THE @THEHURONEMERY
HURON EMERY HURON HIGH SCHOOL, 2727 FULLER RD., ANN ARBOR MI 48105
FEB 2026 VOL. 11, ISSUE 4
Teacher contract expired: reaching for an agreement
SAANVI KULKARNI OPINION EDITOR From Jan. 15 to Jan. 18, Huron’s Model UN (MUN) team attended the Model United Nations at the University of Michigan (MUNUM) Conference. The conference brought together high school students from around the country and world to simulate the workings of the United Nations. Each student is assigned a country to represent alongside a current
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Teachers picketed to inform the community about the expired contract on Feb. 10. The school board sets the budget that the district uses to negotiate with educators.
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district’s own comparison group. Educators encourage the community to prompt district leadership and the BoE to uphold their commitment to repaire the salary schedule, as well as closing the pay gap and invest in retaining the educators students depend on. Working without a contract means the current contract language stays in place but no movement for financials and work conditions can be made. In addition, if a grievance is filed it cannot go to arbitration. “Enough is enough,” Crowley said. “We’re in it for the long haul, until you can show us that you’re meaningfully planning for us.”
enrollment (which brings money into the district), programing that costs money to run, and keeping a helathy fund balance (money to run the schools). Assistant Superintendent for Human Resources Shonta Langford said they have been working to get staff numbers in line. The contract stalemate goes far beyond simple head counts. According to the AAEA, the wage gap for experienced teachers with a master’s degree exceeds $8,000 every year, using the
Teachers are 7:45 a.m working without contract for the first 3:06 p.m Out of time since clubs at Huron Teachers’ PHOTOS BY contractual hours have paid HEMANTH TAVANE advisors AND SALEM DINH
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HURON MODEL UN AT MUNUM CONFERENCE
responsibly, adjust its budget and deliver on its promises to improve teacher pay and retention. According to the AAEA, AAPS leadership’s and Board of Education (BoE) members’ statements have entered recent discussion, suggesting that addressing the educator wage gap is no longer being prioritized as part of that follow-through, without concessions. This school year only teachers who are on steps received their contractual increase. That is about 50% of teachers. What the other half is looking for is support when it comes to increased health care costs and inflation. “Veteran teachers, people who have been here for the longest, won’t see increases, unless money is put onto the salary schedule,” AAEA President Fred Klein said to WEMU) presenting the concerns of many long-serving educators during the recent negotiation process. Key components in balancing the budget are decreasing student
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fter school on Tuesday, Feb. 10, 2026, instead of walking to Meyers Auditorium for a regularly scheduled National Honors Society (NHS) meeting, senior secretary Averil Xu found herself in her home. As of Dec. 31, 2025, Ann Arbor Public Schools (AAPS) educators find themselves working with an expired contract. And as a form of protest, many teachers now do not stay after school. Huron’s NHS club, and many other after school activities, have conditionally been canceled. “While it is sad that NHS is not actively running right now, I think it’s really important that all of our teachers show administration that what they do outside of school hours is just as important,” Xu said. “It should be recognized.” Many teachers’ email signatures outline their hours more carefully, and after-school office hours beyond the contract time have fallen out of practice. This practice is called “work to rule.” Teachers follow their
contractual hours and do not do any “extras.” The idea is, if students and families feel the impact, they will call the district, functioning as a pressure point for contract negotiations to be finalized. “Our teachers contract is like an agreement with the district as to what our working conditions look like, and it’s incredibly powerful when teachers have a say in those conditions,” Ann Arbor Education Association (AAEA) member and Huron teacher Daniel Crowley said. “We have a saying in community organizing: the people closest to the problems are usually closest to the solutions.” The agreement from January 2024 was made with the understanding that the district would use the time to plan
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AMY YANG AND SAANVI KULKARNI OPINION EDITOR AND FEATURE EDITOR
world problem, which they discuss with other countries’ representatives to find common ground. “MUNUM was a very interesting experience,” said freshman Feiyun Chen. “For one, I was overly stressedout when trying to prepare speeches and essays for the conference. Yet when I got there, I discovered it was a much more casual, role-playlike event. There was a lot less debate.” During MUNUM, participants did not only attend conferences, there was an array of different activities to engage in, from the committee sessions themselves to social events organized by staff for delegates.
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“It was largescale, which meant more competition, but it was interesting seeing schools from all over the country and even outside of the U.S.,” sophomore Amy Yang said. “They offered a lot of variety,
and for my specific one it was a historical non-traditional committee about Jonathan Wild. I liked MUNUM for the most part since I got to spend time with my friends, and it was pretty exciting being with so many talented people.”
FEATURE PAGE 3 TEENAGE EATING DISORDERS
SPREAD PAGE 8-9 GLOBAL EDUCATION
The Huron MUN Team at Rackham Auditorium PHOTO COURTESY OF SATVIKA RAMANATHAN
ENTERTAINMENT PAGE 12 STONE GONEIAS MUSIC CAREER