Contract questions heat up MV

BY TOM FONTANA
Correspondent

Last fall, the Mountain View board was confronted by a crowd of about 100 teachers and taxpayers concerning the district’s ongoing contract dispute with the Mt. View Education Association (MVEA).

District teachers may soon enter a fourth year of working without a contract. First-grade teacher Jamie Janesky, a member of the MVEA negotiating team, again confronted the board about recent negotiations at its meeting Monday night, April 27.

At the October meeting, director Michael Barhite admitted that he did not understand the teacher salary structure then proposed by board president Thomas Stoddard, even though Barhite supported it. (Stoddard serves as chairman of the district’s negotiating committee. Other members of the committee are Barhite, Ellen Aherne, and Christine Plonski-Sezer.)

“At this point, are all of the school board directors being fully informed about and understand what’s going on in the negotiations?” Janesky asked Monday night.

Negotiating sessions have been scheduled for at least once a month, and the committee reportedly reviews the results of those meetings with the rest of the board in executive sessions that are not open to the public.

“I feel the board is well-informed on the contract negotiations,” director Roy Twining told Janesky. “Everything has always been brought to the table.”
But director Jason Casselbury disagreed.

“It should be made clear,” he commented, “that when it’s said that a majority of the board knows what’s going on, that doesn’t mean every member understands or agrees with what’s being presented. It doesn’t mean there’s a consensus.”

Janesky accused the board of supporting, but not understanding, the salary structure proposed by the district team in the most recent negotiation meeting.
“I haven’t heard any objection to it from board members,” Stoddard said.

“I’ve told you that I don’t like the salary structure you proposed,” Casselbury told Stoddard. “Just because I understand it doesn’t mean I approve of it.”

“It’s not the board president’s fault if I don’t understand something,” Twining stated. “That’s my fault, and I take full responsibility.”

“I was personally not happy with the last negotiation meeting we had,” Barhite added.

Janesky said the MVEA team offered to accept the salary structure proposed at the last meeting, but when the meeting resumed after a break, the district team changed the structure that was offered.

“We were hopeful,” Janesky recounted, “and thought we finally had something. But then the district offered something totally different.”

“We’re not going to discuss the board’s decisions at the negotiations here in a public meeting,” Stoddard shot back. “The last negotiation hasn’t been discussed with the full board yet, which will happen in executive session after this meeting tonight.”

Stoddard did say the reason for changing the district’s salary offer was because of the raise proposed by the teachers.

“It’s you asking for more and more and more,” he told Janesky. “Why do your requests for raises keep going up and up? Negotiation means compromise.”

“Of course we brought something in on the high end,” Janesky replied, “so we could negotiate, to meet in the middle. But Tom (Stoddard) said there’s no middle. There’s just ‘our side and their side.’ ”

Casselbury addressed long-time members of the board, saying, “You just want to trust Tom because he’s been your fearless leader all this time.”

Stoddard replied, “And I understand that your whole intent for getting on this board was to get rid of me.”

Stoddard then blamed the three-year contract stalemate on the MVEA’s chief negotiator, who is no longer on the negotiating team.

“We waited for 32 months for your association to propose a salary schedule of its own,” Stoddard said. “That was the hold up. It wasn’t the district’s fault.”

Director Sondra Stine asked the district’s legal counsel Joseph Gaughan why there are only four board members on the negotiating team. “I think it’s time for more directors to be allowed in the negotiations,” she said. “Is there some legal reason why we all can’t attend?”

Gaughan stated that he knows of no law against it, but if there were more than five board members present that would constitute a quorum, possibly causing the negotiations to be considered a board meeting, which would require the contract talks to be open to the public.

“I don’t think you want that,” he suggested. “I don’t know of a case where contract negotiations have been done that way.”

According to Pennsylvania’s Sunshine Law, “negotiation sessions related to the negotiation or arbitration of a collective bargaining agreement…” is one of the few allowable reasons a board can call an executive session.

Patricia Pass of Clifford Twp. expressed her concern if a contract agreement isn’t reached soon. “I’ve been talking to parents,” she told the board, “and our biggest fear is that there might be a teacher’s strike and we don’t want that. Can the members of the district’s negotiating team be changed?”

“That’s been discussed,” director Jason Richmond replied. “That might be in the works.”

When Pass asked how often negotiations are held, Stoddard said that has been a problem. “We try to meet once a month,” he explained, “but it’s hard to work around everyone’s schedules on both sides, and then meetings get canceled because of weather or someone can’t make it at the last minute.”

The discussion wrapped up with a final comment by director Roy Twining.

“There’s been a lot of yapping and gossip going on by both sides,” he stated, “and that has to stop.”