Going into the fourth day of canceled lessons and academics’ picket traces in Haverhill, contract bargaining is “on the one yard line,” negotiators stated late Wednesday evening.
Haverhill academics have been on strike since Monday to push for a big modifications to their contract. Though talks continued for practically eight hours Wednesday, negotiators weren’t fairly capable of get children again in lecture rooms Thursday.
“The headline tonight is that the Haverhill School Committee has accepted the union’s financial proposal, which totals approximately $25 million dollars,” Scott Wood, Haverhill School Committee chair of the negotiation, stated Wednesday evening. “We believe this contract will put behavioral teachers on par with teachers in similar urban school districts.”
Teachers had been out celebrating on Thursday’s picket line, HEA Vice President Barry Davis stated.
“It’s a large increase,” Davis stated of the monetary settlement. “It starts to fix starts to fix the $10,000 gap. It doesn’t close it, but it starts to start to improve the conditions in Haverhill.”
Going into the strike, Haverhill academics argued they’re paid effectively under the median trainer pay for the state and the low pay is costing the district academics.
There are at present 76 open positions listed on the Haverhill School District web site.
In 2019-20, Haverhill academics had been paid a mean of $74,287. In the district with the bottom pay, Petersham, academics made a mean of $39,246. At the other finish, academics in Concord-Carlisle made on common $110,665.
The monetary facet was maybe the negotiation’s largest hurdle, however either side had been nonetheless preventing to stay the touchdown Thursday.
One of the biggest continued points was language associated to reporting programs. The HEA is in search of a “working group” to facilitate kinds and communication channels to inform academics when there may be an incident that pertains to their work.
“Teachers and students are constantly hurt by other students, and the current administration doesn’t hold people accountable,” stated Davis. “There’s instances where students are experienced trauma or hurt, and we could have helped them, but we weren’t able to help them because the communication broke down. And we just want to keep our kids safe.”
Wood stated the committee was involved concerning the concern in relation to “student privacy laws.”
Negotiators reconvened at 10 a.m. Thursday and have continued into the afternoon.
In the meantime, academics and the group are spending the day rallying on Main Street exterior of metropolis corridor.
“People are in high spirits,” Davis stated. “I’ve never seen or heard of a picket line that on the fourth day has this much energy.”
Both sides stated they’re “hopeful” children will likely be again in lecture rooms Friday.
Source: www.bostonherald.com”