School Committee: November 12, 2024

Transcript captured from MHTV’s Vimeo auto-captioning. No speaker labels; proper names and dollar figures occasionally misheard. Click any timecode to jump to that moment in the source video.

0:14 Good morning everyone. Jen Schaffner, chair, Marblehead School Committee. I’m here today with Sarah Fox, member of the Marblehead School Committee and Marblehead School Committee bargaining subcommittee, also here with Thatcher Keer, who’s the town administrator for the Town of Marblehead. I wanna thank everyone for coming this morning. In spite of our best efforts to arrive at an affordable and sustainable contract agreement with the Marblehead Education Association Union, our union, our teachers decided, our children’s teachers decided to turn their backs on their classrooms this morning. It is an unfortunate and unnecessary action. And given how the MEA, the union is conspiring with other Massachusetts Teachers Association unions in neighboring communities, this illegal strike seems more about increasing the collective power of the statewide teachers union than improving

1:00 the education of our children. We want our school doors open, but so far, the NEA is refusing to consider realistic options that are in the best interest of our students. In fact, to avoid a strike on Saturday and again on Monday, we offered to release the 15 union negotiators from work with pay to continue mediation if they cancel their illegal strike so we can reopen schools for students. They rejected that offer twice. This proposal would’ve kept students in school and would not have disrupted their education, athletics, singing engagements, and other afterschool activities when mediation, while mediation continues, I wanna make it clear that the Marblehead School Committee is working diligently through mediation to get our children and teachers back into the classroom. We want a fair, affordable,

1:46 and sustainable contract for our teachers and our town, and we are working to get this done. Unfortunately, the 34% increase the union is proposing is not affordable, nor is it warranted by the market. It would create a $7.5 million shortfall in our existing budget that would require a property tax override, which voters in Marblehead have overwhelmingly and repeatedly rejected over the past two decades. A failed override would result in layoffs of approximately 75 staff and elimination of crucial programs. We want to minimize layoffs so our schools can provide the education and services students and families need and deserve. Our, our four year offer would increase the average teacher salary to approximately a hundred thousand dollars

2:31 and the top scale salary to $109,000 for 184 working days. Our proposals for the other bargaining units also are designed to make us competitive in the market. The school committee has responded to the teacher’s request for increased paid leave, adding a new benefit of 12 days of paid parental leave, followed by use of sick leave. The school committee provides teachers with 15 sick days a year, and they can carry over unused sick leave from year to year. We also provide a sick leave bank for teachers, and we’ve offered to create one for employees in the other units. So all employees have access to additional paid sick leave days when needed. Our efforts to arrive at a contract agreement began in December, 2023 when we first requested to start bargaining with the union long before their contract expired.

3:19 Unfortunately, the union waited until March of 2024 to meet with us and then requested a slow paced twice a month meeting schedule, ensuring that the contracts would expire prior to the start of the school year. We hope the union will quick grandstanding and the petty stunts and will get serious about getting our children back in the classroom. Thank you. Um, I dunno if there, are there any questions from the press? We’re Hearing that there’s a lawsuit being filed with parents in regards to the actual activities we have Seen. I am unaware of that.

3:54 Do you have a response to the labor complaint that was filed by the union? There were several complaints filed by the union, So any of them response to any or All? Um, we have, we have responded to all of them that we don’t agree with any of the complaints. Are you asking about, um, the claim that we did not show up on Sunday? Yeah, you could speak to that judge. So, um, we were in, um, in front of the Department of Labor Relations on Friday when this strike was the illegal strike was voted for and had a hearing with the Department of Labor Relations. They assigned us, um, a mediator, mediator after determining that it was an illegal strike vote. The mediator scheduled us for Saturday, November 9th, um, at 10:00 AM or 11:00 AM which we met the mediator.

