Mo money, mo problems.
As the rapper Notorious B.I.G. sang in 1992, more financial resources do not appear to have resolved the negotiating impasse between the School Committee and the teacher’s union. Following Sunday evening’s pledge by Mayor Fuller of additional funding for Newton Public Schools (NPS), Monday’s events illustrated the persistent, possibly even widening, gap between the parties.
At 4:15PM on December 18, the Newton Teachers Association (NTA) and parents and students supporting it gave public speeches from the NPS Education Center advocating for the City to allocate additional funding. These speeches were recorded and can be viewed on the NTA’s Facebook page. Following this forum, the NTA and the School Committee negotiators commenced a planned, closed-door mediation session.
The regularly scheduled December 18 School Committee meeting began promptly following the mediation session. During the meeting’s public comment, Newton South High School science teacher Ryan Normandin — who previously commented publicly at a School Committee meeting regarding class sizes — characterized the latest offers given NPS during that day’s mediation session as “the same garbage we’ve been getting,” “insulting,” and “absurd,”, and he further hypothesized that Superintendent Anna Nolin would consider leaving Newton because of the contract dispute. In addition to other commenters advocating for higher teacher compensation, NTA President Mike Zilles spoke, stating that “the 3.5% increase in the [City] allocation every year is grossly inadequate.” He contrasted the recent NPS annual budget shortfalls against surplus cash in corresponding City budgets.
Prior to his public comment, Mr. Zilles had said to Fig City News: “In their FY24 budget, the Mayor’s Office projected they would receive $2.5 million in interest on investments. In the first quarter of this fiscal year alone, the City already took in $4.5 million in interest income. That projects to $18 million by the end of this fiscal year in June.”
Following public comment and the Superintedent’s update, Kathy Shields (Ward 7, Negotiations Subcommittee) gave the School Committee’s negotiation update. Ms. Shields stated the NTA had “dramatically increased” its demands and stated the parties had moved “farther apart.” Ms. Shields’s statement appeared to confirm a Sunday, December 17 posting on the NTA’s website, in which Mr. Zilles wrote that in Monday’s mediation session the NTA, for the time being, would revert to its pre-mediation stance on cost-of-living-adjustment (COLA) salary increases. These increased Asks versus the most recent NTA COLA positions entail approximately 0.5% to 1.5% annually depending on the Unit and contract year.
Mr. Zilles gave his reasoning for this apparent retracement in the NTA’s position: Since the City (according to the NTA) is only making COLA offers in mediation that are contingent upon NTA acceptance of a complete package of compensation and working conditions items (which are listed in the Sunday posting), the NTA believes a commensurate response is to also avoid negotiating discrete items like COLA increases, therefore it pulled back its more recent lower COLA Asks.
Despite the lack of agreement, Ms. Shields outlined the increases in the School Committee’s COLA offers made during Monday’s mediation session (shared in this email to the community), which she noted were in addition to “4% average” step salary increases for those employees not yet on the top step. Ms. Shields stated that the increases to COLA percentages are “very much in line with the COLA percentages that the vast majority of surrounding districts offer”, and she called statements to the contrary during the meeting’s public comment period “erroneous.” She further said that other districts awarding higher COLA increases than the NPS offers typically had lower base salaries than NPS, and that a Massachusetts district that recently agreed to higher COLA increases did so in exchange for longer school days.
Additionally, Ms. Shields reiterated tentative agreement with the NTA, previously announced at the December 4 School Committee meeting, on eliminating the existing bottom two steps for Unit C (student support staff, such as aides, counselors, and therapists) — meaning that new hires would begin working at a higher salary step. Mr. Zilles had said to Fig City News, “the tentative agreements prior to initiating the mediation process in June are legally binding, [however] any tentative agreements announced since then are tentative pending final resolution.” He indicated that the agreement to eliminate the bottom two steps for Unit C falls into the latter category and added:
“Educational support professionals have had a substantial role in helping students access the curriculum since the 1990’s. They’ve always had very high responsibility. What has not come to public attention is how underpaid they are relative to their responsibilities until recently.”
Prior to Monday, Fig City News asked Mr. Zilles if the NTA was contemplating a strike in the foreseeable future. In reply, Mr. Zilles only referred Fig City News to Massachusetts General Law Chapter 150E Section 9A, which states that no public employee shall engage in a strike.
The increases to COLA annual percentages offered by the School Committee on December 18 appeared to range between 0.25% and 0.5%, depending on employee Unit and step, relative to the School Committee’s early December COLA offers. Based on the NTA commenters’ description of the latest mediation session, the NTA had hoped for more movement in the School Committee’s position. However, Ms. Shields stated that the additional potential funding described by the Mayor on Sunday would also be used for non-compensation operating expenses of NPS, in addition to enabling higher offers to the NTA.
The full meeting video is available on NewTV.
