The Blue Ridge School District and its teachers' union has a four-year contract.

This was the first negotiation for Superintendent Dr. Hillary Stanifer and she believes things went very well after having a contentious negotiation the last time around.

Dr. Stanifer felt the process was very smooth as representatives from both sides met daily for about a week. At the end of the process, she joked about getting a 90-percent favorable vote and they got nearly 95-percent.

According to Dr. Stanifer, there were not very many contentious sticking points in the contract and uniquely the latest contract is a four-year contract.

Dr. Stanifer calls the scheduled raises for staff 'significant' as they looked at inflation and tried to account for those things in the contract.