On the day before Minneapolis educators were set to strike, the union and Minneapolis Public Schools signed a tentative agreement that both sides praised as a win for students, educators and the district. 

The deal came after a breakthrough in negotiations over the weekend following months of back and forth. Amid the stalemate, late last month the Minneapolis Federation of Educators overwhelmingly approved a strike to start Tuesday. 

The proposal includes a 38-student cap for middle and high school classrooms and a 2% pay increase for teachers this school year and another next year. Education support professionals will get lump-sum payments between $750 and $1,750 this year with a 3% pay increase for next year. They will also receive 14 days of full pay for days school is not in session, like winter and spring breaks.

Adult education teachers will get pay parity for an increase as high as 30%. 

"We realize that we have a lot more in common in our vision, in our values, in our way of thinking about the funds, about our students, about the staff, about our vision for the future of Minneapolis Public Schools," said Marcia Howard, teacher chapter president for Minneapolis Federation of Teachers, at a joint news conference with district leaders Monday. "That's when we started cooking with gas, y'all. That's when we started actually getting things done."

The union will vote to ratify later this week and then it goes to the school board before it's official. Union leaders told reporters Monday that teachers are excited about the terms of the agreement. 

Minneapolis Public Schools in a statement Saturday when they closed negotiations praised the deal as a way to honor the requests of staff while balancing "the fiscal realities our district is facing."

The district faced a $75 million budget shortfall this school year, prompting the elimination of 400 positions. It is staring down an additional $20.5 million funding gap next year, too.

"We wanted to make sure that we didn't make that grow expansively, and then we're just really honest with our negotiators," said Dr. Lisa Sayles-Adams, superintendent of Minneapolis Public Schools. "We showed them our five-year projection. This is what we have, and these are the resources that we have that are available."

She added that the contract is a "victory for our students, our schools, our community and our staff."

In a statement to WCCO on Monday night, a spokesperson for the district said the entire package of proposals will cost $35 million, is "within the school board's authorized negotiation parameters" and is projected to be within the budget assumptions for the duration of the two-year contract.  

Howard acknowledged the process took longer than teachers had hoped when they started bargaining in the spring. But both sides said going forward, they hope to maintain that collaboration. 

"We will start breaking the past practices of being adversarial toward one another and building better relationships so that we could get these contracts done for our students and staff a little bit more faster, easier and smoother," said Catina Taylor, educational support professional chapter president for MFE. 

Minneapolis teachers previously went on strike in 2022, which prompted students to miss nearly three school weeks of classes and delayed the start of summer vacation to make up for the lost time. 

Before that, it had been 50 years since the last teachers' strike in the state's second-largest school district.