No raises were included for employees in a pair of two-year labor agreements adopted Monday night by the Suttons Bay Board of Education.

The board voted 4-1, with trustee John Zackman opposed, to approve a contract with the Suttons Bay Education Association.

“I usually don’t like to go with multi-year contracts,” Superintendent Mike Murray explained. “But given the current economic situation and our other (financial) needs, I thought it was all right to do it with the zero percent increase.”

The 54-member teachers’ union ratified the contract earlier in the day.

“They understood our financial situation and went into negotiations not with an adversarial position but one of problem-solving and cooperation,” Murray said, adding that the contract would likely not have the support of the larger Michigan Education Association, the statewide organization of which Suttons Bay teachers are also members. “The attitude here is that we’re all in this together, that’s the approach that was used.”

Murray said that the union and administration now will work to establish details for how teacher evaluations will be affected by changes in state law enacted earlier this year in pursuit of federal “Race to the Top” funds.

Also adopted by the board was a 2-year agreement for the six-member Suttons Bay Early Childhood Educators (SBECE) group.

No raises were included in the agreement, which largely followed what was adopted by the teachers’ union. A provision was included in the agreement that designates one SBECE member to attend the teachers’ monthly staff meeting and for Professional Learning Communities to provide consistencies in skill development from pre-school through elementary grades.

In other business during the regular monthly meeting, the board:

• Forwarded a lengthy list of questions being put to the Friends of the Leelanau Montessori, which is using a state planning grant to explore establishing a charter school that would have to be authorized by the local school district.

• Adopted changes to the high school student handbook reflecting the district’s seat waiver, which allows credit recovery and retention through online classes.

• Approved an application to Rotary Charities for a $50,000 grant to blend online and traditional math programs, including the purchase of a new math book series.