BUFFALO, N.Y. -- Buffalo Teachers Federation President Phil Rumore says he sees Tuesday's meeting with negotiators from Buffalo Public Schools as a step backward when trying to put together a deal for the first time since 2004.

The proposal calls for a 12.5 percent salary increase for the upcoming school year, and an additional 3.5 percent increase in each of the following 3 years.

In return, the school day would be made 50 minutes longer, teachers would be required to work four extra days, sick time and personal days would be reduced and the district would reduce its coverage of health insurance premiums from 100 percent to 80 percent.

Rumore says these proposals do not help children in the district; they just hurt the teachers.

“If you really want to improve education for our kids, you're going to talk about having smaller class sizes, you're going to talk about having more reading teachers, math teachers, ESL teachers, English language teachers for our kids,” Rumore said. “You want to have guidance, attendance, you want to have all of these support services."

Meanwhile, BPS Chief Negotiator Terry O’Neil says the additional time with students provided in this proposal could prove essential in turning around the district and avoiding a state takeover.

"Right now, we have one of the shorter work days and one of the shorter work years around, and we're not at the top of the list of performing districts, so we think we need some of the contributions from the teachers in turn for their time," O’Neil said.

Rumore says he doesn't believe teachers' contracts have anything to do with a school's performance.

"The same contract that's in place at City Honors and all the schools that supposedly, according to test scores, are performing better, so don't tell me it's the contract," Rumore said.

O'Neil says this plan has unanimous support from the Buffalo Board of Education. The two sides are scheduled to meet again on June 24, but Rumore says that could be delayed.

"Based on this, it looks like we'll be filing another improper practice against the district for bargaining in bad faith," Rumore said.

O'Neil says he will wait to make his next step until he finds out if the BTF follows through on the lawsuit, but he says the BTF's unsuccessful lawsuit against the Control Board is one of the contributing factors that has kept the teachers without a contract for the past 11 years.