Contract negotiations finally settled
By: Rebecca Tokarz
JAMESBURG The Jamesburg Teachers Education Association and the Board of Education tentatively agreed to a new contract last week.
Both sides declined to comment on the tentative agreement until the teacher’s union and the school board can ratify the contract.
"We got the best we could get at the time," said Elena Strout, chairwoman of the JTEA negotiating team.
Although the specifics of the contract negotiations could not be disclosed, Ms. Strout said the teachers were looking for an increase to their salary guide, which would be comparable to the rest of Middlesex County.
Ms. Strout has said Jamesburg teachers are among the lowest paid in the county and good teachers are leaving the district to teach at schools that offer more competitive salaries.
The deal was struck 2 a.m. March 21 after several hours of negotiations. Ms. Strout and members of the school board would not disclose details of the contract until it is approved by the school board.
"We reached a tentative agreement and are waiting on a finalized draft," school board President Don Peterson said.
The teachers will gather after the district’s spring break, April 17-30, to vote on the contract, said Ms. Strout, a teacher at the John F. Kennedy School.
The school board will review the tentative agreement, but will not ratify it until after the teachers union has met and accepted it, Business Administrator Tom Reynolds said.
Once approved, the deal will be retroactive to July 1, 2002.
As part of the negotiations, four members of the Board of Education, JTEA President Debbie Romanko, Ms. Strout, Superintendent Richard Ballard, Mr. Reynolds and school board attorney Nathanya Siman met with Richard Gwin from the Public Employment Relations Commission for a mediation session.
Mr. Gwin served as an intermediary between the board and the union, usually acting as a channel for information between the two groups, which were in separate rooms.
The teachers had been working without a contract since June 30, 2002, when the previous three-year deal expired.
During that time, they worked under the terms of the previous contract. That deal, which ran from 1999 to 2002, gave teachers a 13 percent increase over the length of the contract.
Teachers received a 4.65 percent pay raise during the 1999-2000 school year, 4 percent in 2000-2001 and 4.35 percent in 2001-2002, according to Mr. Reynolds.