The Newton board of education and teachers have come to a tentative contract agreement.
The group had been stalled in early June on the issue of professional days, and the negotiations were at an impasse.“Anytime you go to impasse, that is a long process, and it is better when you can come to a compromise, “ NEA President Deb Helberg said.Teachers wanted to reduce the number of professional days as a concession because they had agreed to waive pay increases in the wake of a more than $1.2 million budget shortfall because of a drop in state funding.The tentative contract calls for six work days and eight professional days.However, the district will implement a pilot program for Learning Community Days.Instead of teachers serving two days in planned group professional development, teachers will plan their own professional development with the approval of their principals.If teachers choose to, they can complete the professional time on their own time and comp the two days they would have spent in organized group professional sessions.“(Learning Community Days) for teachers will allow teachers to self- direct their use of professional time to work on as opposed to something they are assigned. They can work on something they need as a part of their profession,” Helberg said.John Robb, attorney and negotiator for the school district, said both sides of the negotiating team brought the idea of Learning Community Days to the table and favored implementation of the pilot program.“Teachers thought it was a good idea, and administrators thought it was a good idea,” he said. ... “It will be more tailored to what they need.”The new program will allow teachers to mold their professional development to their own needs and interests, he said.Elementary teachers will not participate in the program because they already comp three days for professional time for time they spend after school doing collaborative work, Robb said.Other highlights of the agreement include:• A study to be done on block scheduling and teacher load at the high school.• A change in coaches’ payment structure to equalize pay between non-teacher coaches and teacher coaches.• The district agreed to offer 100 days to the Parental Leave Pool to eliminate issues with donated days being considered taxable income.Teachers can take up to three months of maternity, but not all teachers have enough leave to have all this leave paid. The agreement will allow younger teachers to take up to 20 days of paid maternity leave from the pool, Helberg said.The school board is set to ratify the contract on June 17.Teachers will vote on the contract when they come back for the start of school in August.“I feel we have the best contract we could do with the current climate with the budget cuts and what we were doing with state,” Helberg said.NEWTON —
