Upbeat Attitude between Negotiation Teams Indicates that a Labor Contract Settlement May be Within Reach.

It looks like a deal may be in the works between the teachers and staff of the Bridgewater-Raritan Education Association and the Bridgewater-Raritan School District on behalf of the parents and taxpayers of our two communities.

Messrs. Beatty, Lerner, and Krenetsky, after the
conclusion of this evening's meeting.  (Bergeron Image.)

In an interview at the conclusion of this evening’s BR-BOE meeting, Steve Beatty, President of the BREA disclosed that he and the Chief Negotiator, Joe Krenetsky have been in informal talks with board negotiators Evan Lerner and Jeff Brookner in a series of recent meetings which took place outside of the formal mediation process that is still in place, should talks break down once again. 

From the spirit evident in the room this evening at the Wade Administration Building in Martinsville, though, it appears that both sides have grown exceedingly weary of the contract impasse which is now over a year old and growing.

Furthermore, pressure has been building for months on both the board and the union to settle:  Tonight’s board of education meeting was filled wall-to-wall with the red jerseys of respectful, yet forcefully-evident-by-their-presence teachers whose numbers spilled out into the corridors of the conference room.

Candidates to be Interviewed for Board Seat Tomorrow Night

Since my post of November 2nd, when I reported that six candidates had filed for an open seat on the Bridgewater-Raritan Board of Education, seven other candidates have since filed their petitions to be considered for this post. 

Board Members Arthur Mathur and Anne Marie Mead enjoy a
light moment at a meeting in September. (Dick Bergeron Image)

The opening is the result of the resignation of Anda Cytroen who was up for election to another 3-year term in the April, 2012, School Board/Budget Election.  Whoever is appointed to the post will need to run again for the job in April.

In addition to those who filed on November 2^nd; namely, Jacqueline M. Barlow, John Chang, Michelle Moore, Joan L. Muldoon, Daniel M. Petrozelli, and Terri B. Yessman, seven other aspirants have submitted their paperwork.  Filing for the job was closed on November 9^th.

Tomorrow night, Tuesday, November 15^th,  at a Special Board Meeting, and following a one-hour closed-door meeting on another topic which will begin at 6:30 pm in the Wade Administration Building in Martinsville, the Board will reconvene in open public session  at 7:30 pm to interview candidates for this vacancy.

The names of the additional seven candidates are listed below in alphabetical order:

Bradley Gardens School PTO: Clothing & Bargain Bicycle Sale on Saturday



Mrs.  Buckley-Johnson prepares to address the B-R BOE on 9/27/11.

Below is an insert describing a wide variety of clothing items, as well as bicycles which will go on sale this Saturday morning, October 1, through early afternoon at the Bradley Gardens primary school in Bridgewater. 

Bridgewater-Raritan PTO members are very active in the support of their schools and spend a lot of time and effort in being involved in their welfare.

If you have a few minutes to spare and think that you may be in need of some of the items listed below, drop by the school. 

Anne Buckley-Johnson will be happy to answer any of your questions at the number below, if you would like to know more.

$1-2-3 Clothing and Bargain Bicycle Sale

Sat., Oct. 1, 2011 from 9am to 1pm at Bradley Gardens School, 148 Pine St., Bridgewater.
 
Find gently-used infant thru adult clothing neatly displayed on tables organized by size and gender. All shirts are $1; sweaters, sweatshirts, skirts, pjs are $2; pants, jackets, winter coats, shoes, boots, Halloween Costumes are $3; bicycles are $10 and up.

Receipts for tax purposes are available at drop off when you donate gently-used clothing and/or bicycles on Friday, Sept. 30 from 9am-2pm and 4pm-6pm at the school’s main entrance.

Please bag clothing by size and gender and label the bag. Ex., “girl 4T”; “Men L.” The school’s PTO runs the sale to help the community and to raise funds for the school.