4:40 Did not schedule any sessions, mediation sessions for Sunday. In fact, she, um, had indicated, indicated with the volume of materials and proposals and counter proposals she needed to review. She needed a day to do that. Um, so the next mediation that was scheduled after s was Monday November, Veteran’s Day. We met yesterday. You guys Can comment after the press conference is over. We met yesterday in mediation, uh, beginning at 10:00 AM and we concluded shortly after 8:00 PM Um, do you mind if I Yeah, go ahead. Um, the mediator, as is typical also noted that they would be making all, um, appointments for mediation in writing as they did. We have a record, written record that shows

5:25 they notified us we should be, appear for mediation on Saturday and again on Monday, both of which we did. There’s no written record ever asking us to appear on Sunday, nor did the mediator herself appear. And we are scheduled for mediation today at 3:00 PM at Marwood High School. And that was in writing as well yesterday. Any indication of when you guys might be able to resolve this and kids might be able to go back to school? We would like to resolve it today in mediation. It would be great if we could get to a contract. Um, realistically I would say we are far apart or apart on wages, and that’s really the focus that we would like to have is on wages. But I am confident that we will be able to reach an agreement. It just may take some time. Sorry.

6:10 Is there any wiggle room in the budget that could please be that you wanna make some thought about that I can. Yeah. So, um, as far as the finances, so the proposal that, that we have on the table, uh, as of right now, one is in the realm of what other communities have agreed to, uh, with their unions, but, um, would require an override to fully fund it. Um, given the track record, uh, as Jen has mentioned, um, the concern is what happens if an override fails? So, as I stated, you know, my, my line is, um, we can agree to an amount, it’ll obviously

6:57 require an override, but if the override fails, we would still be able to manage the schools. What the, the proposals we have on the table right now far exceed that. If an override fails, it would decimate the school system. It, the, the amount of layoffs and restructuring would have a profound impact on the education system. So what we’re trying to do is find that line, that balance of an override, that the voters be more willing to accept that’s reasonable, but is not such a level that if it fails, um, we don’t have an education system, uh, where that exact dollar number is. That’s what we’re negotiating, trying to negotiate to. Thatcher, could you please provide your

7:43 full name and your title? Uh, Thatcher Keyser Town Administrator and under the, under chapter one 50 E, the mass general law relative, relative to collective bargaining. I am a voting member of the school committee for purposes of collective bargaining. I just wanna add one comment, um, on to what, to follow up what Thatcher said, and that is that we recognize I and the need for us to negotiate a contract with our union and our union members. That is fair and that is competitive in the, in the, in the area North Shore and greater Massachusetts. Uh, but one of the things that we’ve talked about, particularly with the financing and the tight finances and the anemic growth that we talk about in tax revenue in Marblehead, we’re a very small seacoast community

8:30 with virtually no commercial tax base. Um, that we need to do this in a sort of methodical way. And this may be a multi contract process that it may take, you know, two contract cycles to be able to get where, um, where the employees and the unions, um, feel they need to be. And where we can realistically fund, um, and find the revenue to meet that here in Marblehead. Will students have to make up days that are missed due to the strike at the end of the year. So the way it works with the state regulator is students must attend and we must have 180 school days for them in the, over the course of the year. So if there is school that is missed and today is a non-student school day, um, but if there are days missed, then yes, they will need to be made up to make sure that we meet the 180 days.

9:18 What’s the plan for that, Jen? Weekends or vacations? That has not been discussed at this point because we don’t have, we haven’t missed school yet. Um, and we haven’t had to have students miss a school day yet. That would be something the full school committee would take into under advisement in conjunction with our superintendent after we’ve reached successful contract negotiations and teachers and employees are back in the classroom. Okay. So the current is reporting this morning, uh, as of last night actually that two local dads are in court today filing an injunction to, um, allow local, the local teachers and coaches to continue with sports because there are some very big championships and big competitions on the line. It is, uh, a lot of parents, if you,

10:05 I’m sure you’re hearing are very angry, a lot of these kids are seniors, um, and they feel like the kids are being used as pawns. What do you guys say about that? And, and like, is there any wiggle room with you on that? So a couple comments about sports. And by the way folks, it’s not just sports, it’s other types of extracurriculars which include, um, arts and performing arts. Um, and although the sports team teams do get a lot of the focus, it’s all extracurricular activities that have been canceled when school is canceled. Um, and the first thing I’ll say is that that is a decision by the superintendent. The superintendent John Du made that decision. Um, and that is his purview and we support that. He has our support for that. Um, and there are a couple of issues here that need to be considered. One is safety.

