On Oct. 16, 2015, an announcement was posted on the Wilson School District homepage that outlined the Wilson Board of Education’s “final, best offer” for the teacher’s contract. The proposal was rejected by the Wilson Education Association, more commonly known as our teacher’s union, at a 428-1 vote.The teachers are still working under the July 2012 contract agreement. The motives of this post were, as stated on the district homepage, “to keep our community informed.” It then went on to state the items included in the rejected contract proposal. With the word “increase” bombarding every line describing each item, the contract seems like a benefit to the teachers. These benefits include a 3.5% increase in the salary schedule in which Jay Nigrini, Pres. of Wilson School Board, stated at the Oct. 19, 2015 school board meeting, was money that would be spread across the salary schedule that will address the WEA’s “concerns.” The announcement concludes with the statement, “We hope the contract can be resolved in a timely fashion in order to ensure our attention is focused on what is most important – educating our students.” In efforts to keep the community informed as to why the Board’s “final, best offer” was rejected, the teacher’s union took to their website, wilsonea.net, to list the reasons behind their actions. The WEA opens with the proposal’s failure, “to recognize that Wilson teachers voluntarily agreed to two wage freezes over the last four years, to provide Wilson with substantial and significant savings,” stated on the WEA website. Here is where this becomes somewhat eye-opening. The WEA then went on to state that, “the wage freezes were supposed to include all district employees. In the second freeze year (2014-15), the Board provided raises and bonuses to several administrators.” This can be seen in the school board meeting agenda for the Jun. 15, 2015 meeting. Under the human resources section of the agenda, the Board approved “administrative salary increases.” However, this occurred during the previously stated “district -wide” wage freeze. The rebuttal presents several points for the community to consider such as, “the Board’s proposed starting salary for 2015-16 would rank Wilson at 15th out of the 18 school districts in the county,” and in the next year, the rank would only increase by one spot under this proposed contract. The question proposed here is if Wilson is nationally ranked by U.S News and World Report and remains as a top performing school in the county, why are the teachers ranked dangerously close to the bottom when compared to other school district’s teacher compensation? In an article in the Reading Eagle, Michael Fitzgerald, teacher and WEA Chief negotiator, said, “teachers are leaving Wilson and we don't think that's good for kids." Then he added that this “revolving door” is not good for the students. In the WEA’s post on their webpage, they brought up the fact that each year more Wilson teachers are leaving our high-achieving district. “Only Reading School District has a shorter teacher tenure than Wilson,” stated the WEA. Teachers are leaving to pursue a higher paying job in higher paying districts, as reported by the WEA. The announcement brought up the teacher’s agreement to opt out of a better healthcare plan in order to save the district money, which, according to the WEA, saved the district, “$800,000 in the first year alone,” for this healthcare only to be terminated early for retirees under this new contract proposal from the board. In light of the amount of money being saved by the teachers through their healthcare agreement that increased their out-of-pocket expenditures and the amount of revenue that programs bring to the district, the WEA argues that, “the Wilson School Board always manages to fund what it truly supports and values including athletic facilities and other capital improvements.” In order to gain insight from the School Board itself, I contacted Jay Nigrini, Pres. of the School Board, numerous times. Unfortunately, Nigrini did not provide comment about the WEA’s statements. Strike is always an impending thought on the minds of the community when contract negotiations go south. When asked about the possibility of a strike, Nigrini told a Reading Eagle journalist that “[He] would hope the teachers would not use the children as a bargaining chip for money.” However, there is no inclination that the WEA is even considering a strike. Currently, the negotiations will continue until the two parties can come to an agreement. However, at the Oct. 19 school board meeting, Nigrini reiterated the fact that the items within the Board’s agreement are more than fair to the teachers, so will there be any flexibility from either party?
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Kelly BrennanWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. Archives
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