Please call Anne Buckley-Johnson at 908-725-1611 with questions.

Thanks for reading, and have a good weekend.  The weather looks promising – for a change!

B-R Teachers’ Union President Issues own Version of Stalled Talks

BREA officials Joe Krenetsky & Steve Beatty at 3/22/11 Board Mtg., among other observers.  (Bergeron Images)

Yesterday, immediately following release of a statement by the President of the Bridgewater-Raritan Board of Education concerning the status of the negotiations between it and the teacher’ union, the BREA issued its own press release, outlining its view of offers, counter-offers, and of why talks have stalled.

On Saturday, June 25^th this blog was first to report that discussions between the two parties had broken down on.

The full text of the BREA’S comments issued by its President, Mr. Steve Beatty, appears below without further comment:

B-R Board of Ed. President Reports Talks with Teachers’ Union have Stalled

Mr. Evan Lerner, then Board Vice-President, at a work session of the Board in Raritan, at the JFK School on 3/8/11. (Bergeron Images)

At the Bridgewater-Raritan Board of Education meeting last light, Board President Evan Lerner issued the statement below concerning negotiations between it and the teachers’ union, the Bridgewater-Raritan Education Association.  

According to those present at the meeting, after Mr. Lerner read the statement, there was no further discussion by the Board, and no members of the public rose to comment upon it, including representatives of the BREA who were present last evening.

On Saturday, June 25^th,  this blog was first to report that discussions between the two parties had broken down.

The full text of Mr. Lerner’s comments appears below without further comment:

Union Representatives Abandon Bargaining Talks

In several documents obtained on condition of anonymity due to the sensitivity of the topic, the Bridgewater-Raritan Education Association (the BREA) informed its membership this week that it has broken off talks with the Bridgewater-Raritan Board of Education (the B-R BOE).

Thursday:   NJ Assembly seats await final vote on pension reform.

Mr. Joe Krenetsky, Negotiations Chair for the BREA, wrote to his constituency that “The BREA and the Board are at impasse, which means that we have ended the head-to-head process and are applying for a mediator to come in to help.”

Mr. Krenetsky indicated that his union had offered to “compromise” by trying “to meet the Board half-way, but that the Board has been unwilling to compromise in the least,”  adding that, “In fact, the Board has increased their demands instead of working towards an agreement.”

He also expressed concern that “Health Care legislation being discussed at this time will complicate our negotiations process a lot . . . it’s all connected to our negotiations.”  (Krenetsky was referring to the pension reform bills that have since passed the New Jersey Senate and Assembly.)

Governor Christie is expected to sign those proposals into law on Monday.

In an analogous communication to BREA membership one day before the New Jersey Assembly approved the pension reform bill, BREA  President Mr. Steve Beatty expressed similar sentiments when he indicated that: 

Meeting Scheduled with Union Reps Today

A negotiations committee of the Bridgewater-Raritan Board of Education is expected to meet today with representatives of the BREA (the teachers union) in an effort to continue hammering out a potential agreement between the two parties.

Evan Lerner listens as Pat Breslin offers his opinion. (Bergeron Image)

Representing the B-R BOE are its President Evan Lerner; Board Member Jeffrey Brookner; Superintendent of Schools Dr. Michael Schilder who sits in; as well as a professional negotiator hired by the Board.

The current contract with the BREA – by far the largest bargaining unit – expires at the end of this month.  Meanwhile, contract talks with unions representing supervisors and principals are being held in abeyance awaiting the outcome of BREA negotiations.

A source close to these intermittent but ongoing talks informed me that after about four weeks of waiting, the BREA has received the B-R BOE’s latest offer.  That person was unable to comment on the likelihood that it would be accepted.

Expect People-Intensive School Board Meeting at High School



Cheryl Dyer, Assistant Superintendent (Bergeron Images)

The next work session of the Bridgewater-Raritan School Board is scheduled for Tuesday, June 14^th, at 8:00 PM, in the High School on Garretson Road.  The meeting’s agenda is expected to attract a large group of parents who have become focused on a particularly controversial topic which may be resolved by Board action on Tuesday.

