PROVIDENCE — The Providence Teachers Union quietly ratified a new one-year contract extension with the state Thursday night, agreeing to extend the length of the school day by 30 minutes as part of an ongoing effort to recover from pandemic-related learning loss.
The contract had not been publicly disclosed prior to being ratified by the union. The current three-year contract was not scheduled to expire until Aug. 31.
Education Commissioner Angélica Infante-Green confirmed the contract extends the length of the school day by 30 minutes at every Providence school for the upcoming school year. She said the deal also includes additional professional development for teachers.
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A news release by the Providence Public School Department Thursday night said elementary school students would now receive six hours and 45 minutes of daily instruction, while middle and high school students would get seven hours and 15 minutes each day.
In addition to paying the teachers to work the additional time, the new contract gives the teachers a 2.5 percent cost-of-living raise on top of previously planned wage increases, according to district spokesperson Jay Wegimont. Another raise of .75 percent is slated for the end of the contract.
The longer school day and extra professional development is currently only scheduled to last one school year. The contract extension goes from from Sept. 1 to Aug. 31.
A copy of the new contract was not immediately available.
The contract deal was kept under wraps until after it was ratified, a surprising turn of events amid a state takeover in which the union and state leaders have had multiple contentious and public battles.
Providence Teachers Union President Maribeth Calabro said the vote was 56 percent to 44 percent among the membership of the union to ratify the contract, according to an unofficial tally, closer than a typical contract vote.
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“This agreement is a testament to the power of collaboration and the collective belief in our students’ ability to achieve academic success in the wake of the pandemic,” Calabro said in a statement in the district’s news release.
Infante-Green said Providence would be the first Rhode Island district to use COVID relief funds to extend the length of the school day.
“This major investment in extending learning time, and connecting educators to critical resources and training prioritizes the best interests of all our stakeholders and will help improve academic outcomes,” Infante-Green said.
Wegimont said nearly $25 million in COVID relief funds would be used to pay employees to work the extra half hour. He did not immediately detail the total price tag of the new contract, including the cost-of-living raises.
Providence School Board President Erlin Rogel said he was notified about the existence of the negotiations, but the board has not been provided with a copy of the agreed-upon contract.
“Providence school board leadership was notified that negotiations would take place this month on a one-year extension,” Rogel said. “We have requested a briefing of these new terms at our June school board meeting.”
District leaders have long been toying with the idea of extending the length of the school day in order to make up for learning loss during the pandemic, which particularly affected urban districts like Providence.
The concept has been brought up multiple times as a potential way to use the millions in unspent COVID relief funds, but it needed to be negotiated with the union because the teachers’ work hours are set by the contract.
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The Providence Teachers Union contract has been one of the most-discussed elements of the state takeover of the Providence school system, with both state and city leaders arguing for years that it needed to be drastically changed in order to improve the struggling city schools.
Governor Dan McKee’s administration reached a new three-year contract with the union in 2021, prompting outrage from some officials because the multimillion dollar agreement was not made public until after it was final. Typically, public-sector labor contracts are vetted publicly before approval, a practice that has not occurred under the state takeover of the school district.
“With wage increases, additional professional development time, and an unprecedented extension of the school day, this agreement will move Providence Public Schools forward,” McKee said of the new contract.
This story has been updated.
Steph Machado can be reached at steph.machado@globe.com. Follow her on Twitter @StephMachado.