Third Year, Same Fight: Kalamazoo Teachers, a $42 Million Reserve, and a Contract Nobody Can Close

Kalamazoo teachers are in their third straight school year without a contract. The district says the money is not there. It holds $42 million in reserve, its top six administrators earn more than $1.1 million in base pay, and a federal civil rights complaint now targets the same contract.

This Morning

I have no personal connection to Kalamazoo Public Schools. I am writing about this because of what I saw in my feed before 10 a.m.: parents and kids standing on wet grass outside Kalamazoo schools holding hand-lettered signs for their teachers, in November, before the bell.

The post came from Our Schools Our Kids, a parent group organized by KPS parent Tim Nendorf. It thanked the families who turned out and asked everyone else to do something: spread the word, email the school board asking for a fair contract, show up at their own school with a sign. He signed it for our schools and our kids.

That is the third kind of pressure this fall. First came teachers at the podium. Then teachers on the picket line. Now parents on the sidewalk. Here is what they are pushing against, and what the record shows about each side’s numbers.

Three Years, Same Calendar

Start with the part neither side disputes. KEA President Heather Reid told WKZO this is the third year in a row teachers have opened the school year without a contract. WKZO confirmed the same pattern when the two sides agreed to mediation on October 8.

Last year’s deal did not land until October 29, 2025, when the board unanimously approved a one-year agreement: a 2.29 percent base increase, another 1.71 percent generated through other changes to the contract, a step on the salary schedule, and a $650 planning stipend extended to all members. At that meeting, Trustee Juanita Payton told colleagues she was glad they could give the raise, “although we all know they deserved much more than we were able to give them.”

One-year deals settled in late fall mean the next round starts almost as soon as the ink dries. That is how a district ends up bargaining the same contract every year, in public, while teachers wait to see what they will be paid for work they are already doing. The union has asked for a multi-year agreement. Nothing in the public record shows the district has offered one.

By early October, Reid was blunt. “We’re struggling,” she told Know Your Neighbor after the October 8 board meeting, where teachers filled the room. The same night, trustees ratified a contract with the district’s support staff. The teachers’ contract went to a mediator instead.

The $42 Million Question

Every contract fight in a district with money in the bank comes down to the same argument, and this one is no different. Speakers at the November 5 meeting pointed to the fund balance when making their case for raises. WKZO reported that there have been suggestions the district use its $42 million rainy day fund to cover cost-of-living increases.

The district’s answer came from the top. Slade described the fund balance as a safety net that helps KPS avoid layoffs, program cuts, and short-term borrowing. Harrison said a large fund balance should not be treated as unrestricted money for ongoing expenses. WKZO described Slade’s explanation of why tapping the reserve would be a bad idea as lengthy.

The district’s point has real weight. A raise is a permanent cost. A reserve is one-time money. Spend reserves on salaries and the bill comes back next year, without the reserve. The audit also shows the balance is shrinking, from about 20.2 percent to 19.73 percent, which the auditor attributed to the end of federal pandemic relief money. WKZO reported that the KPS fund balance is already smaller than the average for Michigan schools.

But the reserve is not the only number in the room. The same audit found that actual spending came in very close to the final budget, closer than the 1 to 2 percent variance the auditor said districts typically see. A district that budgets that tightly knows where its money goes. That makes the question sharper, not softer: if the money for a raise that keeps pace with inflation is not in the reserve, where is the district proposing it come from, and if the answer is nowhere, why has the public not seen that math laid out line by line?

The Salary Numbers Fight

The district’s case on pay is that its teachers are already well paid. When mediation began, Slade told WKZO that KPS offers the highest salaries in the county, if not the state, and that 42 percent of its teachers make over $90,000 and another 18 percent over $80,000. WKZO noted those figures are above the Kalamazoo average for a full year’s work, which it put at just over $62,000. The district posted a projected breakdown of 2026-27 teacher salaries by range on its website.

Teachers and parents pushed back at the November 5 meeting. Their objection, as reported by WKZO and Public Media Network, was not that the numbers were invented but that they do not reflect the work teachers actually do, and some speakers questioned how the district’s salary comparisons were presented.

The district’s own records help explain the gap. KPS job postings list the KEA salary schedule at $47,599 to $93,010. That is a range of nearly $45,500 between a new teacher and one at the top of the scale. A projection that 60 percent of teachers earn over $80,000 is a statement about a veteran workforce near the top of that schedule. It says nothing about what a new teacher in Kalamazoo is paid, or how long it takes to climb, or how many teachers leave before they get there. Reid has said publicly that KPS has lost teachers over pay. The district’s projection also does not show what portion of those totals comes from extra duty, stipends, or summer work rather than base pay.

Who Sits at the Top of the Salary Report

Michigan districts must post compensation for every employee paid over $100,000. The KPS report for calendar year 2025 lists 85 positions. The six central administration positions at the top carry these base salaries:

Those are base salaries only. The report lists health and other benefits separately, so total compensation for each position is higher. The teachers who appear on the same report are listed at a base of $90,671.20. The superintendent’s base salary is about three times that.

When the district tells teachers the money is not there, it says so from inside a central office whose six top base salaries alone exceed $1.1 million. Teachers have now waited three years in a row for a contract. The public has not been told whether central office compensation was part of the same conversation.

The State Funding Wall

Trustees have been unusually open about their frustration, and their argument deserves its own hearing. WKZO reported that trustees Carol McGlinn and Karla Murphy said they want a contract but have little control over how much money the district has, and that the only alternative would be taking it from somewhere else in the budget. McGlinn said she believes teachers are underpaid and that the funding problem has to be fixed at the state level. Murphy urged residents to contact state and federal legislators.

