By alison granito
Staff Writer
MILLSTONE — When the Township Education Association made an appeal for public support at a back-to-school function recently, it came as a surprise to the district’s top administrator.
"This came as a surprise to me, as well as, I believe, to many members of the board," Schools Superintendent William Setaro said Monday. "While the negotiations process can be slow, both sides were hard at work."
"I want to make it clear that I regard my teaching staff members as excellent people who do an excellent job. The administration and the Board of Education have the utmost respect for the teaching staff, but I regret that certain issues were brought to the forefront in this way and hope everyone can return to the bargaining table soon."
At both the back-to-school night function and last week’s Board of Education meeting, MTEA members dressed in matching blue T-shirts to show their solidarity. Also at the back-to-school night, MTEA members distributed fliers to parents and attendees urging them to make their support for the district’s teachers known to the elected officials on the school board.
The MTEA represents the township’s teachers, bus drivers and support staff. Union members have been working without a contract since the start of school last month. The previous contract expired at the end of the school year in June.
Setaro said that some of the claims made on the flier do not "represent full exposure of many of the issues involved."
The union’s flier states that "19 teachers left our school system over the summer because of low pay and lack of health coverage."
"I’m sure we had 19 people leave, but to make the claim that they all left for the same reasons might not be absolutely accurate," Setaro said, noting that at least one teacher moved out of state, while several others were given the opportunity to resign before they were let go from the district.
"For some of those [19] people, their performance just wasn’t where we wanted it to be," he said.
As for the claim that the district lacks health insurance, Setaro said that for people hired after 1990, the district offers only an individual coverage plan, with an option for employees to purchase greater levels of coverage for their families and dependents.
Irene Pearson, the MTEA’s lead negotiator, said that, to her knowledge, all the departing teachers cited pay and benefits as a major contributing factor in their decision.
"Are our salaries below the county average? Yes, they are," she said. The flier also said the average salary of a Millstone teacher was $10,000 below the average salary for teachers in Monmouth County.
According to Setaro, the lower average salary is linked to lower average years of experience among the township’s teaching staff than may be the case in other districts.
The flier also states that it takes a teacher 35 years to make the maximum salary possible.
While it does indeed take that long for an individual teacher to reach the top of the guide, Setaro said that the guide is mutually agreed upon between the union and the school district as part of the negotiations process.
According to Pearson, the union has been working to change the structure of the salary guides over the negotiations of the past few contracts.
Pearson said that the union is also concerned with inadequate funding of professional development for the teaching staff.
According to Setaro, the contract set aside $30,000 for professional development for the teaching staff. When those funds were expended, some teachers did not get their course work covered by the school district.
"Our community has grown and our teaching staff has expanded, but the money the board allocates for this has stayed the same," Pearson said. He said that teachers are forced to contend with many state requirements which require additional training.
Last week school board member Kathy Winecoff, chair of the board’s negotiations committee, summarized the chronology of the current round of negotiations at the board meeting.
According to her summary, negotiations got off to a late start. While the first bargaining sessions were originally planned for February, union and board representatives did not actually meet until May.
Board officials said that this round of negotiations was expected to be more complicated because separate contracts for the three different groups within the union — teachers, support staff and bus drivers — were slated to be merged into one.
Pearson said Monday that the next round of negotiations between the MTEA and the school board was scheduled for Oct. 16.
"We believe that we have been clear and the Board of Education knows what our priorities are," she said.