I just received the following update from the school committee and mayor:
Dear Families:
As announced last week, the School Committee negotiating team, in collaboration with the Mayor’s Office, reached a tentative agreement with the Newton Teachers Association.
Our agreement reflects how much we value every educator in Newton and their contribution to making Newton Public Schools such a wonderful place for all our children.
On Monday, December 16, the union is meeting to vote on the contract. If ratified, the School Committee will also vote at our regularly scheduled meeting later that evening. Once the contracts are ratified, copies may be found on the NPS website.
Given that we are well into the 2019/2020 school year, the tentative agreement reflects a one-year retroactive contract for the current year, followed by a three-year contract from September 1, 2020 – August 31, 2023.
Here are some highlights:
- Cost of Living Adjustment (COLA):
- Current year top step: 2.75%
- Current year non-top step: 2.50%
- 3-year contract (total)
- Top step: 9.0%
- Non-top step: 7.75%
(Teachers receive automatic increases in their wages, known as “steps,” until they reach a specific year of service, called “top step.” These “steps” are in addition to the negotiated COLA.)
- Starting salary increases for new teachers and educational support staff (approximate increase of 4%)
- New stipends for middle school content leaders and cultural exploration coordinators and assistant coordinators
- Slight increase of $5 in health insurance co-pay for primary care and specialist visits. Significant decrease in co-pays for more convenient care options like “minute clinic” and “urgent care”
- Changes to parental leave policy that treats parents of all genders equally
- Hour, wage, and protection increases for educational support professionals
- Longevity payment increase of 10% for faculty with more than ten years in Newton
- Injury protection benefits for the rare occasion that educators sustain serious injury while on the job
Our goal with this contract is to continue to attract, inspire and retain terrific educators.
We look forward to the rest of the school year and wish you all joyful holidays.
Sincerely,
The Newton School Committee
Mayor Ruthanne Fuller
Congrats! Can someone tell us where this puts Newton teachers relative to other communities? And can someone tell us the annual budget increase and how that relates to the Mayor’s previously announced allocations to the school department?
Hmm, an odd silence in response.
Ironic Paul, because your questions are precisely the two that would be helpful to have answered.
I thought so, too, as they were the major two issues that people talked about during these many months. Now, radio silence on both.
Right now NTA and the city are very busy. No one’s sitting around reading V14. The Memorandum of Agreement is in process, the teachers and staff are in meetings to learn about the various aspects of the contract so they can cast an informed vote at the ratification meeting, and I just got home from the third day of picking up 250 signs – 450 locations left to go – will be out again tomorrow. And you want an immediate answer to two complex questions?
C’mon, Paul, give us a break. This has been a long, trying process and we want to wrap this thing up as soon as possible and move on. That’s our first priority for the next two weeks.
Jane, your snarky response to Paul’s original question is a complete cop-out. If you or the city don’t know the answers to these questions, especially the second one, then I really wonder from what basis there was any negotiation. On the surface it seems the city simply caved. What exactly did the NTA give up to achieve this result? What’s this going to cost the taxpayers? The is bad optics for the SC and mayor.
Thanks, @John. I wasn’t asking for a detailed analysis, just a simple summary of these two dominant issues. Both sides certainly know the answers.
John – I don’t typically respond to anonymous posters, but it appears my point was missed so I will say it very clearly: the two complex questions deserve thorough answers in an appropriate setting.
The mayor, the school committee, and NTA are working very hard to wrap this up. To do it right takes time.
And that’s it for me for today.
Paul, would you post on a public blog when you were about to finalize a contract with any of your union workers? The NTA doesn’t owe Village 14 an answer, it owes its members a negotiated agreement. Why would either side risk a set-back to post publicly?
The mayor is our elected representative, and she could respond I suppose, but going public with negotiations beyond an agreed upon set of parameters seems unwise to me.
Put yourself in their shoes, would you respond to you?
I don’t understand your questions, @Fig. They announced the details of the agreement already in the letter that was quoted and in the Mayor’s most recent update. What is it that remains confidential? I guess any one of us could take those numbers and compare all the salary steps to other cities and towns to demonstrate competitiveness. I suppose any of us could take the numbers and also do a rough calculation as to the annual dollar impact of the contract upon the city budget. Certainly, the union is telling its members the former. And certainly the Mayor and the School Committee know the latter. What possible setback do you envision could occur from public discussion? That the NTA members would turn down the agreement? I think more highly about their negotiators’ prowess than to ever imagine that. That the School Committee would renege on approving the contract after a positive NTA vote? Not on your life.
If we had an engaged newspaper in this town, an enterprising reporter already would have written a story giving answers to both questions. I hoped that some knowledgeable person would have done so here. Absent that, we’ll just have surmise the answers.
Paul, I agree completely on the reporter. And I’m interested in the questions. I just thought the contract was still being ironed out, and that it wasn’t signed.
I don’t think it is the NTAs responsibility to provide the answers to those questions, but I’m certainly hoping the city will eventually.
Thank you, Fig.