by Andrew Alonzo | aalonzo@claremont-courier.com

Last week’s Claremont Unified School District Board of Education meeting included unanimous  approval of a salary agreement with its school employees union.

The board voted unanimously to approve an agreement through June 30, 2026 with Claremont Chapter 200 of the California School Employees Association. The deal includes a retroactive 1% pay increase for accounting clerks, campus monitors, custodians, grounds maintenance crew, and others, for a total cost of $209,904. The district shifted $169,336 from its general fund, $16,290 from its cafeteria fund, $12,949 from its child development fund, $4,440 from its adult education fund, and $6,889 from “other fund balance” to pay for the increase. The parties also inked updated tentative agreements related to compensation, health and welfare benefits, and evaluation procedure.

The board also approved a joint memorandum of understanding with the City of Claremont regarding a school resource officer for the 2025-26 school year. “[T]he District’s compensation to the City … for these services provided shall not exceed $14,017 per full-time equivalent month (or $168,200 per full-time equivalent year),” read the MOU. “During the school year, the District will fund the salary and benefits costs of the SRO for actual days worked while school is in session. The City will fund the remaining salary, benefits, overtime costs, and all equipment costs.”

The board heard a research proposal, “Claremont High Constructive Dialogue Program Phase 1,” by Piyush Prakash, director of research and evaluation at Claremont McKenna College’s Open Academy. “The project consists of two phases,” the agenda item read. “In Phase 1 (Fall 2025), we will conduct (a) a listening tour to gather information on existing dialogue initiatives in the school and (b) a one-day design workshop (informed by the listening tour) to brainstorm potential interventions for the proposed program. In Phase 2, we will (a) co-design the program based on the inputs from Phase 1 in Fall 2025 and (b) implement the program in Spring 2026 as an action research project to evaluate its impact and explore scaling opportunities within CUSD.”

The board also heard 2025-26 student achievement reports from Oakmont Outdoor and Condit Elementary schools.

View the agenda at cusd-claremont.community.highbond.com.

The next Claremont Unified School District Board of Education meeting is set for 6 p.m. Thursday, October 23 at the Kirkendall Center, 170 W. San Jose Ave., Claremont.