York Town News
School Committee, York Teachers Association ratify contract
By Jennifer L. Saunders
YORK - It took four months and more than 40 hours of a collective effort, but the York School Committee and the York Teachers Association have reached agreement on a new contract, effective this coming September.After what officials have described as months of intense negotiations, the York Teachers Association and York School Committee ratified the contract at meetings held separately last week.
The contract will be in effect from Sept. 1 of this year until Aug. 31, 2010.
The three-year agreement includes in a first-year base pay increase for teachers of 3.3 percent, followed by a second-year base increase of 3.2 percent and, in the final year, a base increase of 3.1 percent, according to the York School Department.
"The school year for teachers will remain at 184 days, one of the longest work years in the area," Superintendent of Schools Dr. Henry Scipione noted in his announcement of the ratification.
And, under the new contract, local teacher salaries will remain within the middle range of similar southern Maine communities often compared with York in terms of size, school performance and valuation.
"The teachers and School Committee team used a negotiations process called Interest Based Bargaining," Scipione explained in a press release on the agreement. "Under the terms of the negotiation, both parties agreed to actively work toward a fair and acceptable contract that meets the needs of the York teachers and is sensitive to the community's ability to support the conditions of the agreement."
When the School Committee met last Wednesday evening, Jan. 24, to ratify the contract, Chairwoman Patty Hymanson noted the end result represents over 40 hours worth of meetings between the committee and the teacher's union representatives.
"It's a fair contract," she said. "None of us came out of the negotiations ecstatic, which is how it should be."
Under the new contract, local teachers will also continue to be responsible for a portion of their medical insurance as the School Department will contribute 85 percent and the teachers will be responsible for 15 percent of the premium cost.
"Both parties came to this settlement in the spirit of cooperation and with the interest of maintaining a quality educational program for all students in York," Scipione noted.
At last week's School Committee meeting, he thanked Hymanson and her fellow School Committee members Mary-Jane Merrill and Tim Fitzgerald for their commitment to the process and their work on reaching the agreement - all of which was done in executive session, in accordance with state law on such negotiations.
"It's an incredible amount of work," he said.
The York Teachers Association ratified the agreement on Jan. 23 and the School Committee voted unanimously to do the same one day later.