10:52 I mean, we have had no formal communication or indication from members of the union that they, that they would or who would come forward to any of these events and be there. So we that, that we don’t know. And so there’s concern because most of our, let’s just talk about sports for a second. Most of our coaching staff are faculty. We do have some volunteers or non, I shouldn’t say volunteers, non-faculty coaches, but most are on our faculty. So we have no idea who may or may not come. So teachers are making the decision to not come to a classroom we don’t know, um, who may or may not show up. And there could be a safety issue. We have to ensure that all of our students, no matter what activity it is, are being, um, supported by and have adults who are properly trained with them.

11:39 The other issue, frankly, to think about and that we had, and I know Superintendent Robin who did, is an issue of equity, right? Because there’s a number of sports teams, both boys teams and girls teams, um, that have activities coming forward or have playoffs or whatever. Um, and there’s been a lot of talk about boys football for instance. I know that’s been a lot of the emails we’ve gotten and some others, but we have to make sure that all teams would be able to go forward and all activities would be able to go forward. And if it’s just one boys team or a girls team, then that’s an issue of equity and that’s not fair. Is that something you’ve worked with either the MEA or your or your staff with to try and and salvage some of These way? We, the way we have tried to make this happen, um,

12:27 for our student student athletes and student artists, et cetera, is to offer for the union members to come back to work to allow the bargaining members to be relieved of their duties. We would cover their duties with substitutes or what have you, have them back at the negotiating table all day and all night until we can get a contract that would allow activities to go forward, it would allow most importantly the education of our students to go forward. ‘cause let’s face it, that is the priority. And so far it’s been rejected. So let me add one. We did not create the situation. The union created it by taking a legal strike. So, so the blames not on us. What we had been asking for for weeks was

13:13 to have a mediator come in and help us through this process. So with the fact that the M-T-A-M-E-A has gone on strike, the result of that besides this impact is we have a mediator who’s trying to help us come to a resolve. It would’ve been much better if we had just gone to a mediator and not the strike, then we wouldn’t even have to have this conversation. Just to be clear though, based off of what you just said, it sounds like it’s gonna be either kids are back in the classroom when the strike’s over and activities resume or activities don’t resume with the strikes still continuing. Is that correct? At this point, the superintendent has made it clear in his communication. I have a question on your UN availability

13:58 unavailability this past weekend. Um, it was critical in finding a contract agreement in order to get kids back in school today. Do you have a comment about that unavailability that’s been circulating and as to where you’re, um, So, um, any misinformation about unavailability is unfortunate, um, if not intentional. There was no unavailability. While Thatcher and myself had trips that were planned several months in advance that we were out of town for, we were available in on Zoom and on conference calls for the entirety. We were, uh, I was present at a hearing on Friday. I was present on Saturday and again on Monday as well as Thatcher.

14:44 Um, so we were zoomed in and present in the room. We conversed with the mediator. Um, she shared information back and forth. So any misinformation to that effect, I can’t speak to, but at no time were we not present and engaged with both the state Department of Labor relations and the mediator. Yeah, I, I, I’ll, I’ll just add, I don’t know what your, your schedule was. I was already out of state when the vote was taken. I was too. Um, but we are in constant touch. Um, and um, also the meeting on Saturday is primarily a fact finding by the mediator. So what was happening is just the mediator sitting down and collecting all the information that she needed

15:30 to understand what the issues were. So it wasn’t even a case, even if we were physically there, it’s not a case that there would’ve been critical negotiations happening. It was fact finding. Um, so again, uh, at that, uh, you know, our physical location had no impact on the process. Um, and again, I, I got in at two 30 in the morning Monday and I was in place at 10 o’clock, um, uh, here in Marblehead for the 10 and a half hours, uh, yesterday. So again, our trials had no impact, uh, on the process, Patrick. And to reiterate, I just point there was no scheduled mediation on Sunday. Mediator has provided in writing the schedule of mediation. There was one on Saturday and there was one on Monday and there’s one today. There was no scheduled mediation on Sunday.

