ROTTERDAM Schalmont teachers hit picket line over stalled contract Deadlock is over benefits, salary issues BY JUSTIN MASON Gazette Reporter Reach Gazette reporter Justin Mason at 395-3113 or jmason@dailygazette.net
Schalmont teachers picketed outside the high school campus Tuesday, claiming the administration has deadlocked contract talks by failing to compromise. Carrying signs with slogans of “let’s talk we’ll settle” and “it’s negotiate not no-gotiate,” more than 100 members of the Schalmont Teachers Association picketed along Duanesburg Road. The teachers have worked without a contract since June 2006, when their threeyear agreement with the district expired. The union has about 200 members. District officials decided to seek fact-finding in August, after several rounds of negotiations and mediation with the Public Employment Relations Board failed to yield an agreement. The independent analysis is anticipated this fall and will involve a non-binding recommendation for a settlement. Union President Alisha Bahrmann, a reading teacher at Jefferson Elementary School, characterized the district’s attempts to settle the negotiations as one-sided and failing to make necessary concessions to the teachers. She said the district unilaterally filed for both mediation and fact-finding without making any effort to negotiate a compromise. “They don’t understand what negotiations are,” she said from the picket line. “For them, it’s either you meet all our demands or you get nothing.” The union and district have agreed on the non-monetary items, but are at a deadlock in the area of benefits and salary. The district is proposing to switch the teachers’ health insurance from the selffunded “Schalmont plan” to a different system that would require a 15 percent teacher contribution by 2010. Superintendent Valerie Kelsey said the Schalmont plan costs the district $28,000 annually per teacher for family coverage. She said switching to the new plan — one that is now used by both the administration and support staff — would save the district more than $300,000 per year. “We’ve tried to be very fair and reasonable in our negotiations,” she said. “We have good educators in Schalmont, and I don’t want to lessen the importance of their contributions, but we also have a commitment to be fair and reasonable with our taxpayers.” Bahrmann said her union would be more than willing to negotiate a more affordable health plan, as long as the district is willing to make salary concessions. She said both the administration and support staff were offered greater pay increases in exchange for signing on to the benefit changes proposed by the district. “We’re just looking to hold onto what we have, with a salary and insurance that is comparable to what our colleagues are getting in the Capital District.” Bahrmann also pointed to Schalmont’s recent designation by the state Education Department a high-performance gap-closing district. She offered the designation is evidence the district’s teacher are performing at or above the level of their peers. “We’re doing our part as professionals to bring success to Schalmont,” she said. The teachers last protested to the district in June, when more than 150 members turned out to a Board of Education meeting wearing union shirts. Bahrmann said the last contract with the district in 2003 wasn’t nearly as difficult to reach because the administration at the time was more willing to compromise. But Kelsey said the district is keeping an open mind with negotiations and is willing to work out a deal long before the matter goes to fact-finding. “At any time, the parties can come back and negotiate,” she said. “The district is more than receptive at any time to sit down and negotiate.” ANA N. ZANGRONIZ/GAZETTE PHOTOGRAPHER Members of the Schalmont Teachers Association picket outside the school complex on Route 7 in Rotterdam Tuesday. The teachers have been without a contract for more than a year.
Where do these teachers think the increased cost for all their benefits going to come from, the poor tax payer is already over their ability to pay anymore taxes now.
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The teachers would not have this problem if they did not belong to a union. They would be getting their cost of living raises every year like everyone else does. Sometimes unions are not the best thing. I don't think it is for teachers. Every business that has a union is always having problems. Sometimes the unions are the really the problem itself.
Carl Strock THE VIEW FROM HERE Reward for a good job? Not quite
On the education front, we have settlement of a teachers’ contract in Scotia-Glenville, we have stalemate on a teachers’ contract at Schalmont, and we have — what’s this? — merit pay for teachers in New York City? Could it be? Why, getting rewarded for a doing a good job and penalized for doing a bad job has always been anathema to teachers’ unions, which insist on all their members getting paid strictly according to how long they have been on the job, or in labor terms, according to seniority. You make so much your first year, so much your second year and so on throughout your career regardless of whether you are a dedicated professional who spends lots of extra time with your students and gets good results or a piece of deadwood suitable for a landfill. No “merit pay” ever, is their position — no reward for good work, no penalty for bad work, which I would love to hear them explain to their students in civic class, though that’s another issue. But there was the headline the other day on the front page of The New York Times: “Teachers Agree to Bonus Pay Tied to Scores,” which the Times characterized as a “major breakthough.” And in a way I guess it was, though you had to read the story carefully to see how carefully shaded, hedged, and qualified this particular breakthrough was. You had to read pretty far down to discover that individual teachers are not going to be rewarded for improving the test scores of their own particular students. Rather, schools as a whole will get an extra pot of money, averaging $3,000 per teacher, if test scores for the whole school go up, and a four-member committee, including two representatives of the teachers’ union, will decide how to distribute the money. “This shuts the door on the individual merit pay plans that I abhor,” the union president was quoted as saying, just so no one gets any subversive ideas. Of course there was not a mention of penalizing teachers whose students do badly. That is beyond discussion. You also had to read a little bit to discover that this alleged breakthrough did not come free to the city of New York. They had to pay for it, as you have to pay for everything you want from a public-employees union. The price? Allowing the city’s teachers to retire with full benefi ts at age 55 if they have worked just 25 years rather than the previously required 30 years. That is the price for getting them to accept extra pay averaging $3,000 each! Why do you have to coax them into such a thing? Because the extra pay is tied, even if indirectly, to how well they do their jobs, that’s why. It violates a basic principle of theirs, or it comes close. Even with all that, it’s still not mandatory. Union chapters in each school will be able to vote on whether or not to join the program, so touchy is it. Which brings me back to Schalmont and Scotia-Glenville, where merit pay, as it’s called, is not an issue. Scotia-Glenville teachers just won a new contract that gives them the usual automatic pay raises year by year regardless of performance, pay raises averaging 4.4 percent a year over the next three years. This will make the pay of a 23-year teacher $83,144 next year, plus whatever bonuses he or she might receive for assisting with extracurricular activities. Schalmont, meanwhile, remains stalled in negotiations for a new contract, though that does not mean that salaries are stalled, much less that they are going down, despite the picket sign carried by a teacher recently and pictured in this newspaper: “TEST SCORES UP, SALARIES DOWN.” Nor does it mean the teachers are working without a contract, as often stated in news reports. Thanks to a state law known as the Triborough Amendment, their contract remains in effect even after its nominal term comes to an end, and their salaries continue to go up, step by step, until they reach the top step, which is after 25 years in Schalmont’s case. I got hold of the Schalmont salary schedule just to satisfy myself on this point, and I also talked to the district superintendent, Valerie Kelsey, and it was as I had expected. Teachers at every level are getting their automatic raises right up to the top step of $86,234, and those raises average, by my calculation, 3.25 percent a year. To make doubly sure, I asked the superintendent how many teachers had seen their salaries go down during the two-year contract stalemate, and she seemed puzzled by my question. “I can’t imagine how that could happen,” she said, and of course neither could I, which was why I asked. “Zero,” she said. So, question: How much chutzpah does it take to go out on a picket line with a sign saying “… SALARIES DOWN,” when you’re getting automatic 3.25 percent annual raises, and your pay is topping out at $86,234 (for a 180-day work year)? And you refuse to tie your pay to how good a job you do.
Thank you Mr. Strock! Here again is just another example of how unions rake the taxpayers right over the coals. And to the union employee....ENTITLEMENTS, at the taxpayers expense! NONSENSE!
Due to recent budget cuts and the rising cost of electricity, gas, and oil, The Light at the End of the Tunnel has been turned off. We apologize for the inconvenience.
The teachers should be thankful that they even have a job, they get paid a very large sum of money for only working part of the year along with an excellent retirement package with fantastic health benefits. The tax payer can't keep paying the tax increases to fund these packages and the teachers still want more. Maybe it's time to do what happened to the air controllers when they got greedy.
My kid is MORE than a test score....anyone can teach a monkey to put the square block in the square hole.......we figured it out with sex didn't we.....
...you are a product of your environment, your environment is a product of your priorities, your priorities are a product of you......
The replacement of morality and conscience with law produces a deadly paradox.
STOP BEING GOOD DEMOCRATS---STOP BEING GOOD REPUBLICANS--START BEING GOOD AMERICANS
Teachers confront school board More than 100 show unity over stalled negotiations BY JUSTIN MASON Gazette Reporter
ROTTERDAM — Sporting black union T-shirts and ‘no contract’ pins, more than 100 Schalmont teachers crowded into the Board of Education meeting Monday in a show of solidarity over stalled negotiations. Interim union President Mary Beth Flatley quietly led the crowd of teachers into the Woestina Elementary School’s gymnasium just minutes before the board’s regular meeting convened. The 200-member union has worked without a contract since June 2006, when their three-year agreement with the district expired. Flatley said the lasting stalemate between the administration and the union has created a deteriorating situation within the district. She said the concessions being sought by district far outweigh the contract demands of the union. “They’re looking for many givebacks and the only thing we’re looking for is a comparable salary increase,” she said. District officials sought fact-fi nding in August, after several rounds of negotiations and mediation with the Public Employment Relations Board failed to yield an agreement. Board President Michael Della Villa said fact-finding was completed late last month and a nonbinding recommendation for a settlement is due back within the coming weeks. “We’re hoping for a favorable proposal so we can put this all behind us and get down to the task at hand, which is to ensure our children get the best possible education,” he said following the meeting. The union and district have agreed on the non-monetary items, but are at a deadlock on benefi ts and salary. Administrators have insisted on switching the teachers’ health insurance to a different system that would require a 15 percent contribution by 2010. Union leadership has criticized district administrators for being unwilling to make concessions. Several teachers echoed this criticism Monday. Karen Ryder, a social studies teacher at Schalmont High School, scolded board members for not taking a more active role in negotiations. She also criticized them for not being more visible. “Don’t you think as elected board members you should have a working knowledge of the facilities you oversee?” she asked. The meeting was also attended by Schalmont parents that offered some support to the district’s position. Kimberly Ricker-VanLuyk, the parent a Woestina fifth grader, said the district’s teachers seem to be paid a favorable wage in comparison to other regional schools and urged the board not to be “bullied by anyone.”
MEREDITH L. KAISER/GAZETTE PHOTOGRAPHER Mary Beth Flatley, a sixth-grade English teacher and interim president of the Schalmont Teachers Association, speaks to the Schalmont Board of Education Monday at Woestina Elementary School in Rotterdam Junction.
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