Lack of Full Disclosure on the Recently Approved Teacher Contract

I’ve written a previous blog article on this subject many weeks ago but since then I have learned more details about the teachers signed contract. We all remember back then that Mayor Dolan, Superintendent Ms. Taymore, and Chairwoman Ms. Thorp told the public that the final contract included a 1%/1%/1% pay increase for teachers in the next 3 years, and that the contract was about 99% similar to the previous contract signed back in 2009. However, the only evidence produced to the public to confirm those details was a Memorandum of Agreement signed by the parties. Some of us who requested copies of this Memorandum, finally received copies much later but no pay schedules were attached as referenced in Memorandum and we thought it odd. Another request went to school authorities to obtain a copy of these pay schedules. It should be noted that during school committee meeting discussions in August and September, Ms. Thorp noted that these pay schedules were being revised so that our teacher salaries would be more competitive with surrounding communities but she provided no additional information.

Since that time in late September, we have obtained more details on the teacher contract which should raise some concern about the lack of truthfulness and transparency of certain school committee members. Not only did the teachers receive a 1% pay raise in this contract, they also received another 1% in a cost-of-living (COLA) increase (see Boston Globe article dated 8/13/13).  But is doesn‘t end here. The management group, representing the school dept., also increased the dollars in each step for each of the 3 years which Ms. Thorp did mention earlier but provided no dollar amount or how this was going to be implemented. Based on these new pay schedules, a new teacher entering step 2 and going to step 5 will see a 21.5% pay increase over the 3 years of the contract.  This is quite different that the 3% increase publicized by school committee chairwoman Ms. Thorp and Mayor Dolan.

In addition to the above added benefits, another “small” change to the contract this year allows teachers to add unused personal days to their unused sick day count. Any teacher that accumulates 100 sick days by their eleventh year will receive an extra $1,000 each year for the next 10 years. Finally, they also changed some full days to half days before each of the three major vacations, which means that teachers get paid more and work less! Of course what the school department received from all this extra money thrown at the contract is……each school day will be 2 minutes longer!

Many of us would not begrudge teachers getting more money in their contract. But for our elected officials to provide erroneous and incomplete information to taxpayers during this process is inexcusable and deceitful. It also shows a callous disregard for honesty and truthfulness in communicating information to taxpayers and citizens alike. Some people have thought that if the teachers were paid more money, that they would be willing to work longer hours in helping us improve student outcomes. However, this contract does not accomplish this. Perhaps as some have believed, these negotiations are not about the concern of students but instead are only about the money.