16:17 The mediator wasn’t there either On Sunday’s. I, um, we’re hearing that about $8 million in free cash is about to be certified for the town leftover money. Right? That was not spent from last year. Is there any wiggle room there? Can that money be used? There was a facility subcommittee meeting of the school committee today that was canceled without notice. That was supposed to be talking about some of the unused schools, the empty schools in town. I know that if the school committee were to hand those over to the town, they lose control over where that money is spent. But is that a deal that the community could come together and say, if the school committee gives up these two buildings and sells ‘em, then the money goes to the teachers or do the kids, the classrooms, the programs, isn’t there a way to, is there a way to come up

17:03 with some kind of creative funding? So we, we, we don’t know yet what the certification of free cash will be. Um, um, historically, uh, in the last few years, it’s around that amount understand where free cash is for one. It is, it is the remaining balances of, uh, items coming in, uh, uh, revenues over budget, expenditures under budget, uh, some other factors. The the challenge we’ve been dealing with in Marblehead is that it has over relied on free cash, which is, think of it as a savings, uh, rather than as a revenue. Um, and, and so we’ve been addressing that. The challenge is if we rely on free cash to fund these obligations, free cash is a one-time revenue source.

17:50 It might get us through one year and then we’ll be in a bigger structural deficit going forward. So the key to be able to have sustainable revenues and to be able to meet our contractual obligations is to have fiscal discipline on how we structure, um, covering and paying for these obligations. It needs to come from reoccurring revenues, not one time revenues. That’s been a problem. Marble ahead. We’re fixing it. Um, if we were to do, as suggested, probably one of the first impacts is that we would lose our AAA bonding grading and therefore all our borrowing costs would increase, putting more strain on the budget. So we have been, uh, very disciplined in

18:38 how we approach our finances. Uh, we are working to find the balance between meeting, uh, the needs of our employees to have competitive salaries to the marketplace at the same time. Um, it’s a fixed amount that the revenues are coming in, but it the same have to balance that amount Every year. You’re saying pretty much what’s that? But it’s the same amount every year, you’re saying? Pretty much? No, it’s been decreasing the, the, the, the certification, the amount of free cash. But within that, what we’ve also been doing is decreasing the amount that is used to supplement the budget. Right, right. And, and use free cash for capital needs. And to maintain our, uh, reserves, we have a policy

19:23 of maintaining at least 5% of free cash, of 5% of the operating budget. And that’s a major factor in our bond rating. Um, and is considered the best practices by the Department of Revenue. And so we intend to maintain that. What about The two schools? The NP schools? Yeah, we, um, uh, yes, we would like to see new uses, um, of those schools. It, it would be helpful to, to bring them on the tax roll. And we’re working with the, the school committee. They’re under the control of the school committee. We’re having, um, conversations and it’ll be, you know, a decision by the school committee at some point. Jen, can you comment on that? Is that an option? Um, yes, absolutely. It’s an option To sell the schools. And Yes, the school committee’s role in regards to the school building is to determine whether any

20:08 of the buildings under our care and control and custody are necessary for school purposes. If the school committee makes that decision, which is something that would likely be discussed with through the facilities department, then the, the step next step would be to go to town meeting and to request, to request to town meeting or, you know, make a a an article, um, on the town warrant that the buildings are no longer needed. And then town meeting would decide whether those buildings would be taken over. And then what ultimate dispensation would happen in regards to the buildings. That is not a decision by the school committee, But the school committee is open to maybe bringing that to, to town meeting, to handing over those schools to the town. The, the discussion of the empty facilities we have absolutely is going to be discussed by the school committee this year or this as we get forward in the fall and get into the warrant season.

20:55 I wanna make another point too, Lee, you talked about the canceled, um, meeting this morning. The facility subcommittee meeting, facility subcommittee, and the other subcommittees we have as part of the school committee are all part of our routine day-to-Day work as school committee members. And we are not in anything whatsoever that would be considered routine. We are focused as a bargaining subcommittee and as a school committee on resolving this contract negotiation and focus solely on that. And any other routine business is going to be secondary to getting this contract negotiated and ratified and getting our teachers and our employees back and students back in the classroom. I totally Understand that. But it was not canceled and there were a lot of people online waiting. There was no notice of it being canceled. So The town clerk has been, was notified that the meeting was canceled.

21:40 And that’s the process that we go through after. Other questions, What do you do if this turns into what Newton saw and you’re two and a half, almost three weeks into a strike? Well, we are, first of all, taking this day by day, right? So we are in mediation. We’ll be in mediation this afternoon. It is our commitment. It is our focus, it is our, um, expectation that we will resolve this as soon as possible. I certainly hope that it doesn’t go from multiple, multiple days, but at this point it is up to both sides to be able to come forward. We feel very strongly about the proposals we’ve offered. We believe they’re fair. We believe that they are, uh, market rate, um, offers. And we hope that we are able to very quickly come to a resolution.

