LEWISBERRY--After two and a half years of negotiating and a threat of a strike by district teachers, the West Shore School Board voted unanimously today to approve a collective bargaining agreement for a six-year contract with district educators.
The 576-member West Shore Education Association had plans to review the agreement tonight, and will vote on the contract on Monday.
According to a recent press release, it appears the latest agreement may finally be what everyone has been waiting for.
After a lengthy bargaining meeting earlier this month, the release read, "the negotiating teams were able to hash out a tentative agreement they believe meets the needs of the students, professional staff, and the community."
Reached by email on Thursday afternoon, Kevin Downs, a middle-school science teacher and president of the West Shore Education Association, declined comment on the tentative agreement and said the teachers would not be able to talk about the agreement until after Monday's vote.
"Until then, we need to let our members absorb the details and determine how they will vote," he wrote.
In the press release, Downs stated, "We believe we've negotiated a reasonable contract that was a fair compromise between the education association and the school district."
In a special meeting held in September, district officials shared a PowerPoint presentation with the public, which included salary schedule and healthcare proposals from both sides.
That presentation showed that while both sides agreed to the district's proposal for salary increases, the big differences between the two proposals included the district's desire to monetarily increase the value of experience over the value of earning credits, and to reduce the number of salary steps.
The wide gap in the WSEA's counter proposal left the two sides unable to compromise.
During that presentation, Superintendent Todd Stoltz said the district proposed a health care plan that was the same as that provided to the rest of the district staff, and that it allowed 66 percent of employees to reduce their contributions.
Stoltz had also said that the WSEA's proposal would expose taxpayers to the Cadillac Tax, a component of the Affordable Health Care Act that goes into effect in 2018, and that the district is "absolutely opposed" to that.
At the school board meeting tonight, board member Christopher Weidenhammer took time to thank administrators and his colleagues on the board for being "principled, transparent and unified during this entire process."
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Board president Ronald Candioto said he too appreciated the efforts and cohesiveness of the board and other district officials on the matter over the past two and a half years.
"It really was a group effort," he said. "We're anxious to see the results of the vote (by the WSEA on Monday) and move this district forward on what it does best--educating our students."
Downs echoed that wish in a statement in the press release: "We hope that we can now move forward, so that we can continue to provide the best education for West Shore's students," he said.
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