The Columbus Education Association “overwhelmingly” ratified a two-year agreement on pay and other concerns, but “educators are not celebrating,” the teachers’ union said.
Columbus Education Association members voted at a May 12 meeting to approve the conceptual agreement that union and Columbus City Schools negotiators agreed to in late April. The union – which represents nearly 5,000 CCS teachers, librarians and other faculty – said in a statement that the agreement will cover the 2026-2027 and 2027-2028 school years.
Specific details of the agreement were not immediately available but contained “language on scheduling, compensation, planning time, leaves, and other critical issues for students and educators,” according to the CEA statement.
With CEA members’ approval of the agreement, the CCS Board of Education will vote to ratify the agreement at its May 19 meeting, the district said in a statement.
“We are pleased to be ending this school year strong with our seniors preparing to graduate and with the Columbus Education Association voting to ratify their contract for our teachers,” Columbus City Schools Superintendent Angela Chapman said in a prepared release.
CEA leadership said they appreciated the work of both bargaining teams in reaching the agreement, specifically commending Board of Education President Antoinette Miranda “for taking such an active role in the negotiation process,” the statement said.
In 2025, the district and CEA agreed to a new three-year contract. However, the approved contract included a 2.25% raise for the first year. Raises in the 2026-2027 and 2027-2028 school years would be subject to further negotiations between the union and the district.
In addition to the 2025 raises, CEA members also secured new caseload language for the number of special education students and English-language learners assigned to an instructor, and school safety improvements.
While the union is happy to have an agreement in place, Eastmoor Academy teacher and CEA spokesperson Regina Fuentes said in a statement that educators have other issues to address, particularly with local and state politicians.
“I want to stress tonight that while we are pleased to have successfully concluded this process, Columbus City Schools educators are not celebrating,” Fuentes said.
CEA contract negotiations took place amid an ongoing budget crisis in the district. In late 2025, the district approved $50 million in cuts, including teaching positions, and is expected to have to make significant additional cuts to address budget challenges.
Fuentes said that the Ohio General Assembly “continues to fail to uphold their constitutional duty to properly fund public schools.”
“When we begin the next school year, our students will have reduced resources, less services, and fewer educators to help them grow and learn. We will lose hundreds of our talented colleagues,” she said. “This is not an accident. These are policy choices.”
Fuentes also took issue with the speed at which Columbus City Council and Franklin County Commissioners approved a combined $50 million and the city turned over McCoy Park in an effort to secure a professional women’s soccer team. Use of McCoy Park has drawn backlash from some Southwest Side residents, who were promised a renovated park that would have been upgraded by early 2027.
“Our students continue to suffer as politicians cater to the needs of the wealthy over our communities, and we are well aware of the work in front of us to turn that around,” Fuentes said.
The CEA went on strike for three days in August 2022, securing air conditioning in all schools and smaller class sizes. It was the union’s first strike in 47 years since a five-day strike in 1975.
Higher education reporter Sheridan Hendrix can be reached at shendrix@dispatch.com and on Signal at @sheridan.120. You can follow her on Instagram at @sheridanwrites.
This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: Columbus teachers union ratifies two-year agreement, but educators are ‘not celebrating’
Reporting by Sheridan Hendrix, Columbus Dispatch / The Columbus Dispatch
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