22:26 Can you speak to the school committee and the bargaining committee’s, uh, reluctance toward the pay parental, uh, leave proposals by the union? So, um, I don’t know if reluctance would be the word that would be appropriate. Um, we have offer, currently what is available in the contract allows for the parent who has given birth to take up to eight weeks of their own time. We have put proposed that it move to a, uh, parental leave that would allow either parent, whether through birth or adoption, to have the first 12 working days paid by the district and then a remainder up to 12 weeks out

23:14 of their accrued time. So that is certainly a large improvement on what exists now. Um, so you know, as all bargaining goes, I I do understand that the union has asked for all 12 weeks. We are not in a financial situation to do that. Um, our, our offer we feel is very appropriate. And when you look at what is available in other districts and what is on the table being proposed in other districts, it’s extremely competitive. At what point will you notify parents and the public today, whether or not there’s school tomorrow depending on how negotiations go this afternoon? So that would be the responsibility of the superintendent.

24:00 So he would be communicating with parents, um, at some point during the day Who will tell the video. Um, we can work with, um, our, our staff and, and folks get, get a release out in regards to school also. Um, our, our technology department has been wonderful at updating our website rapidly. So as soon as a notice is put out, I would expect within minutes it will be on the marblehead schools.org, um, website as well. So within minutes it will be out in the public purview. You guys, my last question, um, so obviously this has really sparked a lot of debate and discussion and passion in town. The whole town, you know, was overtaken by teachers on every street corner this weekend and live music and everyone has a, an opinion

24:47 and there’s, it’s all anyone’s talking about. And the teachers largely it seems, feel very disrespected and a lot of parents also feel like the teachers are being disrespected. What happens when this is over and the community has to come back together? Is that on your mind at all as you engage in these, this bargaining and using some of the language that’s being used also? So in response, I would say that that is on my mind every minute of every day. I, I had spent almost my entire life in this town. Many of us have, this is a very small seacoast community where we have generations and generations of folks who’ve lived here and folks who’ve just, who’ve also come, um, newer. Um, and one thing that we care deeply about is our,

25:33 is our students, our children, and our families. And it is, it is on my mind every single day about how we can get our teachers and employees back into the classroom and how we can move forward. I think there are some lessons we can take from some other communities, but I will say that, um, I’m confident that our administration, our town leaders and our teachers and employees will be able to move forward because they have always acted in the past in the best interest of students. I know that I went through the schools here a long time ago. My stu, my children went through these schools and I know how much our teachers are dedicated to our students and I’m confident that they will be able to move forward when we’ve been able to reach an agreement.

26:17 Thanks. Thank You. Thank you. Uh, Michael Giardi, bargaining co-chair. Been a educator here since 2001. Been a coach here since 1999. Just want to clarify some of the information because I think it’s a little misleading. While there may not have been in writing any scheduled bargaining with the mediator on Saturday, the mediator informed us that they were ordered to the bargaining table on Sunday and told the mediator they were unavailable. So the mediator said that she would not come either if they’re not going to be available. So we were prepared to bargain on Sunday. We were unavailable on Saturday, but we showed up. They said they were unavailable on Sunday.

27:02 They’re saying, they keep saying that it’s because the mediator needed time to process the information. That is not true. We were available Sunday. They could not be there Sunday. They were unavailable. They’re spinning it one way. We came in on Monday, we worked, we asked them to stay in, well be into the night at eight 30. They decided to walk out on us and their students. They have informed the town that we need an override because of us. That is not true. They have always needed an override. They are spinning it and blaming us for this, for these situations that are here. We don’t want to be on strike. Let’s get that clear. We don’t want to be on strike. We want our children in school. We want sports to continue. We want the art programs to continue.

27:49 We want the robotics competitions to continue. We want our children here, but we have not had an opportunity to work with these people, including today. This is the first time that we have seen them today when we came into this room. We could be bargaining right now. But there was an issue that they don’t want to do it at Marblehead High School because they say we are in school. Who’s in school? We are all here. We are working to get this done. And it doesn’t appear that they want to and they keep spinning things in a certain direction that just really misleads the public. There are a lot of things that we could negotiate, but there is no negotiation when all you hear is no rejected, no holding your position. That’s not negotiating,

28:34 that’s not bargaining, that’s bullying.

