You may have heard some of what is happening with contract negotiations between the teachers of the children of our community and elected school officials. In last month’s Around Town, the School Committee chairwoman shared her view on negotiations. Since Around Town published her individual letter, we felt it was only fair that we share our thoughts, as well. The Erving Teachers Association agrees on the contents of this letter since we value all of our voices, not just the opinion of one person.
What does school look like now for students?
As you may know, or expect, school is very different than it was pre-COVID. While over a year of remote teaching allowed students to access curriculum and standards via screen, it also inadvertently created new challenges that no one could ever have anticipated.
Students who didn’t have direct supervision would do other things, such as watch TV, play video games, or just plain log out and not participate. Many students now have trouble understanding basic school expectations that they do have to be present and participate. Students have been traumatized and they are bringing a broken sense of school and lack of grade-appropriate student skill into the classroom.
What is different? Students need more time and opportunities to build up a better understanding of what it means to take initiative and sustain stamina. Understandably, the learning process has shifted but we still have the great responsibility to educate. Teachers do this while navigating the following:
■Dysregulated behaviors.
■Anger outbursts that range from verbal abuse to physical destruction.
■Anxious students who struggle maintaining focus.
■Apathy for learning.
■Disruptions in attendance.
Yes, COVID may be over, or nearly over, but the effects of it are very much still with us. We are doing this all with fewer staff than before. Our behavior specialist has retired and the position has not been filled. Multiple support staff paraprofessionals have left and replacements haven’t been hired. These positions are not being filled due to lack of applicants. Those that remain are doing more with less.
What we are looking for:
1.More preparation time: Currently, we are given only 150 minutes of prep time per week (equivalent to 30 minutes/day). We asked for 225 minutes/week (45 minutes/day), which is typical in most every district. The best offer we received from the School Committee was just another 5 minutes per day, for 175 minutes/week. We acquiesced, since that’s all they would offer. We question why lesson preparation and teacher collaboration to best provide for students is disregarded.
2. An added salary lane: This is for staff who have taken 60 or more post-graduate level credits, which is the equivalent of two master’s degrees or a doctorate. This is a significant amount of work. These courses have to be approved by the principal and superintendent. We are dealing with unprecedented student behavior and academic decline. Our membership is consistently taking courses to improve our teaching on how to work with students dealing with trauma, learning loss and other things.
The School Committee Is only willing to give a Ph.D. column because that is study in a very specific area. In some specific areas that can be important, but as general educators it is important to have advanced knowledge in a wide array of areas because we teach many subjects and deal with a variety of behavioral issues. This enables us to better serve students.
The committee says this lane would cost too much money. We have only three members that would currently reach that lane for an approximately $10,000 total increase.
3. Increased salary: We feel that based on all of the new seriously difficult situations and work conditions that we are dealing with, with less staff to do so, that a 4% increase is fair. The School Committee disagrees and feels 2% is. It’s taken us a year of negotiations and mediation just to get them to rise to that basic level. The School Committee has told us it would cost too much money.
An increase from 2% to 4% would cost approximately $32,000. Last year’s school budget was just under $3.5 million. To get to our request we are talking about less than 1% of that budget.
This year, four town workers outside of the elementary school received increases of over $56,000 from their previous year’s amount. To reach the 4% increase that we feel is fair, it would only cost a total of $64,000 for our 28 members.
We’re happy for all workers in all jobs to get increases. Everyone is suffering through historic inflation that reached up to 9% last year. We’re happy for these administrative town workers to receive these increases. Wouldn’t it be nice if firefighters, police officers, highway workers, librarians, town hall staff, water and sewer department workers, senior center employees, and teachers, could receive such increases?
Elizabeth DeSorgher is president of the Erving Teachers Association and is writing on behalf of the association.