More than 150 Marblehead educators, wearing red in solidarity, rallied outside the high school on Monday afternoon, demanding higher wages and safer schools. They stood on all sides of the busy intersection at Tent’s Corner, chanting slogans and ringing black and red cowbells. Many drivers honked in support.
Addressing educators, Marblehead Education Association Co-President Jonathan Heller spoke about a board certified behavior analystic, Kristen Phelps, who was treated in the hospital for a broken nose over the weekend after being punched in the face during a “behavior incident” in school.
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“This siutation was avoidable,” Heller said, adding that Phelps does not blame the child. “The student did not have the supports they need.”
School Committee ‘error’ cancels Monday’s meeting
The MEA and School Committee bargaining subgroup initially planned to meet Monday afternoon for their 12th bargaining session, but School Committee Chair Jenn Schaeffner announced Sept. 13 that she scheduled the talks for Tuesday in error. The MEA declined to meet on Tuesday and is now calling for an emergency meeting of its membership next week.
“We need to come together as a union to discuss and determine our next steps,” Heller said in a statement late Monday. “Our students deserve elected leaders who will work in their best interests, and our staff deserves to be treated with respect.”
Heller continued, “These bad-faith tactics along with the School Committee’s incomprehensible resistance to any common-sense proposals speaks volumes as to how committed it is to the schools our community deserves. We are trying to address the ongoing safety concerns at every school and the social-emotional needs of our youngest learners, as well as the mass exodus of school staff.
“The School Committee’s strategy is to drag this out and exhaust our membership, then file for mediation as they did with our custodians. This is a game to them!” he added.
At the rally, School Committee member Sarah Fox approached Heller and asked the union to agree to the Tuesday talks. Heller did not commit and walked away.
The MEA said “educators are experiencing significant stress and unease” since their contract ran out on Aug. 31.
“Working under an expired contract not only affects their morale but also disrupts the educational environment for our students,” said Village School math and science teacher Dana Trudeau.
‘Ask me about my four other jobs’
At the rally, high school teacher Ashley Skeffington held a poster that read, “Ask me about my four other jobs. I can’t afford to stay with MPS.”
Skeffington is a full-time English teacher at MHS and leads the drama department. To make ends meet, she said, she also works as a bartender at two Salem establishments, tutors outside of school and directs theater at Salem State University.
“I’m trying to pay my rent,” she told the Current. “I’ve been in the district for 10 years, and have no savings. I’m getting married soon.”
Far apart on wages, safety committee
The two sides met last on Sept. 10 and spent most of three hours discussing competing proposals for a school safety committee.
The MEA proposed a school safety committee in response to an increase in student behavior incidents in local schools. After the School Committee rejected the MEA’s initial proposal, both sides presented modified versions.
“We responded directly to the concerns the School Committee had raised previously, but they were unwilling to agree to language that would establish binding commitments to improvements in school safety,” the MEA wrote in a statement.
The MEA continued, “We attempted to engage the committee around increasing elementary lunch and recess time, in addition to eliminating user fees over the next couple of years. Unfortunately, the committee does not want to have that conversation.”
The MEA said its proposals “represent solutions to the very real problems we’re seeing with student dysregulation, and it’s unfortunate that the committee is not taking these issues seriously.”
In its own statement, the School Committee’s subgroup wrote that its proposal “included equal membership representation from school administration and all staff areas” and that the “union’s proposal may likely violate student privacy.”
Regarding wages, the union is pushing for a 40% increase over the next three years. The School Committee is offering an average of 4% over three years.
The MEA says its proposals will help “lift custodians, tutors and paras (paraprofessionals) out of poverty while finally making our Unit A salaries competitive with neighboring communities.”
It continued, “What the School Committee offered to us would amount to a wage cut and leave us only further behind. This is directly related to the dozens of vacant positions across the district and the school system’s inability to fill them.”
The School Committee reps said they would keep working to reach a fair contract that reflects the “fiscal reality of the town of Marblehead.”
Marblehead teachers are the lowest paid across 13 communities on the North Shore, according to the MEA. Last month, Salem reached a tentative agreement with its teachers for a nearly 20% raise over the next three years and six weeks of paid parental leave. The MEA says Marblehead is offering only two weeks of paid parental leave.
Paycheck problems
A week after the school district failed to include agreed-upon increases, stipends and summer payments in teachers’ checks, blaming a “clerical error,” there was another problem with those same teachers’ paychecks last week.
Teachers’ pay stubs — containing their name, address, wages and other personal information — were accidentally sent to other town employees.
Finance Director Aleesha Benjamin said the town’s outdated payroll software was to blame.