The issue relates to a staff report originally presented to the School Board on May 17^th and updated on May 24^th.  It concerns a proposal to establish an ESL (English as a Second Language) Magnet School Program at the Bradley Gardens Elementary School for students from kindergarten through 4^th grade. 

That plan, if implemented, would involve busing about 112 students from around the District to Bradley Gardens.  It also would involve consolidating another 12 ELL students (English Language Learners) at the Hillside School, accounting for a total of 124 students who would be bused away from their neighborhood schools.

Participation of Student Representatives Emphasized, as the B-R BOE Reorganizes.

Katherine Wullert, Student Board Representative.

Tuesday night, May 3rd, at 8:00 p.m. in the Wade Administration Building in Martinsville, the Bridgewater-Raritan Board of Education will conduct its post-election reorganization, followed by a regular meeting of the new board, once the President and Vice President are elected and installed. 

The evening’s 10-page agenda is taken up largely with once-a-year items designating persons and institutions for specific roles and responsibilities, as well as to consider and to approve other motions concerning administrative and educational matters.

To be sworn in as members of the Board are incumbents Arvind Mathur and Evan Lerner from Bridgewater, as well as newcomer Ann Marie Meade from Raritan.  This first meeting following last week’s District-wide voting is also to a large extent a celebratory event for the winners.  After that, it’s getting down to business.

There are nine elected officials – not counting the Superintendent, Assistant Superintendent, and Board Secretary – who sit around the table and who oversee educational and business matters on behalf of the community. 

Bridgewater-Raritan: School Budget Gets Nod; Two Incumbents Win, Third One Loses

In what appears to be a ringing endorsement of the overall direction of the Bridgewater-Raritan Board of Education and its Administration, voters from the Township and the Borough cast their lots overwhelmingly in favor of the school budget. 

Mathur and Lerner, upon learning of the final vote tally. (Photo/R.Bergeron)

Out of a total of 5,473 votes cast, the budget easily raced past the finish line by a margin of 893, with all voting districts in favor, including absentee ballots.

Bridgewater incumbents Arvind Mathur and Evan Lerner also won over contenders Barbara Kane, Lisa Giranda and Elizabeth Eisenger Lande.  Al Smith, a nine-year veteran representing Raritan, lost to newcomer Ann Marie Mead. 

The margins of victory were not slim.  Mead won overwhelmingly by more than 2 to 1, while Lerner and Mathur garnered 2178 and 2092 votes, respectively.  Barbara Kane placed third with 1642, while Lisa Giranda was next with 1,366.  Elizabeth Eisenger Lande, an active Bridgewater mom, yet a newcomer to the political scene, did well with 1,140 votes.

Last-Minute Chance to Vote for your School Board Choices

There are about 2 hours left for you to register your preference for candidates running for three open seats on the Bridgewater-Raritan Board of Education.  If you think that this is just a humdrum election, don’t be misled. 

Peter Starrs will receive the unofficial tally at the Wade Bldg. tonight.

This is one of the toughest contests in years and, even though it’s approaching the level of a mini-slugfest, it is refreshing to see that this election is not uncontested.  The principal reason for that statement is that there are compelling issues that were held up for public examination by some of the sparring opponents which, without competition, would never have come to light in this election. 

More about that later.  More importantly, the polls are open until 9:00 PM this evening, so why don’t all y’all get out there and do your stuff for the Gipper.  He would want you to vote, no matter what your choices may be.

Official school budget information and candidates’ profiles may be seen here by clicking here.

The final tally will be tracked after the polls close at 9:00 PM in the conference room of the Wade Administration Building in Martinsville. Any and all citizens are welcome to come and observe the results as they come in.

