Central Bucks Inches Closer to Teachers' Contract

After 18 months of talks, the Central Bucks School District and its 1,400-odd teachers are inching closer to a new contract.

A day-long mediation session was held May 13. The mediator who led the discussions is finalizing her report but already has shared some thoughts with the district and with the teachers' representatives, said Keith Sinn, a chemistry teacher at CB East.

"There was a wide range of issues discussed, from the mundane to the other big ticket items," said Sinn, who also is president of the Central Bucks Education Association. "She hasn't finished her final report yet, but she had some thoughts, so I'm planning to meet with the general membership to update them on that process."

The teachers plan to meet Wednesday to discuss the status of the negotiations and any recommendations from the mediator, Sinn said.

Talks between the teachers and the school district started in January 2010, Superintendent N. Robert Laws said Friday. The teachers' contract expired last June.

Both Laws and Sinn said negotiations have taken a long time because of the issues involved and the dire economic conditions the school district faces, not because of ill will.

"It’s taken this long because we’re looking at everything, not because there’s animosity from either side," Sinn said. "We have literally looked at our contract from cover to cover - that’s one of the reasons why it’s taken as long as it has."

Neither the teachers' union nor the school board have conducted the negotiations, Laws said. Instead, both groups have hired professional counsel to represent them, he said. And when even those representatives got stuck on certain points, they then agreed to bring in the mediator.

"When you’ve been doing this for 18 months, emotions can get a little raw, so it can be helpful to have a third party," Laws said. "Sometimes they can slice an issue a little differently."

Laws said he is waiting for the report from the mediator and will then discuss the recommendations with the school board.

It is not clear what those recommendations might be; both Laws and Sinn said it was too early to discuss them publicly. But both seemed optimistic about the negotiations.

"We are making progress," Laws said.

As for the teachers, Sinn said they have not even considered the idea of strike, despite the length of the negotiations.

"At the beginning of the year, I was faced with questions, 'Is there going to be a work stoppage?" Sinn said. "That never crossed the minds of our teachers. Our teachers understood that we’re involved in a process of negotiations and it’s probably going to take a while. And there definitely has been an awareness that we are living in different times."

Besides the teachers, the district also is in in its transportation department.

And in April, the school board , freezing salaries for the first two years and giving 1 or 2% raises for the next three, in addition to requiring a 10% to 24% contribution toward their healthcare, depending on the chosen plan.