School Committee Issues Statement on Teacher's Contract

Press Release from Framingham School Committee Chair Beverly Hugo issued Friday morning, May 10:

The Framingham School Committee is pleased to announce that the vote for ratification of the teacher's contract resulted in favor of ratification 7-0.

This concludes the contract negotiation process for the Fiscal Years 2013-2015, which took over a year to complete.

The collective bargaining process is a complicated one that attempts to resolve many conflicting concerns in view of the realities of cost and the best academic interests of our students. Under Massachusetts law, this process is to be carried out in a confidential setting. In this case, public announcements - while they allowed for transparency  ultimately slowed the pace of our work at the negotiation table.

Now that we have reached agreement, we thought might be helpful to share some thoughts from the School Committee about the contract and process.

• It has always been clear to the Schooì Committee that teachers across Framingham deserve to be commended for their efforts and their collective dedication to the success of our students. Many teachers are also residents, some life-long and former students in our system, and all are highly committed to our Town.
• Bargaining is about Confronting the difficult financial realities faced by families, businesses and town departments in the current economy. It is not unusual for a bargaining process to hit a stalemate over economic or contract language issues. During this negotiation session, we were confronted with newly mandated, uncharted and stringent federal guidelines concerning supervision and evaluation procedures.
• Town revenues will increase a minimal amount each year. Overall school budgets will be limited in the same manner. These remain challenging economic times. During a recession, it is impossible to provide the same kinds of benefits that are offered during an economic boom.
• In recent years, the School Committee has been able to secure additional funding for schools at a higher percentage than the overall municipal increases through the support of Town Meeting and our Town’s legislative delegation. This has allowed us to address some of the needs unique to our schools. It is impossible to ensure that the Town can continue to secure additional funding at this level each year.
• Our goal for this contract was to balance the sometimes competing needs of avoiding structural deficits, rebuilding educational services for our students and providing a fair contract for our teachers.

According to the latest long-range financial forecast, Framingham's Chief Financial Officer has projected revenue growth of the Town revenue to rise slightly more than 3% over the next several years. Therefore, the School Committee sought a contract with the teachers where their total salary line consisting of steps, lanes and Cost of Living Adjustments (COLA) was achievable within that projection. Teachers will see some structural changes to their steps and lanes that were acceptable to their leadership to help fulfill this goal.

In years when additional funding is available, the district can more meaningfully rebuild.

We plan to concentrate on such areas as improving performance in our Level 3 Schools, Science-Technology-Engineering­-Math (STEM) curriculum, elementary instrumental music, High School electives, professional development needs, and facilities planning to address increased enrollment.

With the conclusion of these negotiations, we can now return our undivided focus to our primary focus and concern - the education of our students in the classroom.

There are few things more important than the work that teachers do in the classroom.

We will continue to do as we have done, to work respectfully with the Teacher's Association and all professionals in the best interest of all 8,300+ students in Framingham.

On behalf of my fellow colleagues on the School Board, we express our sincere gratitude to all who have participated in this long, arduous and complex process.