347