Fact-Finder's Report Due Soon in Teacher Contract Negotiations

With nearly a full year gone by on the expired teachers’ contract, the West Deptford school board and teachers’ union are just weeks away from the report by a state fact-finder.

School board president Christopher Strano said at Monday night’s board meeting that he expects the fact-finder’s report by the middle of June, but West Deptford Education Association (WDEA) president Denise Verenault said it could be sooner than that–as soon as this coming Tuesday.

During the school board’s public comment session, with about two dozen teachers seated behind her, Maureen Compagnoni, who has children in the district, spoke up and pressed Strano on the issue.

“What publicly can you acknowledge?” she asked.

Strano said it wouldn’t be negotiating in good faith if board members talked about the ongoing process, but said he hopes to see a quick resolution after the report comes back.

“We are doing this with the utmost respect for the teachers, the utmost respect for the community–unfortunately, it’s the process,” he said.

Compagnoni asked if the board expected to have the contract resolved by July, but Strano was noncommittal.

“Once we both get our reports back, we’re going to schedule the next available and move this as fast as we can,” he said.

Verenault later said the board hasn’t always been moving quickly–after a March meeting with the fact-finder, the board asked for an extension on preparing its final brief.

“It wasn’t something we wanted to hold up,” she said.

Whenever the fact-finder’s report comes out in the next few weeks, the board and WDEA have 10 business days to review the report’s decision and come to some kind of agreement, though the report is nonbinding for each side.

If those 10 days go by without any resolution, the report becomes public, and following that release, the two groups would move to the top stage of mediation, super conciliation, which could mean round-the-clock negotiations until a new contract is hammered out.