While changes in the state’s collective bargaining law may have caused some negativity among Iowans, others are thankful for interest based, or integrative bargaining.

The Mid-Prairie School District had their first interest-based bargaining meeting of the year December 11. During the public forum, teacher and Mid-Prairie Education Association President Marnett Meier thanked the board for supporting district students and staff, and said she is thankful for the district’s interest-based bargaining efforts.

Superintendent Mark Schneider explains interest-based bargaining, “Some call it win-win bargaining where you don’t start with positions but you start with interests or you start with, ‘What are the problems?’ You don’t come at it with, ‘Well my side wants this and my side wants that.’ You basically, altogether as a team, look at the problem and you generate possible solutions to that problem.”

As the process has begun for the 2018-2019 fiscal year, the Mid-Prairie teachers have agreed to a zero percent increase in salary this year.