The teachers strike continues, and schools remain closed at least through January 24. New information includes a comprehensive proposal document from the Newton Teachers Association (NTA) and a spreadsheet prepared by Newton Public Schools (NPS) comparing the stances of the NTA versus NPS.
During the bargaining session on Monday, January 22, the NTA released its proposed Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) — posted on the NTA website and highlighted during Monday night’s NTA press conference — containing markups of all of its current proposals. Then late Monday night, social media posts distributed a link to a Google Sheet online spreadsheet comparing the stances of the NTA versus NPS on the various contract line items. Superintendent Anna Nolin subsequently engaged with online users and confirmed the authenticity of the spreadsheet as being authored by NPS.
According to the NPS online spreadsheet, the NTA and NPS have reached Tentative Agreement on many items, but still remain apart by a significant $36 million across the proposed 3-year term of the contract. The largest driver of this gap is the difference between the current NTA Cost of Living Adjustments (COLAs) and the School Committee’s offer. (The figures in the spreadsheet have NOT been independently confirmed by Fig City News to be reflective of the draft MOU and NPS offer language._
At 1:47PM on January 23, NPS sent this update to Fig City News and other local news services:
While we continue to consider the monetary implications of proposals that finally came into full view last night, the School Committee and the NTA came together this morning to address the outstanding issues related to time and learning proposals. The intention was to achieve an agreement on one of the major issues in this contract. For context, time and learning addresses agreements about the structure of the day in terms of meetings, professional development, the start and end time of the day, and other daily activities.
The in-person session began at 12:30 p.m. The School Committee asked the union to end the strike and to continue bargaining during the school day. The union declined. We attempted to discuss the time and learning proposal with the union, but they declined to hear any explanation. NTA leadership began shouting and then walked out of the negotiations. We note the union did have a rally scheduled for approximately the time they walked out of our negotiations, which was advertised yesterday on their social media. The rally currently continues while the School Committee waits to negotiate.
The School Committee is open to, and hopes for, a more productive afternoon and evening.
Tuesday evening, January 23, Mayor Fuller emailed a statement to residents, citing lack of hoped-for progress in negotiations.
Earlier in the evening, the NTA and School Committee each held press conferences.
In the NTA press conference, NTA spokesperson Ryan Normandin said: “The NTA negotiations team has been available day and night to bargain. …The School Committee today has continued to reject our proposals.” And NTA President Mike Zilles said:
- “We walked out because they weren’t willing to give us any responses on anything that we prepared them. There was no reason to be in the room.”
- “We have offered them numerous compromise proposals over the last 16 months, and each and every time, they have refused to negotiate them.”
- “There were severe cuts in NPS in 2022, when the Mayor had a $30 million surplus [and same in 2023]. …Whatever contract we negotiate, I fully expect [the Mayor] will cut the budget again this year.”
In the School Committee press conference, School Committee Chair Chris Brezski said:
- “Unfortunately, there is no significant progress in negotiations to report today. …The [School] Committee intended to explain its counterproposal [on the issue of time and learning, which addresses the structure of the school day]. The union would not engage, and the session ended with the union …walking out of the room soon after [the meeting] started.”
- “We’ve got to start making progress, but we need a partner who is willing to engage.”
- “Last night, I felt we sorta had everything on the table. …No more demands, nothing new coming, and we thought we had something to move forward with. We were really hoping we were going to make some significant progress on this time-and-learning agreement because that’s where we’re the closest. …We got shouted at, and [the NTA] walked out of the room. They weren’t pleased that we didn’t bring something else.”
- “We’re very far apart.”
- [Q: The union president said to us that regardless of the contract and negotiations, there will still be cuts in the coming budget. Is that true?] “No. That is not true. The proposal we’ve put forth …a very competitive proposal that puts them at the median of the peer districts that they have chosen … allows us to move forward not with cuts but with additions to programs and services. It allows us to lower high-school class sizes. It allows us to provide incremental elementary supports. It allows us to add 5 incremental social workers. …There are no cuts under our proposal. Under their proposal, …we would have to lay off 60 teachers next year …and approximately 60 teachers over the following five years. And the high-school class sizes, the incremental supports, and the social workers — none of that happens.”
Bruce Henderson and Amy Sangiolo contributed reporting for this article.
