Both the Mars School District and Mars Area Education Association will benefit in the new two-year contract ratified by the school board and teachers union last week.

The outcome was reasonable for both sides, indicating compromise by both.

A contract in which neither side gets all that it wants is generally regarded as a good contract in collective bargaining.

Teachers will get a raise of 3 percent for the current school year and 4.4 percent for 2013-14 — raises above the current inflation rate but not outrageously high when everything in the contract is factored in.

On the flip side, the school district will benefit from increased health care deductibles and the fact that, for the first time, teachers will contribute toward their health care insurance — although not on a level that exists in most businesses and industries today.

“This agreement balances a well-deserved investment in those who positively and directly impact our students with the economic challenges our district continues to face,” said Dayle Ferguson, school board president. “This contract is based on mutual compromise, is fiscally sustainable, and provides much-needed budget stability in an uncertain funding environment.”

Teacher Mark Lewandowski, an education association negotiator, said the contract “enables the district to provide continued financial flexibility in providing educational opportunities for the students.”

In addition, he said the teachers ratified the pact although it places teachers’ average career salaries below the average of all districts in Butler County.

Unfortunately, the district will have only a 14-month respite from contract bargaining, with talks for a new pact covering at least 2014-15 — most likely long-er — beginning in January 2014.

The newly approved pact is a commendable conclusion to a path in which teachers first accepted a pay freeze for the 2011-12 school year, followed by a bargaining stalemate and, eventually, the prospect for a teachers strike.

The breakthrough was achieved after it was decided that all school board members would participate in the talks, not just the designated bargaining team.

The board’s revised bargaining tactic opened the window for progress that might not have been achieved otherwise.

As noted in a previous Butler Eagle editorial about the Mars contract situation, school boards in other districts facing negotiations should take notice of how board members’ direct involvement in the Mars talks avoided an unwanted strike scenario.

But in the end, it was compromise that sealed the deal.

Even with what can be judged as a good contract, some taxpayers might not be happy about parts of the new pact. However, they must acknowledge that they could have been saddled with something much worse if an agreement hadn’t been worked out now.

The same spirit of compromise should be front and center as talks begin again in 14 months.