Oregon Public Broadcasting

Portland Public Schools and its largest teachers’ union have reached a tentative agreement on a new three-year contract. Rob Manning has more.

Details of the tentative contract aren’t public until the members of the Portland Association of Teachers, and the Portland School Board have a chance to review it.

Both the board and teachers need to approve the contract before it can go into effect.

The deal comes just days after the two sides released their “final offers.”

Those showed the district and the union were between $18 and $37 million apart, depending on how many teachers would actually be on the payroll.

The school district declared an “impasse” almost two weeks ago, after nearly two years of contract talks.

“Impasse” meant the district could have implemented its final offer, or the union could have declared a strike, after a cooling-off period.

Both sides said they didn’t want to take those steps, and wanted instead to craft a deal – as they’ve now announced.