School Board Rejects Fact-Finder's Report

The state fact-finder’s report died a quiet death Monday, three days before the first anniversary of the old contract’s expiration, in front of dozens of members of the West Deptford Education Association who turned out for the school board meeting.

School board president Christopher Strano, who called the report a glimpse into the negotiation process, said it ultimately represented the opinion of just one person, state-appointed fact-finder Susan Osborn.

“Obviously, we disagree with her opinion,” Strano said.

WDEA president Denise Verenault, on the other hand, said the association was willing to accept the report, and called the board's decision, “upsetting.”

“We’re just tired,” she said, referring to the 15 months of negotiations. To that end, several WDEA members in attendance at the meeting had added tick marks to their black WDEA T-shirts, indicating the 362 days since the last contract expired.

Verenault, whose term as head of the WDEA is up in just a few days, said she’s felt shut out by the school board.

“I never thought it would be like this,” she said. “I don’t think we were asking for anything unreasonable.”

Strano said there’s no hostility directed toward teachers from any of the board members, but said they have to keep the needs of close to 22,000 taxpayers in mind.

“It’s not an attack on teachers, it’s an attack on…the cost of health care,” Strano said.

Despite the board’s rejection of the report, both sides said they’ll still come back to the negotiating table this summer, in an effort to hammer out a contract that works for everyone.

“We would go as soon as possible–we’re willing to meet whenever,” Verenault said.

Strano echoed her sentiments.

“Hopefully we can continue to work to a compromise,” he said. “We want this done faster than they do.”

Neither side took issue with the facts in the report, though Superintendent Kevin Kitchenman noted one correction to it, where it erroneously claimed administrators in West Deptford were exempt from the 1.5-percent contribution of salary toward their health care costs. He said they’d been paying into that since July 15 of last year.

If a deal can’t be brokered between the WDEA and school board, there’s still a third level of mediation, super conciliation, which could mean round-the-clock negotiations until a contract is settled.

Neither Strano nor Verenault could pinpoint a timeline for when the two sides could go to super conciliation, but both said they’d work to avoid it.

WDEA Proposal:

School board proposal:

Fact-finder proposal: