Educational Assistants

Reach Contract Agreement

By Susan Coney

The Newtown Board of Education voted to approve the new contract for the school system’s educational assistants at its September 20 meeting.

It took a while, however, for word of the action to reach Marla Sherman, educational assistants union representative. On Tuesday, September 27, Ms Sherman said, “I heard that they approved the contract via the grapevine, not through the proper channels.”

Ms Sherman along with MaryAnn Mark are the International Federation of Professional Technical Engineers (IFPTE) representatives and are both educational assistants themselves. Ms Sherman works in the language arts department at Middle Gate Elementary School and Ms Marks in the special education department at the middle school.

Ms Sherman told The Bee that the educational assistants have been working under an expired contract for well over a year. In reality the group has been working without a contract since July of 2004; however, theoretically the current contract remains in force until a new contract is accepted.

The assistants met for an emergency meeting on Monday, September 19, and voted to accept the contract presented by the board. The group has tried unsuccessfully to come to an agreement with the school system regarding a new contract. The Board of Education has already spent more than $18,899 in attorney fees concerning contract negotiations since March 2004.

At last week’s educational assistant meeting Ms Sherman and Ms Mark reviewed changes to the old contract, and held a question and answer session. “The mood was somber. There were many angry voices. We didn’t lose anything, but we didn’t really gain anything either,” Ms Sherman said. “We took the agreement back to our constituents for discussion. It was a close vote. We haven’t seen anything official in writing yet,” she added.

In Newtown the educational assistants provide a broad range of services from tutoring and re-teaching to overseeing the students in the lunchroom. Most of the assistants have college degrees and those that do not must pass a rigorous statewide test to keep their position.

Ms Sherman said that the new contract agrees to a three percent salary increase for the 2005-2006 school year and a retroactive three percent increase for 2004-2005. In addition it offers the assistants the opportunity to purchase dental insurance, something that has not been previously offered. The assistants, however, are required to pay 100 percent of the cost under the terms of the contract.

All assistants are frozen in their current salary steps, and, as previously, they receive only one paid holiday, while every other labor group in the system receives numerous paid holidays.

Ms Sherman conceded that while the group is relieved that the two parties had reached an agreement she felt the majority of the assistants were greatly disappointed. “The feeling is that we are treated differently than the other bargaining units. We weren’t even given the information from the superintendent or a representative of the board. Information was not provided through the proper channels,” Ms Sherman stated.