Administration to Present School Budget

Tomorrow evening, on Tuesday, December 20^th, the Bridgewater-Raritan Board of Education will convene at 7:00 pm in the Wade Administration Building to discuss the status of contract negotiations between it and the Bridgewater-Raritan Education Association. 

Lynne Hurley, Finance Committee Chairperson (Center), discusses a
topic with Board Member Jill Gladstone, as Assistant Superintendent
Cheryl Dyer reviews a document.

This meeting, which will conclude at 8:00 pm, will be in executive session.  (The Regular Session of the Board will open to the public at 8:00 pm.)

In a conversation with Board President Evan Lerner, last Thursday, he confirmed that a mediation session between the Board and the Teachers’ Union took place on December 8^th. 

He described it as “an interesting session . . . we are in one room, they are in the other . . . it’s a very slow process.  You don’t walk away with knowledge of what was accepted.”  Lerner added that “We want to get a deal done that is right for both parties.”

He did not, however, discuss any specifics of just what offers, if any, were presented to the mediator to in turn convey to representatives of the Teachers’ Union, or what counter-offers, if any, were proffered by the BREA.

Teacher Pay Raises: A Comparative View

Joshua P. Starr (Credit/Wash. Examiner)

 

 

In my last visit to the Washington, D.C. area, I came across an article entitled “Pay raises proposed for Montgomery teachers” in the paper edition of Gazette.Net, a Maryland community newspaper which covers Montgomery County.

Unlike New Jersey, Maryland schools do not have local school boards as we do in The Garden State.  Instead, the fiscal and educational management of schools in the Old Line State is consolidated at the county level, including, naturally, the school budget.

In that regard, Joshua P. Starr, Superintendent of Montgomery County, MD Schools recently proposed a pay increase of 0.61 percent, or an $8.6 million increase to the current “$1.4 billion budgeted for salaries and wages, excluding other compensation.” 

Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial Draws Many

A view of the Martin Luther King, Jr.,
sculpture near the Tidal Basin,
Washington, D.C.

On a quiet Saturday afternoon after Thanksgiving Day, the most visited of the memorials that we came upon near the Tidal Basin in the nation’s Capital was the one recently dedicated to the memory of Martin Luther King, Jr., the peaceful, yet forceful advocate for civil rights in America.  For his approach, as has happened to others of his period, he was rewarded with assassination. 
 
Upon entering the Memorial’s site, you will pass between two towering blocks of stone, before you walk past another two of the same size.  From one of the four carved blocks of stone juts the full, imposing figure of a sculpted MLK standing resolutely, his gaze steadily focused ahead.
 
What you may not immediately observe until you have passed by the four stone carvings and then turn around is the granite wall which slopes behind the four stone monoliths, and extends from both sides of the Memorial’s entrance, to its left and to its right. 
 
It is reminiscent of the Vietnam War Memorial, and each of its panels has inscribed in it an aphorism from the writings of MLK.
 
There are many of them, but one of my favorites is the one carved into the first panel on the right side.  It reads simply, “True peace is not merely the absence of tension; it is the presence of justice.”

Board & Teachers’ Union to Begin Mediation

Negotiations between representatives of the Bridgewater-Raritan School District (B-R BOE) and those of the Bridgewater-Raritan Education Association (BREA) have not seen meaningful progress since June.  As a result both parties are scheduled to begin formal mediation sessions as of tomorrow, December 8.

Superintendent Dr. Michael Schilder and Board President Evan
Lerner at the July 26, 2011 School Board meeting where the topic
 of contract negotiations was discussed.  (Image/Dick Bergeron)

A brief recap:  The current 3-year contract for BREA members, which includes all teachers and certain other school employees, expired on June 30, 2011.  That agreement had provided for a salary increase of slightly below 13% over the contract period.

Although discussions for a new contract had begun well before the beginning of the current 2011/2012 school year which started on July 1^st, complications entered into the negotiations between the B-R BOE and the BREA when the State of New Jersey enacted legislation which affected the negotiations in progress.

When no agreement was reached by early summer, the BREA negotiations team declared an impasse and proceeded to apply for the assignment of a mediator.

BREA President Provides His Views

Following my telephone discussion with Board President Evan Lerner described in the previous post, I was able to also have a telephone discussion with Steve Beatty, President of the Bridgewater-Raritan Education Association (BREA).

BREA President Steve Beatty speaks at the July 26, 2011 School
Board meeting, where the topic of contract negotiations was discussed.
(Image/Dick Bergeron)

Mr. Beatty confirmed that the BREA had “finally got our first mediation,” and that it was scheduled for December 8, highlighting the impasse between the teachers’ union and the Bridgewater-Raritan Board of Education (BR-BOE).

Beatty underscored that when the 2011/2012 school budget was presented in the first quarter of this year (one which provided for a zero percent pay increase), it was his understanding that, although the School Board and Administration explained to the public that the budget was extremely austere and left no room for salary increases, that if there subsequently were “found money,” the issue would be revisited by the Board.

Asked what his expectations of the BR-BOE now are, Mr. Beatty was not overly specific, but provided the BREA’s three points for an agreement:  a) That it be “fair,” b) “A three-year contract,” and, c) in response to a question about what level of percentage salary increase the BREA is seeking, Beatty was non-committal, except to say that the negotiations team is “looking for a (salary) guide that structurally is strong and provides for short-term and long-term money that is good for the Board and the BREA.”