The ConnCAN Teacher and Administrator Contract Database is a comprehensive collection of the state’s collective bargaining agreements, or contracts, for teachers and school administrators from throughout the state. This database presents information about terms and conditions of employment and overall statewide trends found in the contracts.
These contracts are negotiated at various times throughout the year, and generally run for a three-year period. Approximately ⅓ of the state’s teacher contracts are up for negotiation annually. As contracts are renegotiated, we will update this database accordingly. For a list of contracts currently under negotiation, please visit this resource from the Connecticut State Department of Education.
By highlighting important public information, we hope this database will help facilitate effective local and statewide decision-making. Boards of education, local policymakers, union members, and the public can use this information to compare their local contract to others, as well as to improve contract negotiations and advocate for school improvements.
Why create a teacher contract database?
ConnCAN created this Teacher Contract Database to provide free, public access to teacher collective bargaining agreements for every single public school district in Connecticut that has them. We also publish analysis of the trends found in these agreements. Teacher contracts help shape local district education policy. As such, we believe that providing access to this information in a user-friendly, web-based form will be an essential tool to inform the public dialogue on district-level policy change.
Although Connecticut teacher collective bargaining agreements are subject to public disclosure under state law, accessing these agreements has not always been transparent or easy. In 2007, the National Council on Teacher Quality (NCTQ) created the first national teacher contract database for select cities, including New Haven and Hartford. NCTQ’S Teacher Contract Database includes reviews of key contract provisions, frequently asked questions, and nationwide comparisons. Some states’ departments of education provide links to and information about contracts within the state. NCTQ’s national database and the absence of such a resource in Connecticut inspired ConnCAN to develop this database.
Since the first release in 2012, ConnCAN’s Teacher and Administrator Contract Database has been recognized in various ways. Organizations have cited the database on their website or in their publications, such as Trinity College in Hartford, CT, and the Reform Support Network, which contracts with the U.S. Department of Education. Other agencies have reached out to ConnCAN for more information about the database and how it was developed for potential replication in their respective states or regions. One such organization, the Chalkboard Project, released the Oregon Teacher Contract Database in 2013. These requests for information highlight the demand for the increased availability of information about teacher and administrator contracts locally and nationally.
What’s included in the ConnCAN Teacher Contract Database?
ConnCAN’s Teacher Contract Database provides unprecedented access to teachers' contracts from Connecticut’s public school districts. Users can access a variety of research tools, which allow users to:
- Create customized Advanced Search of key contract provisions
- Compare district-to-district contract information
- Explore Statewide Trends through interactive, printable graphs of statewide trends of notable contract content or downloadable analysis documents
- Download PDFs of each district’s contracts and salary schedules
- Learn more about contract negotiation in Connecticut or about the ConnCAN Teacher Contract Database Methodology
For each contract, we present information on various topics, including but not limited to:
- District size and grades served
- Contract expiration date and union affiliation (CEA or AFT)
- Work day, work year, and planning/preparation time
- Class size limits
- Salary
- Additional compensation (including performance bonuses, extra duty for extra pay, etc.)
- Benefits (sick leave, personal leave, professional development, etc.)
- Insurance
- Layoff and transfer procedures
- Evaluations
Additional information about the project and collective bargaining in Connecticut can be found by clicking on the links at the top of this page. For answers to more frequently asked questions about this database and its content, please see our Frequently Asked Questions section.