Updated 2:45 p.m.
BEVERLY, MA — The ongoing Beverly teachers and school staff contract dispute will go to state mediation after the Beverly Teachers Association agreed that talks were at an “impasse” at the latest negotiating session.
The Beverly School Committee had requested the BTA agree to state mediation in early October, which was initially rejected. At the latest session on Wednesday — which School Committee Chair Rachael Abell told Patch on Friday included counterproposals in which “each party only brought a few wordsmith changes” — the BTA notified the School Committee that it was withdrawing its objection to bringing in the third party from the state Department of Labor Relations.
“The bottom line is after that meeting we realized we weren’t making meaningful movement,” BTA co-President Andrea Sherman told Patch on Friday. “We thought we were still bargaining in good faith and we could make progress. I didn’t understand why we couldn’t make progress. It was clear to us and our members after that meeting that we would need some help moving forward.”
“The School Committee appreciates their decision, as it will allow the DLR’s impasse process to begin sooner,” Abell said in a Friday School Committee update. “The School Committee strongly believes this step will bring us closer to a swift resolution and prevent a disruption to student learning and activities.”
Abell told Patch on Friday the sides remain “many millions of dollars apart” on wage proposals.
“It’s hard to say how we would be able to bridge that without movement,” she said. “The reality is that if there is not a Proposition 2 1/2 override — which is a ballot-based initiative — that would mean looking at our budget and figuring out where that comes out (in cuts to staff and services).”
Sherman told Patch it was “commonsense to pay teachers a fair wage” and that she has lost “many dear friends” and colleagues to neighboring school districts with better salary structures in recent years.
“It’s not just a few teachers,” she said. “It’s been regular. It’s not just about money but it’s about what’s fair and right. The salary structure shows how respected we are by decision-makers.”
The BTA posted a list of other proposals that the School Committee has rejected — including 60 minutes of elementary school lunch, continuous and uninterrupted prep time, increases in personal days and family leave, and “effective support for dysregulated students” — and said, “the BTA continues to bargain in good faith and is determined to settle this contract.”
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“These issues are not only important to us but are vital to solving the crisis in our schools and can be settled in this contract,” Sherman said. “We maintain that we need to get this settled for the future of our students.
“From our side of the table, we feel like we have to do these things because our students deserve this. It seems like the time is now to fix the problems that we all know are there.”
Abell said the next negotiating session is scheduled for Nov. 21 but that “we will follow the mediator’s lead for when we meet next.”
“I am thinking about our students and hopeful that our continued negotiations don’t have any negative consequences on their learning and their enjoyment of school,” Abell told Patch. “They are only this age and this grade once and we don’t want them to miss out on that.”
(Scott Souza is a Patch field editor covering Beverly, Danvers, Marblehead, Peabody, Salem and Swampscott. He can be reached at [email protected]. X/Twitter: @Scott_Souza.)
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