Unions, Educators, and the Community

In trying to understand the role of union leaders and their priorities within education, it’s useful to hear directly from the source.   One such example is that of the National Education Association’s top attorney, Bob Chanin – now retired – who addressed the NEA at its annual meeting in July, 2009.  Below are excerpts from that speech.

“Despite what some among us would like to believe it is not because of our creative ideas. It is not because of the merit of our positions. It is not because we care about children and it is not because we have a vision of a great public school for every child. NEA and its affiliates are effective advocates because we have power.”

“And we have power because there are more than 3.2 million people who are willing to pay us hundreds of millions of dollars in dues each year, because they believe that we are the unions that can most effectively represent them, the unions that can protect their rights and advance their interests as education employees.”

How will Fed $ be Spent in the B-R School District?

I’d like to expand upon a response that I made this afternoon to a comment by Poppet, a reader of my blog. Poppet is concerned about how the $398,882 of Federal $ allocated to the Bridgewater-Raritan School District will be spent. Poppet writes, “I hope it will be directed to the classrooms and not administration or sports.”

Not necessarily. That will be up to the Board of Education.

Below are several excerpts from the New Jersey Education Job Funds Guidance which explains how that money may be spent:

• “A district must use its funds only for compensation and benefits and other expenses, such as support services, necessary to retain existing employees, to recall or rehire former employees, and to hire new employees, in order to provide early childhood, elementary, or secondary educational and related services.”

But

• “A district may use the funds to pay the salaries of teachers and other employees who provide school-level educational and related services. In addition to teachers, employees supported with program funds may include, among others, principals, assistant principals, academic coaches, in-service teacher trainers, classroom aides, counselors, librarians, secretaries, social workers, psychologists, interpreters, physical therapists, speech therapists, occupational therapists, information technology personnel, nurses, athletic coaches, security officers, custodians, maintenance workers, bus drivers, and cafeteria workers.”

As you can see, the use of these funds is not restricted to direct classroom purposes. Quite the contrary, it includes a very wide swath of school employees. There are four pages of relevant Q&A points on the link referred to above and it is well worth your time to read, if you have an interest in this topic.

It is highly unlikely that the Bridgewater-Raritan Board of Education would allocate these funds for anything other than direct classroom use, but it would be a good idea for it to put the matter to rest by passing a formal resolution now, restricting its use exclusively for that purpose in the budget.

B-R Schools to Receive Minimal $ from the Feds

The Bridgewater-Raritan School District will get only $398,882 from over $268 million that the Federal Government has allocated for the State of New Jersey to save education jobs. That is an infinitesimal one-tenth of one percent of the $268,742,643 from which the state is retaining $6 million in administrative expenses to distribute those funds.

New Jersey’s governor has decided to deal out these federal monies according to the school funding formula currently in effect within New Jersey, thereby applying more pain to suburban school districts. That formula is skewed against the suburbs because, among other factors, it takes into consideration the size a community’s property tax base as a means of supporting that community’s base cost of education.

The state is perpetuating an already existing inequity between New Jersey municipalities because, while employing a controversial formula which uses the property tax base as the main source of school funding for suburban districts, it simultaneously de-emphasizes the use of the property tax base as a source of funding for urban schools.

This mess is a serious funding imbalance which the New Jersey Supreme Court has created, and which the Education Law Center supports through vigorous lobbying (think Abbott Districts).

The result of this re-distribution fiasco is that, as an example, three cities: Newark, Jersey City, and Paterson will get a whopping $50,434,830, or 19% of the $268 million, while the Bridgewater-Raritan School District will settle for a mere one-tenth of one percent of that $268 million.

All that cash from Washington is a welcome gift – if only our school district could have garnered its fair share.

School Buses Roll Again

Wednesday morning, it will be evident that the first day of school has arrived in Bridgewater and Raritan. The more than abundant evidence will be all of those yellow buses and vans on our streets.

