At the end of the 11-day teacher strike in November, School Committee member Sarah Fox said the estimated cost to the town — excluding legal fees for negotiations — came to about $20,000 per day.
The Current filed a public records request for those bills. Assistant Superintendent Mike Pfifferling reported that the total is about $112,000, or $10,000 a day, half of Fox’s estimate.
The costs included, but were not limited to, the following:
- $11,529 — Police details
- $48,000 — School lunches prepared for students
- $2,829 — Custodians to keep the high school open late for negotiations
- $1,500 — Extra wages for Pfifferling’s office
- $35,000 — Wages for nonunion workers and a few union employees who crossed the picket line
The Marblehead Education Association agreed not to pursue retroactivity for their wage increase to offset those costs. Pfifferling calculated that the Unit A teachers gave up about $195,000 in retroactive wages.
Fox declined did not immediately respond to requests for comment. MEA Co-president Jonathan Heller said the $195,000 only represents Unit A and not the other units that also did not receive retro pay.
The Current previously reported that the School Committee spent $12,5000 on public relations fees related to the strike. The committee was billed about $440,000 in legal fees in 2024.
