Manalapan-Englishtown board,
teachers agree to 3-year pact
A late night and early morning negotiations session has produced a contract agreement in a local school district.
Officials announced on Nov. 7 that the Manalapan-Englishtown Regional School District Board of Education and the Manalapan-Englishtown Education Association (MEEA) had reach a tentative contract settlement.
Ed Richardson, a spokesman with the New Jersey Education Association, said the two sides agreed on a deal at 6 a.m. Nov. 7. Richardson said the representatives of the board and union negotiated through the night of Nov. 6, into the morning of Nov. 7.
Details of the agreement will not be made public until both sides have brought it before their full membership, he said.
In conversations with the News Transcript, representatives of the school board and the union made good on their promise not to reveal details of the contract.
The 11-hour round of negotiations with state-appointed mediator Lorraine Tesauro ended the threat of a teachers strike which has been hanging over the district for the past several weeks.
The board’s previous contract with the MEEA expired in June and prior negotiations during the fall had failed to produce an agreement. The new three-year deal will lay out the terms and conditions of employment for the district’s 425 teaching staff for the 2000-01, 2001-02 and 2002-2003 school years.
"We made an agreement with the board that we would wait until both parties have ratified the agreement before we release the specifics to the press and to the public," MEEA Vice President Marguerite Schroeder told the News Transcript. "We are extremely pleased that we have reached a settlement and that we were able to do it in a fashion in which we were able to avoid an unpleasant situation."
Schroeder said both parties worked extremely hard at the final mediation session to reach what she called a fair compromise.
"I can tell you there was some groundbreaking movement made on the part of the board," she said.
Schroeder said a salary guide structure was worked out after a meeting held on Nov. 7.
"We have submitted those salary guides to the board, which is part of the legal process," she said. "The board members will review those salary guides and get back to us. Then we will set up a ratification date with our membership. We are trying to expedite the process."
The union vice president said the bottom line is trying to establish trust between both parties.
"These were extremely difficult times for both parties and now we want to get back to business as usual," Schroeder said.
When reached during the week, school board President Michelle Stipelman said she had no comment on the contract settlement at the present time.
Joseph Scozzari, superintendent of schools, said, "I am happy that we reached a memorandum of agreement and basically, until both sides ratify it, we won’t make it public."
The tentative contract was expected to be ratified by the school board at a Nov. 14 meeting.
"It depends upon what we hear from the association," Scozzari said. "I assume its members will ratify the agreement. There have to be mechanical things put in place before the final contract is drawn. Salary guides have to be composed and (so does) the language. So, we ratify the memorandum of agreement and then the contract comes to full approval when it’s written. That usually takes awhile. I am very relieved that we’ve gotten this far."