In the B-R school district, dozens of those vehicles will be making hundreds of stops throughout both municipalities, picking up thousands of school children. There will, of course, be some walkers, but most students will be bused.

Probably the biggest exception to the busing rule will be at the high school, where driving privileges are extended annually to some of the students, allowing them to drive their own cars to school.

The task of assigning individual students to specific seating in a vehicle is a not-so-well- appreciated job which begins as soon as the school year ends in June and continues throughout the summer, right up to the Labor Day weekend.

The transportation group assigned to this task is located in tight quarters in an outdated office on Commons Way, across from the new Bridgewater Municipal Complex. Building & grounds supervision, the maintenance garage, and a parking lot for buses and vans, are also situated there.

Opening day at school can be smooth or bumpy for the transportation team, including the bus drivers. Some years, the phone can ring off the hook with complaints, while in other years school opening can be relatively smooth. It all depends . . . !

Considering the geographic size of the B-R School District and its large number of students, the percentage of calls is usually relatively small, although the stress associated with each may not make it feel that way.

If you are a parent and happen to experience an issue with your child’s busing, take a deep breath and compose yourself before calling transportation. Above all, try courtesy instead of outrage. You’ll be surprised how quickly it can get your problem resolved.

Good luck to all other school districts. Thanks for reading; stay engaged.

Belt Tightening in Bridgewater & Raritan, but not in all Places

According to a report by Kara Richardson in the Courier News today, all Bridgewater Township employees except for those represented by the police union have agreed to a wage freeze.

In the Bridgewater-Raritan School District, all three major unions (teachers, principals and supervisors) have rebuffed both municipalities and have refused to place a hold on their salary increases (nearly $2.7 million in the next school year), leading to more cutbacks than would otherwise be necessary. Instead, they will pay a small amount towards the cost of their health insurance, 1.5%, and will give back $400,000 in tuition-related reimbursement costs, for a total of about $1.4 million. This is in exchange for lower cutbacks than those originally planned by the Board of Education in one of its draft budget proposals.

The fiscal problems besetting Bridgewater and Raritan are a microcosm of what is happening at the state and national level. Yet the interests of the average resident taxpayer and, yes, even the interests of the children in our schools are taking a back seat to organized labor power.

I have no beef with unions. My dad was a long-time active member and official in a trade union. The growth of organized labor came as a necessary pushback to the low wages, abominable working conditions, and flagrant abuses by management in the manufacturing and mining industries of the 19th and early 20th centuries.

But that was then. Some of today’s labor organizations such as education associations wield far too much influence not only in individual school districts, but also at the state level through their well-funded lobbying efforts.

The well is drying up but, unlike Washington, municipalities and school districts can’t print money to satisfy everybody’s desires.

Note, 4/8/2010:  The second paragraph of this blog post has been updated to reflect all concessions made by the BREA with the Bridgewater-Raritan Board of Education.

Time for a Break

This is, as it should be, a time to pull back for at least a few days to gain perspective before the upcoming April 20th election.

Recent fiscal issues emanating from Trenton have had – as all of you who read this blog and other sources know – a dramatic and startling impact upon the Bridgewater-Raritan Board of Education and have shaken the school employees’ union, the BREA.

There will be plenty of time in the days preceding the school election to take another look at the data, the impact upon laid-off employees, the bust-up of the entire custodial staff in the Bridgewater-Raritan schools, and the impact on the tax bills of Bridgewater and Raritan citizens.

It’s time to pause, to celebrate Easter, and to wish all Christians and non-Christians good will and good fortune.

Thanks for reading and remember to stay engaged.

Note:  Photo depicts Lynne Hurley and Arvind Mathur conferring before last Wednesday's meeting of the Bridgewater-Raritan School Board

Wage Negotiations Update for B-R School District

As of 1:00 PM TODAY. The Negotiations Team for the Bridgewater-Raritan School District met on Saturday, March 20th, following a request by Evan Lerner at last Thursday’s Board meeting. Early this afternoon, Mr. Lerner confirmed that Representatives of the Bridgewater-Raritan Education Association, the Bridgewater-Raritan Principals Association, and the Bridgewater-Raritan Supervisors Association were in attendance at Saturday’s closed door meeting. The state-level New Jersey Education Association was also represented.

