While a former member of the School Committee claimed some prescience in a recent opinion piece on the state of contract negotiations between the town and its educators, what he really offered up was an outdated depiction of what it takes to operate a high-quality public school system.
Austerity budgeting has pushed Marblehead Public Schools to the brink, and the community must take corrective action. The first step is to settle a fair contract with educators.
Bullying educators and their supporters is a tactic we have all seen before, here and in cities and towns across Massachusetts. This time, however, the Marblehead Education Association isn’t tolerating management’s dismissive and disrespectful approach to bargaining, much to the chagrin of the School Committee and its notorious union-busting lawyer leading contract negotiations for the town.
The stall and delay tactics are meant to push bargaining into state mediation, which is a misleading name for a process that does not expedite a settlement but separates the parties and forces shuttle diplomacy that drags out bargaining and generates billable hours for the committee’s outside attorney.
For more than a year, the members of the MEA — the ones at the bargaining table with a vested interest in having working conditions that meet the needs of students — have been laying out the crisis facing the town when it comes to the public schools: wages are not competitive; the lack of paid family leave is out of step with state law that applies to the private sector and with contemporary workplace policies; and Marblehead Public Schools are becoming increasingly unsafe learning and working environments for students and staff.
These are priorities established by the members of the MEA and nobody else. Likewise, the members of the MEA have crafted reasonable proposals to address these issues and have been forthcoming about the need to address revenue growth in the town.
Fiscal responsibility does not always mean paying as little as possible; sometimes it means investing wisely in the long-term health of our community.
Wages for Marblehead educators lag behind those of comparable districts and surrounding districts. Our skilled teachers could make tens of thousands of dollars more working elsewhere; our ability to attract bright new talent is severely hampered.
The School Committee can toss around percentages all it wants to; big percentages of small earnings still don’t get us to where we need to be and the educators at the top of the pay scale are experiencing stagnant wage growth.
Marblehead’s maximum salary step is below the comparable step in the following school districts: Wayland, Hingham, Andover, Peabody, Salem, Beverly, Manchester-Essex, Swampscott, and thanks to recent settlements of their own, Danvers, Masconomet and Ipswich as well.
The top salary step for educators in Hingham, one of the districts that the School Committee said we should be comparing ourselves to, is $20,000 more than what is available to an educator of comparable education and experience in Marblehead.
Educators are sensitive to the needs of the community and the MEA is making proposals that build up wages over the life of the contract, allowing the town time to plan and prepare to close these gaps.
These are challenging times for educators, and the profession is not attracting young people the way it used to. Young professionals are mystified when they learn municipal employees in Massachusetts are exempt from the paid family leave law that applies to the private sector.
With challenges in filling staff positions, the district exposes itself to the risk of mishandling student mental health and behavior issues. When staff is stretched to the limit, it becomes nearly impossible to fulfill legally mandated special education plans or to simply have enough adults in our buildings to maintain healthy and safe learning environments and manageable class sizes and caseloads.
High-quality education is not inexpensive. But it also should not be accessible only to those who can afford tuition at a private school. Marblehead Public Schools educate the majority of children in town and are central to the quality of life here. A fair contract for the MEA represents a sensible investment in our community.
On behalf of the MEA bargaining team,
Jonathan Heller and Sally Shevory
MEA co-presidents
