Board, MEA urged to negotiate

BY STACI WILSON

Residents, parents, bus contractors and former administrative leaders in the Montrose Area School District urged both the board and the teachers’ union to hold talks in order to resolve the ongoing contract dispute.

After nearly two weeks on the picket line, Montrose students returned to the classroom on Tuesday, April 12.

Jack Kiehl, a Montrose Area teacher who is also part of the MEA negotiating committee, told the board the union had called for a meeting with “just Montrose people” with lawyers for both sides before Easter.

Superintendent Carol Boyce said that when a district goes to a strike, a mediator is needed. She said the district was going to retain the formal process.

Kiehl also said a letter was sent from the teachers’ PSEA representative in an effort to avert the strike but it went unanswered by the district.
The board maintained it would only discuss and refer to what was included on the district website and a handout distributed at the meeting.

“You have the biggest audience in the past 30 years and you’re not going to discuss anything?” Kiehl questioned.

Former Montrose superintendent Michael Ognosky said, “You’ve gotten the people out. They’re here,” referring to the crowd in the high school auditorium.

He said he came to the meeting to speak about administrative secretary Diane Truman whose retirement was accepted at the March meeting.

He said Truman’s retirement was accepted without acknowledgement. “Someone should have had the good sense to acknowledge her that evening and that didn’t happen,” Ognosky said. “When you forget the great person you have, that’s a problem.” He said he believed Truman was leaving the district earlier than she had planned to. “And that’s a concern,” he said.

Ognosky said the board needed to look for ways to fix the problem in the district. “Instead of finding fault, you need to fix it.”

He said that in three contract negotiations that happened while he was superintendent, “The only people who talked to each other were teachers and board members.”

He advocated for an open dialogue between the two parties to get the contract finished.

“The teachers are back tomorrow,” he said, “I’m concerned with what I hear tonight. As board members, take the lead.”