Saturday’s meeting was an ongoing effort by Board President Jeffrey Brookner following his earlier request to these associations to re-open their wage contracts due to this school district’s loss of state aid. Mr. Lerner confirmed that no agreements were reached on Saturday and, that as of 1:00 PM this afternoon, no further meetings are currently scheduled.

I don’t know which tack these discussions will take. Nor do I know if there will be any more meetings to discuss wage concessions. I believe there should be. These associations are part of the solution.

Time is short – budgets need to get finalized by the end of this week. The terms and conditions of any potential last-minute wage concessions need to be fully laid out to the Bridgewater-Raritan community now. In July, the BREA is scheduled to enter the last year of its 3-year 12.8% total wage hike.

B-R Schools to Incur Additional $4.4 Million Budget Hit

Today, Governor Christie’s administration announced the last round of cuts in state aid to New Jersey school districts for the 2010/2011 school year beginning July 1st, 2010. Consequently, the Bridgewater-Raritan School District was notified that it will incur another reduction in state aid of $4.4 million, on top of previous cuts.

Tonight, 8:00 PM, at the John F. Kennedy School in Raritan the B-R BOE and administration will present another pared-down version of the budget. None of the previous presentations to the public – the latest of which was on February 23rd – provide room for a reduction as steep as those necessitated by the State of New Jersey’s cuts announced today.

I expect a very large turnout of Bridgewater-Raritan residents and a big group of staff and union representation. The February 23rd meeting was standing-room only.

Jeffrey Brookner, President of the B-R BOE had sent letters previously asking all bargaining units, including those representing teachers, principals and supervisors to re-open contract negotiations. The purpose was to reduce or rescind the 4.35% pay raises included in the proposed 2010/2011 school budget now under stress. Total wage increases are reported to be worth $2.7 million.

To date, no information has been made public about the responses of those bargaining units to Mr. Brookner’s request. The only concessions made so far have been from a small group of non-bargaining administration officials to reduce their pay raises by 2%, or about $60,000 in total.

As of this writing, the impact on Bridgewater and Raritan real estate tax levies is uncertain. However, at the time of the latest budget draft on the 23rd, the combined tax levy for both municipalities was still going up by 4%, the maximum allowed by New Jersey law.

The Bridgewater-Raritan School District Budget Conundrum

The main thing about the Bridgewater-Raritan school budget surprise is that it is a surprise at all. It’s been clear for at least several years that the situation was building up to crisis level, but few were paying attention – perhaps few wanted to.

I don’t blame anyone in particular for this. Everyone in Bridgewater and Raritan wants the best educational system possible – I don’t doubt that. But there is a cost to everything. Sometimes that cost simply gets too high or, as in this case, it grows beyond the ability of people to pay. The national and state financial crises have focused Americans upon that fact in a way that nothing else could.

Some have attributed the fault in this school district’s budget shortfall to Governor Chris Christie, because he recently withheld $4 million anticipated by the B-R School District as part of $475M in state aid for all other districts. But placing the onus on Christie is a fool’s game – the problem is very big, pervasive, and structural. It needs a major fix.

Still, there is no doubt in my mind that, over the years, the B-R School District has been adversely shortchanged by a succession of administrations in Trenton; as well as by the Education Law Center which successfully convinced the New Jersey Supreme Court to siphon disproportionate amounts of cash to the Abbott Districts.

There is nothing we can do to change the past. But we can learn from it. Governor Christie is not the bogeyman in this game. He may be the one person that New Jersey has who can give this state the medicine that it needs.

Thanks for reading. Stay engaged.