That is not wrong. Michigan school districts live on a per-pupil foundation allowance set in Lansing, and this year’s increase did not keep pace with inflation, according to WKZO.

But the state funding argument has a limit. It explains why there is not more money. It does not explain why the district settles late every year, why it bargains one year at a time, or why families have to piece the district’s position together from a scanned PDF and a radio interview. Those are local choices.

The Other Fight Over the Same Contract

While the district and the union argue over pay, a second challenge to the same contract is sitting at the U.S. Department of Education.

On October 15, 2026, Defending Education, a national advocacy group formerly known as Parents Defending Education, filed a complaint with the department’s Office for Civil Rights against Kalamazoo Public Schools. The complaint targets a letter of agreement in the KPS and KEA contract titled Staffing for Racial Balance. It alleges violations of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which bars race discrimination in programs that receive federal money, and of the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment.

Sarah Parshall Perry, the group’s vice president and senior legal fellow, told The Center Square that the agreement “sets a mathematical range of teachers of color each building must hit, plans teacher assignments around that range, and overrides seniority to get there.” The group asked the department to investigate, remedy any unlawful practices, and order relief. The Department of Education told The Center Square it does not confirm complaints.

Some context the complaint does not lead with. The Staffing for Racial Balance letter is not new. It appears in KPS and KEA agreements archived from at least 2011 and 2012, and those versions also state that no KEA member will be involuntarily transferred to satisfy balancing by race or gender. Districts and unions have used provisions like it for years to recruit and keep teachers of color. Defending Education has filed similar complaints against districts across the country, and in at least one case, Chicago Public Schools in 2025, the Office for Civil Rights opened an investigation based on its filing. Clutch Justice found no public response from KPS or the KEA to the Kalamazoo complaint.

The complaint matters to the bargaining fight for a practical reason. The letter of agreement is part of the contract the two sides are trying to finish right now. Any federal action on it would land on a contract that is already late, and on a district and union that are already struggling to agree on pay.

What Parents Are Asking For

The parents outside schools this morning are not asking for anything complicated. Our Schools Our Kids describes itself as a parent-led effort to strengthen KPS. Its ask to families is concrete: email the board, ask for a fair contract that provides economic security and supports classroom excellence, and show up.

When Clutch Justice reached out, Nendorf answered within the hour and laid out what the group needs now. He wants to build a data team to pull apart test scores, school budgets, state budgets, and federal grant programs. He wants organizing tools to gather community input and coordinate action. And he wants meeting spaces around the city where families can come together in person, agree on values, and build plans that move institutions and governments to better support schools, teachers, and kids. As he put it, in this effort the public is us, and we are the public.

His pitch to the rest of Kalamazoo is short: “With our community’s collective voice, ideas, and actions we can build a stronger Kalamazoo Public Schools district for all of our children. It starts by simply raising your hand and saying ‘I care. I’m in.'”

That data team is worth noticing. The fight over KPS pay is a fight over numbers: the reserve, the salary projections, the central office, the state foundation allowance. Right now the district controls how most of those numbers are presented. A parent group that can read a budget and an audit on its own changes that.

The teachers’ requests, as speakers described them to the board on November 5, line up: pay that keeps pace with inflation, a multi-year agreement, smaller classes, more instructional support, and a quick settlement. None of those requests is unusual. A multi-year agreement in particular would give the district something too: three years without doing this again.

Why This Matters Beyond Kalamazoo

I cover courts, prosecutors, and institutions that would rather not be watched. A school district bargaining with its teachers belongs on that list for one reason. The institution controls the calendar, the numbers, and the closed session. Teachers control almost nothing except whether they stay.

Here is what I notice. The district has done several things well. Its books are clean. It posted its offer. Its trustees have been honest in public about the limits they face. And still, for the third year in a row, the people who teach Kalamazoo’s kids started the year not knowing what they would be paid.

Sound finances are not a reason to stop asking questions. They are a reason the questions should be easy to answer. What would a multi-year deal at the rate of inflation cost? What would it require cutting? Was central office compensation on the table? And when will Kalamazoo families stop seeing this story every fall?

The parents with signs this morning are asking the same thing in fewer words. They want the people in their kids’ classrooms to have a contract. So do I.

How to Make Your Voice Heard

The next regular meeting of the KPS Board of Education is Thursday, November 19, 2026, at 7 p.m. in the Boardroom of the Administration Building, 1220 Howard Street, Kalamazoo. The meeting after that is Thursday, December 10. Both are open to the public and stream live on Public Media Network’s PMN 5.

Anyone can speak during public comment. Under board policy, speakers sign in before the public comment period closes with their name, the school district they live in, and their connection to KPS. Each speaker gets three minutes. If everyone who signed in has not spoken after 30 minutes, public comment pauses and resumes before the meeting adjourns, so stay. Bring a written copy of your remarks to hand to the board. Speakers cannot discuss individual students or personnel matters at the podium, but can submit them in writing.

Can’t make it? Email the full board. The secretary answers board email or forwards it to the right staff member, and messages received by midnight Tuesday, November 17 go into the correspondence log for the November 19 meeting. Anything later lands in the next meeting’s log.

If you have skills with spreadsheets, budgets, organizing, or a space where neighbors can meet, Our Schools Our Kids is asking for exactly that. What to say at the podium is up to you, but specific beats general. Tell the board who you are and how long your family has been in the district. Ask for a multi-year agreement, ask the district to publish what a raise at the rate of inflation would cost, and ask when teachers will have a contract. If you are a teacher, tell them what working without one has cost you. Trustees have said the funding problem runs through Lansing, so send the same message to your state representative and senator.