Centennial Teachers and District Strike a Deal

For the past ten months, Centennial School District teachers have been working without a contract. However, that could come to an end Tuesday evening if the school board votes to approve an offer extended to the teachers by the district’s negotiating team.

Several teachers have confirmed that a vote was taken Monday as to the terms of the deal, and School Board President Andrew Pollock said that vote was in favor of accepting the new contract.

Pollock said he could not speak directly to the terms of the proposed contract, but did confirm it is a four-year deal that will carry the district though June 2014. He said the deal also includes a salary freeze for the first year.

According to Pollock, if approved by the board, this new contract will be enacted retroactively to June 30, 2010, when the previous contract expired. This would mean that the 0% increase offered for the first year will have already been enacted during the 2010-11 school year and teachers will begin receiving increases – reportedly 2% across the matrix for 2011-12, 2% again for 2012-13 and 1.5% for the 2013-14 year, beginning in September.

These proposed increases are in stark contrast to many surrounding districts that are and to meet funding shortfalls. , before the terms of the proposed contract were drafted.

 “[The labor committee felt] this was doable,” said Pollock. “It will be up to the finance committee to make the numbers work.”

Pollock said the school board’s labor committee was the main party responsible for brokering the deal with the teachers.

He said the labor committee, consisting of himself, board members Jane Schrader Lynch and Thomas Reinboth along with the district’s legal counsel, met with representatives from the teachers union more than 25 times to hammer out the details of the deal that will go before the full board on Tuesday.

“It was a difficult process as we were looking at the entire contact and all of the language,” said Pollock. “We went through everything from beginning to end.”

According to Pollock, the past several contracts have been a series of "early bird" negotiations, where only certain agreed upon items within the contract were discussed and then amended.

“I believe this is the first time we have reviewed the contract in total since the 1970s,” he said.

Pollock said the labor committee has worked very hard to reach a deal that reflected the desires of the school board in total, although he said the board will not be apprised of the exact terms of the deal until later this week.

Were Southampton's Interests Represented in the Negotiations?

The three sitting members of the labor committee represent only two regions of the three-region district, with representation for Region 1, the region that is comprised of Upper Southampton Township, left out of the mix.

When asked why no one representing Southampton was included in the negotiations, Pollock said it was not because there was a lack of interest.

“We just felt that this was the team that could reach an agreement with the teachers,” he said.

When asked for their comments on the offer extended to the teachers, the board members who represent Region 1 expressed concerns but declined commenting directly, citing lack of information.

“I can’t wait to read it,” said Board Member Mark Miller .

Likewise, Board Member Cyndi Mueller said she had no comment because "[she doesn’t] even know what we agreed to.”

“I would have loved to have seen a copy of what the teacher’s were asked to ratify,” she said.

When asked if she thought the deal was sustainable for the community, Mueller said she had no idea because she had not seen the numbers, but said that she was “terribly concerned.”

Board member Kati Driban could not be reached for comment.

Pollock said the board is scheduled to discuss the contract in total during an executive session prior to