28:46 So just to piggyback off what Mike g already said. Jonathan Heller, uh, MEA co-president,

28:57 they had said that they had called mediation weeks ago. That is false. Our last real bargaining session was November 4th. And that at the end of that they had asked for mediation. That was just about a week ago.

29:12 Mediation only works if both sides are willing to work together. Our school committee has held their position. They have now refused to talk about any language in the, in our proposals until we agree to their terms. When it comes to financials, That’s extortion. They said that they are offering us a competitive wages and it might take two cycles based on the school committee’s proposal. The current one out of 14 North Shore communities in year one, Marblehead would rank 12 out of 14 in year two, 12 out of 14 in year three, 13 out of 14

30:01 and in year four, 13 outta 14. How are we going to dig ourselves out of that in a successor contract? We need to make movement in this contract. Marblehead should not be at the bottom of 14 communities. We should be towards the top and at the end of this contract, we should be at least towards the middle. And this still would keep us at the bottom for our powers and tutors. Okay? They are offering

30:37 and at the end of four years,

30:42 okay, for pairs at the end of four years would make yearly $21,351 for our tutors. $28,836. How is that a livable wage?

30:58 It is not. We have students in this town that are earning more after school than they’re paying our paras and tutors. They talked about the benefit of parental leave

31:15 and they, they’re saying that it’s competitive with other communities around us. So Andover, they get 12 weeks total. 40 of the days are paid by the employer. Malden has 12 week totals, 12 weeks total. 30 of them are paid by the employer. North Andover, 12 weeks total. 20 for the paid by the employer, Salem, 14 weeks total. 30 paid by the employer MA who just settled their contract as did Salem. 12 weeks total. 40 paid by the employer. Our school committee is offering us, they said 12 weeks. That does not. So on all of those, it would be every single parent, whether it’s birth parent

32:02 or not, gets up to 12 weeks In Marblehead, you can tell the truth without telling the whole truth. There are some that would receive up to 12 weeks using their accrued sick leave and the district would pay for 12 and they would pay for 12 days regardless if you’re the birth parent or not. What they’re not telling you is so 12 days. But for most parents it would be up to six weeks, not 12. And what they’re not telling you two is if you happen to work in the dis district with your partner, you’d have to split that with them. They’re also not telling you that those paid days do not count. So if it happens to be you give birth right before a school vacation, the clock ticks. If that was a five day school vacation,

32:48 you’re not being paid for the first 12. You’re not being paid for the first seven. If it happened over the summer break, then again the clock starts ticking. We actually get to have more days now in terms of marble has been practicing than what they’re currently offering us. Right? So they’re not being honest. You can tell. Like I said, you can tell the truth without telling the whole truth. They’re refusing to meet with us face to face. We have asked every single time and they refuse. They will not come into the room and they will not tell us. If you can tell us no, tell it to our face, they refuse to. They’re hiding behind closed doors. Enough is enough. We want our, we want to be in class. We want our students back in class.

33:35 We want, they talk about equity. We have made it very clear to this community, to our students that our coaches, our club advisors, we want them to go continue those activities. Okay? We’re not withholding them. It is the school committee and our interim superintendent, some of ‘em probably should ask our interim superintendent whether or not he give the directive or keep from the school committee. He reports directly to the school committee. He is doing their bidding. There Is no doubt they have every opportunity to say yes. And let’s also talk about the fact that our athletes and our students that are participating in active school

34:20 activities pay a user fee that is significant that I believe has almost doubled in the last year. They’re paying a considerable portion of those fees and now the school committee is choosing to withhold that from them. That is why our athletes are, are upset. That’s why there’s parents that are going to put an injunction in today and court that they don’t know about. So they say, and our coaches are more than willing to go and continue to coach. Those are once in a lifetime opportunities. School days can be made up. We have snow days, they get made up, we have school vacations. They get made up these days can be made up. These events cannot. And we want them to be going back out

35:05 to the fields and coach, we want them to rehearse. Mm-hmm. We want them to practice with our robotics team.

35:13 Let them play. Let them sing.