Baltimore County teachers union ratifies new pay agreement, vows to fight
Racquel Bazos
The Baltimore Sun
July 30, 2025
The union representing Baltimore County Public Schools teachers voted Tuesday to ratify a new contract with the district after reviewing this month’s impasse-breaking tentative agreement.
A contentious budget season for the school district led it to renegotiate its contracts with all five of its employee unions. Though the district’s four other unions agreed to delay pay increases before the end of the school year, the teachers’ union held out and began extended negotiations with the school system.
Members of the Teacher’s Association of Baltimore County, or TABCO, voted on the agreement between last Friday and Tuesday. However, few were fully satisfied with the deal, according to the union.
“While support for the tentative agreement was overwhelming, so was member disappointment,” the union said in a statement Wednesday.
The deal that TABCO agreed to earlier this month provides a 1% cost-of-living adjustment for all union members on Sept. 20.
On Jan. 1, union members not at the top of the pay scale will move up a step and get the value of a second step through a compression, the union said in a statement Wednesday.
Additionally, the statement said the day before Thanksgiving will be a half-remote professional development day and a half-day off. One existing professional development day will be made remote.
All told, the union says the deal represents a 3.05% compensation increase, about 2 percentage points less than the 5% bump their original agreement provided. This contrasts with a school district statement last week announcing that all five unions are receiving an average increase of 5%.
The union asked its members to “confirm or deny” a statement which read: “‘I’m frustrated and angry at county and school system leadership for not fulfilling the terms of the three-year agreement and I’m ready to take action!’”
Responses to this question were higher than the affirmative votes received for ratification, the union said.
“We are not done,” union president Cindy Sexton said in the statement. “The third year of the contract is still there, in black and white. For our students, our families, and our profession, we’re ready to fight for what we’ve been promised.”
The other four unions’ memoranda of understanding with the district delayed third-year compensation agreements to Jan. 1, 2027. TABCO’s agreement was not available online Wednesday morning, but Sexton said its third-year increases are still scheduled to come on July 1, 2026.