It\u2019s official: There will be no faculty walkout at Tyrone Area School District as the board, following a special vote Tuesday night, overwhelmingly agreed to ratify terms of a new contract that the teachers\u2019 association voted to accept last week.
\n\u201cWe are pleased that we finally have an agreement,\u201d said TASD superintendent Dr. William Miller. \u201cOnce we get the details ironed out, we\u2019ll have a three-year contract which will affect the salaries of 142 teachers and one part-time teacher.
\n\u201cFrom the start, it was a solid negotiation process, marked with a sense of mutual respect.\u201d
\nThe school board tally was 9-0 to accept the recommendation offered by a state-appointed fact finder, now identified as attorney Robert Gifford. He was commissioned by the Pennsylvania Labor Relations Board to develop the report.
\nLast Tuesday, members of the teachers\u2019 association were first to cast votes on Gifford\u2019s findings and, though the results of that ballot were initially kept confidential from everyone except the school board, it was apparent that the teachers had accepted the new terms due to the fact that, according to state law, if either side rejected the proposal, it would then be made public. That did not happen.
\nThe district was informed of the teachers\u2019 vote to accept the agreement Friday.
\nMiller said since receiving the state report, the board \u201canalyzed it and studied its financial impact.\u201d He said the recommendation \u201cfits in the budget\u201d and, even though many teachers will receive raises right away, depending on their position on the salary scale, the new contract will require no tax increase.
\n\u201cWe\u2019re very comfortable with it,\u201d he said.
\nRumor circulated last Wednesday of a 60-55 teachers\u2019 vote to accept. This was confirmed last night. It was also verified that the association had voted last week to authorize a strike should the board have decided to reject the state proposal.
\nStephen Everhart, Tyrone Area School District English department chair and negotiator for the teachers\u2019 association, indicated that the teachers\u2019 vote was so tight because the state fact finder recommendation \u201cfavored the school board.\u201d
\n\u201cWe\u2019re glad to have it resolved,\u201d Everhart said during an interview with The Daily Herald. \u201cWe still can\u2019t discuss specifics of the state report until the fact finder is formally notified, but it\u2019s our feeling that the proposal was closer to the school board\u2019s proposal than what we were hoping for.
\n\u201cThe teachers\u2019 narrow vote to accept is an indicator of that.\u201d
\nSuperintendent Miller warned that the result of last week\u2019s teachers\u2019 vote is somewhat misleading, noting that over 20 district instructors \u2014 many of them new hires \u2014 did not cast ballots.
\nEverhart confirmed that some teachers did not vote on the proposal, but contended that, due to the extremely close tally, those votes could\u2019ve swayed the outcome the other way.
\nThe main sticking point in the contract dispute was language dealing with salary scale. Tyrone teachers wanted to be able to \u201cclimb the pay scale ladder\u201d more quickly than the previous contract allowed. Under the old contract, which expired June 30, it took instructors upwards of 41 years to reach maximum pay. By comparison, Everhart said educators in neighboring districts reach those levels much more quickly.
\nWhile both parties have agreed to accept the state recommendation, Miller said the contract is still tentative; however, he noted, he\u2019s sure everything will come together from this point forward.
\n\u201cWe\u2019ve had tentative agreements with the teachers\u2019 association regarding other contract points aside from the salary issue and the two groups will meet very shortly to finalize everything,\u201d Miller explained. \u201cI\u2019m very confident this will happen and we\u2019ll move forward.\u201d
\nSpecifics of the new contract will remain confidential until the school\u2019s board\u2019s vote is officially reported to the state fact finder. That is expected to happen sometime today.
\n\u201cWe\u2019re hoping that we can continue to work on this in the future so we can get closer to something that has broader appeal,\u201d Everhart said. \u201cBut for now, we\u2019re glad to have an agreement.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
It\u2019s official: There will be no faculty walkout at Tyrone Area School District as the board, following a special vote Tuesday night, overwhelmingly agreed to ratify terms of a new contract that the teachers\u2019 association voted to accept last week. \u201cWe are pleased that we finally have an agreement,\u201d said TASD superintendent Dr. William Miller. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3617","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-local-news-in-the-tyrone-pennsylvania-area","category-excerpts-from-the-tyrone-daily-herald"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3617","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3617"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3617\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3617"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3617"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3617"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}